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Advice on controlling sunlight outdoors for coverage.
I have a shoot coming up in a few weeks that takes place on a soccer field. There will be a lot of bright sunlight during our shoot and I’m trying to figure out the best way to diffuse it as we want to shoot a wide shoot of the Dad on the sidelines with the field and kids in the foreground.
For medium/CU’s I was planning on rigging a 20×20 silk overhead to diffuse the sunlight over the parents on the sideline, but I’m concerned about cutting from a wide with harsh shadows to a medium/CU with even, diffused light. Would it be better to just use a bounce to fill in shadows on the face for the CU’s rather than using silks?
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6 Replies
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It may not be as jarring as you think.
Watch almost any movie that has the same lighting situation… they cut back and forth from silked closeups to non-diffused extreme wide shots all the time, without it causing too much heartburn for the viewers (it’s much like when you see scenes that are sunny, then cut to a reverse, and then back to the master shot which is now cloudy… it happens all the time).
The first time I ever noticed that was years ago in the movie “City Slickers,” and now my brain sees these changing degrees of diffusion constantly. Remember that most people don’t, though.
BUT… you might not want your dad’s lighting to look too diffused, not so much so that his lighting doesn’t fit in with the situation.
And you can always pray for a cloudy-bright day.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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That was a similar response I got and come to think of it I’ve noticed it plenty of times when I’ve been paying attention the lighting in films/commercials. Maybe just a bounce board or two would work for med/CU?
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That’d probably work.
If I were shooting this, I’d probably worry about diffusing only on closeups, and then not a full diffusion… I have this translucent material that I’d use rather than a full silk… it still gives the full-sun look but still cuts down on the harsh shadows.
And I definitely wouldn’t bother flying a 20×20… as I’d only use diffusion for mid- to extreme closeups (even a 10x is a major deal, and anything bigger just gets exponentially more complicated/expensive/difficult and time consuming). A 4×4 in a Hollywood frame would probably more than cover it if it’s just a single guy.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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Do you think a 4×4 would work for a small crowd of people in the frame? There would be other parents on the sidelines.
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I’d really never try to get a 4×4 to cover more than one person. Maybe two, if they are having a close conversation.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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What about staging the event so that the parents are backlit?
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