Lighting interior of a car?

[Nick Griffin]

Light Panels makes smaller battery powered dim-able LEDs. We have one that’s about 3 x 6 inches and another that’s about 5 x5 inches. They probably make other sizes besides their 1 x 1 foot models of which we’re now using 3. Several of the small ones strategically placed would probably help you get even lighting. If the windows are tinted you REALLY need something dim-able to balance out.

[Mark Suszko]

Is the car in actual motion?

[Bill Davis]

So you are mostly lighting the surfaces inside the vehicle like the dashboard and cabin upholstery? Do you need to see the environment outside?

The biggest issue in car interior shooting is camera mounting position and movement, if required and getting broad, soft even sources in place to put soft highlights and appropriate shadows where they are wanted.

Car interior rigs can get kinda complicated for these reasons

Might be best to get some small but strong LEDs and lots of white (interior active bounce) and black (exterior cutters if you need to shoot this outside) foam-core and try an all interior bounce approach.

That’s probably where I’d start.

Good luck.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Neil Orman]

Thank you very much, Bill, Mark and Nick for your responses!

Bill: This is for a promotional video on an armored transportation service used by foreign visitors like diplomats who need extra protection. It’s supposed to illuminate an attractive couple’s experience as passengers in the SUV, which is as luxurious as it is secure, and also highlight the fit, security-minded driver, who will pick them up on an airstrip and take them to an embassy. So I’m trying to illuminate the back seat, where they’ll be be doing things like watching TV, drinking champagne (is that illegal in a moving car?), and show the driver too. For all three actors, I plan to show both their faces and the car’s luxurious interior – I’m kind of at a loss as to what to show there, other than the TV screen! – and I hope to shoot it from at least a few angles. Let me know if anyone has experience with this type of thing. By the way Bill, I understood your whole response except one portion, where you wrote:
‘Might be best to get some small but strong LEDs and lots of white (interior active bounce) and black (exterior cutters if you need to shoot this outside) foam-core and try an all interior bounce approach. ‘
I know what bounce is, and foam-core, but wasn’t dead sure what you meant here. I think you meant using only bounce to illuminate the actors – is that right? Also, for what would the black foam core be used?

Mark: I was thinking the car would be in motion, unless it would be easier to somehow fake that? And if so I’m wondering how that would be done? I know they do it in movies and TV all the time, or at least they used to.

Nick: Thank for your helpful response as well!

The long and the short of it is, I haven’t done much of this kind of lighting and could use any advice, particularly on the car interior stuff, but really how to effectively light something like this as a one-man-band. In addition to the car interior scene, there is the scene where the driver picks up the couple on the airstrip, and the one where they enter the ambassy. Is it foolhardy to go without a crew of any kind? Do I need some kind of big rig to ensure good, even light on the actors?

Almost my entire lighting experience is video interviews! So I’m certainly open to bringing on a crew person if necessary.

Thanks again,
Neil

[Mark Suszko]

Vehicle in actual motion complicates things a lot. You have options: towing the vehicle, vehicle on a “process trailer”, Vehicle in controlled studio environment with scenery added in post thru greenscreen and rotoscoped composites. This is all common stuff but not *EASY* stuff to do, if this is your first time.

My first recommendation is to storyboard literally every shot of this first, and then extrapolate what the lighting setups can or must be. Which shots can be faked in the studio, which need to happen live in real time, on location.

From the storyboard you will be able to design the lighting needs for each shot and create a budget. You will also discover which shots ar affordable to do and which might have to be dropped for time and budget reasons.

For example, in your script or creative treatment, you might start out with a head-on shot of the rich couple sitting in comfy first class airplane seats… then dissolve to a nearly-identical matching shot in the back seat of the armored SUV. From there, you could go to a shot looking in thru the front window, past the near face of the driver, who himself is checking out the couple in his rear-view mirror, as they give him the high-sign to pull out from where he’s been parked. That perhaps cuts to a wide external shot of the fancy plane near a hangar, and the limo car pulling away. that frames the context of your overall narrative, which is: continuity of comfort and service and safety. Next, inter-cutting between detailed go-pro-shots around the wheels and bumpers of the car in traffic, you see it handle a bump or pothole, as we cut inside to that shot of the couple, not feeling a thing. Then side shots of them showing window views of the Town as they’re heading to wherever. Next, the headlight and bumper pull into XCU, then the camera cuts to wide or pulls out to reveal the couple leaving the SUV and walking into whatever – an embassy, a hotel, what-have-you.

