soft the conrast between sun and shadow

Hi,



I'm going to shoot at this location :






The scene is about five minutes long. We look in all directions (shot by shot). As You can see easily, the problem is the difference between sun and shadow. It is 5 Stops!

So I think about putting a 12x12 1/4stop silk between the roofs to soft the contrast. But maybe I destroy the characteristic of the location. How will look a wide shot having the silk above the protagonists in the foreground and the background hard (as in the photo seen)? Do You think it looks too artificial?


Any ideas or proposals?

chris

Time of day

Chris, I would focus on time of day. Rather than trying to fight the direct sunlight from above with silks (I'm sure you have costs in mind), let the sun work for you. Early morning or later evening would be better. Then, you can just bring some fill in for the face and bring out some of the background with other lights. You might want/need 1 and 2k HMI's, depending on how much poop you'll want.


Also, letting your background blow out is okay. Try and keep it within 2 or 3 stops overexposed at the most, but letting it go is fine. It will give it a nice cinematic look. Janus Kaminski (DP's for Speilberg) will enhance the hot spots with filtration, which I tend to like now and then. You might look into that, too.


Looks like a cool location.

Let me know how it goes... Vincent

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Let's Make a Movie

Shiny boards

Chris, you could also use shiny boards to direct sunlight into the dark spaces.



Vincent

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Let's Make a Movie

Kaminski's filtration

Dear Vincent,



Thanks for Your fast answer. For sure I should test the silk and maybe it is just nonsense. You know, I'm a bit afraid, that the director tells me, the charakter goes from here to there. And here is direct sun light and there is complete shade. That means, the key light changes 5 stops. Of cause I can use a fill. But if the character steps into the shadow, the fill light becomes a key light. Perhaps I should bring the fill from the side. So I can dim it with double scrim for the shadow part.
Another nice side effect, the faces have a soft light from the sun.

VanceEvans wrote: Janus Kaminski (DP's for Speilberg) will enhance the hot spots with filtration,...

what exactly did Kaminski? what kind of filtration?





thanks so far



chris

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list of light equip. :

2 x 4k HMI

2 x 2,5k HMI

2 x 1200W HMI

1 x flathead

12x12& black solid, silverlame, 1/4stop silk

etc.

shiny board

shiny boards, thats good. And well I remember someone told me once, that he uses white sheets on the ground. useless for a wide shot, but maybe nice if the image is closer.

Hey Chris,



I didn't get if it will be just one long take or different shots that will be put together in editing.



In both cases, anyway, I'd try to mount the lights on the roof in blind spots, so you can manage to have only, like, 2 stop of difference. How will you be filming it? Film or digital? Because film will handle the problem much better because of its greater latitude...



Another important thing is the orientation of the place. Shooting in early morning or later afternoon may not be a good choice as the sun goes up or down very quickly.



About the sheets on the groud, that is a very good idea, the DP for Scorsese (don't recall the name right now) does it frequently and it works.



Hope I helped...

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A caress is a smack in slow-motion...

thank you both.



hopefully tomorrow I'm goning to test the silk and have a meeting with the gaffer. I'm going to make some digi-photos. The shot picture is shoot on Vision2 ASA100. There are about 30 shots on this location.



best,



chris.

test

soory my digicam is buggy at the moment. Well, I tried 1/4stop silk. it looks very nice. but a tranparent tarpaulin was nice too. one advantage of the tarpaulin is the size (avaiable 5mx4m in DIY store or a couple of Euros). Now I wanna see if the tarpaulin can be handled easily by two persons.

suggestions or proposals still wellcome.

Well, we did it. Took me a while to calm down. We really had sunny weather in those rainy times in Germany. Wow. Everything went fine.
Our web site is now available in English al well. View first production stills here or there.

enjoy!
chr.