But to light it, you need to first plan out every shot to figure out what kind of gear and what placement, can get the effect.

[Neil Orman]

Wow Mark, I really appreciate your great and detailed suggestions here!! This is an enormous help and I’m grateful!! I will certainly take your advice here on planning and storyboarding every shot, to determine the lighting needs.

The moving car issue is one with which I’ve been concerned, but you’ve really highlighted why it needs a lot of planning. Looking at the options, I wonder if I’ll be able to access a studio environment, or grapple with the technical complexity of things like greenscreening and rotoscoped composites (although I’ll certainly research that option!). I was especially intrigued by the idea of towing the vehicle, as I expect one of their SUVs might be able to tow the one in which we were shooting.

A special thanks for your great ideas on shots for the video. I especially liked the idea of ‘inter-cutting between detailed go-pro-shots around the wheels and bumpers of the car in traffic [and see the SUV] handle a bump or pothole, as we cut inside to that shot of the couple, not feeling a thing.’ I’ve actually never shot with a go-pro before and this seems like a great opportunity, and your story idea there is great.

Just let me know if there is further feedback from anyone. Some of the things I’ll be researching are the moving car issue you highlighted, and those potential go-pro shots.

Thanks again Mark!!!

[Mark Suszko]

Any lighting you use inside the car has the potential to be reflected in the windows. One item that may help would be to shoot the couple’s interior shots with a small camera at the center of a ringlight with a lot of diffusion. I’ve seen DIY versions where someone glued a spiral or two of white xmas tree lights onto a reflective foam core board, then cut a lens hole thru the center and used that as the keylight/front light for their fashion shots.

[Bill Davis]

Neil,

I was imagining the type of typical “Dashboard from the back seat” beauty shot that we constantly see in car commercials.
When you’re doing those, art directors like long strips of highlights rather than point sources, which means you need to bounce light off larger apparent sources so that the shiny stuff on the dash picks up larger bright strips instead of small highlights.

(this is also why today, you see more car spots with the ENTIRE interior as a CGI replacement. Telling the rendering program to lose a lighting instrument but keep it’s output is only possible in virtual space!)

Your “couple in the back seat” probably needs a totally different approach.

Is there a skylight or moon roof in the limo? If so you can pull that and put a large soft source overhead and that will probably do the trick. If not, you’re just going to have to set the shot you want, then think about how to get the interior light level up without having lots of shiny spots in all the reflective stuff. Cars have a LOT of that, not the least of which are the windows surrounding everything. Sometimes small cameras on long mini-jibs can help. If the lights your using are reflecting off the interior glass, being able to lower or raise the camera a few inches might just fix a shot.

But it’s not the easiest space to get nice results in, particularly if you want to sell the idea that the car and the people in it are aspirational, beautiful and always perfectly lit.

Good luck.

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Neil Orman]

Thanks very much for these insights, Bill. And just to answer your question here, I don’t believe these SUVs have sunroofs or skylights, and I’ll verify that with the client. In case it’s useful to you or others to see the VERY dark interior with with which I’m working, I attached a picture. Let me know if seeing this affects advice on how to light the interior to capture the couple in the backseat. Heightening this challenge my client wants to use an African-American actor for the male in the couple, which to me might not be the best choice given how dark it is already. But let me know if anyone has thoughts there.
Much appreciated,
Neil

[Neil Orman]

Also I checked with the local rental house about available battery-powered LED lights, and they have Lite Panel 1×1 Astra lights and Lite Panel MiniPlus Brick lights. Any brief take from anyone on those lights and how they’d work for something like this?
Thanks, Neil