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Lighting interior of a car?
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You wanna do this right? Step one: cut the car into a rear and front half. Next buy a second car, cut that one in longitudinal halves. Light your scenes as you like.
I’m basing what I’m describing on the script ideas I presented earlier; regarding a morph shot from comfy luxury airplane seats, to the same couple, now in the back seat of the armored transport. Then there’s a shot looking forward to the driver, one from ahead of the driver looking back at the couple, as he’s adjusting his rear view mirror, one shot of the female passenger admiring passing scenery, looking up thru the side window. All this will be inter-cut with go pro shots of the car exterior while it drives, later.
I think what I’d do in this situation, (car in the garage but looking like driving), would take several steps.
I’d put blue screen material on the inside of the side and back windows. You’re going to add outside traffic shot from a pickup truck bed with 3 go-pros a night or two before this shoot. Blue screen the front window when shooting POV from rear passenger seat to the driver. I prefer blue to green in this case due to spill color issues, and the blue chromakey may work in a dark nighttime shot where a green would be more easily spotted.
The interior of this thing is NOT as big/wide as a limo, so I’d choose a wide lens with a little bit of fish-eye to make the interior feel larger.
I’m going to shoot the front-facing rear seat shot first, from the front, looking back between the two front seats in a short slow zoom or dolly/slider shot of about a foot… and the setup is all about that. Front seats will be pressed forward to the limit, to make the rear compartment look bigger.
What they wear inside will have a great influence on the lighting: an all-white suit and dress will bounce a lot of light around, and reflect on the glass, where a black suit and dress will suck up light and make it hard to define contours and shapes. Aim for something in-between, some autumnal colors would be nice against black leather, and maybe moderately shiny fabric can help.
Blue screen the rear window with flat matte paper on the inside of the glass. Outside is easier but doesn’t treat interior reflections. Also have on hand several yards of the most useful yet undervalued tool in the world: flat black cloth. Cover the outside of the windows with the cloth if you lack chromakey materials. Cut a hole in the cloth for the lens to shoot at glass windows without leaving outside reflections. An adjustable polarizer on the lens is also important. Black cinefoil and black foam core are also good friends to have.
I’d take the real driving footage from the pickup truck, and play it on a video projector, out of focus, shining it into the car from a window that’s out of shot, over the shoulder of the camera POV. Alternately, some multicolored and white party bulbs on a stick could be waved past the window to cast the fleeting lights of passing storefronts, ads, headlights, street lighting, etc. Be sure the direction of the light sweep is correct based on travel direction and camera angle… don’t make a continuity error here.
For a base light, the LED panel, practically sitting on the male passenger’s knees, with a lot of diffusion on it, and the adjustable output dialed down to a very low setting. What still photogs call a “butterfly or book setup”. A reflector card clipped to the ceiling bounces that lap light to fill the front of the face. Angle of the lap light will need to be adjusted. If there’s room between the seats, the lap light can go there. You will set an f-stop and scope levels for the faces, lock the iris, then adjust lighting until the shot looks good. Tube lighting vertically on the front door pillars or the front headrests with diffusion and “squeezers” to adjust levels.
A stagehand or two will ever so very gently bounce the car bumpers up and down, randomly. Make it subtle: you don’t want to slosh their drinks or whatever, and the car is supposed to have a fancy suspension.
The newbie mistake to make when shooting people with dark skin is to throw additional light on them. What you want instead is to shine a light that glances off the skin, revealing texture and dimension with highlights and darker shaded areas revealing contour. You also want the light to penetrate the outer skin layers and bounce back out. You can try a gold or silver foil reflector card on the window side and bounce light to the face from the foil.
A shot from outside the “moving” car, window up, passenger staring up and out at the city: Shoot this with a large black “tent” of cloth enclosing the window and camera lens. Add the go-pro footage as a reflection layer at low opacity with some blur, afterward, and you can control the opacity of the window, almost like doing a rack-focus shot, to convey security within, adventures outside. Same deal on the front windshield outside on the hood shot. Don’t forget to flip the reflected background when you composite it.
Use one of the go pros with a macro lens and do some close up “flying” shots over interior details of the car: nice upholstery, wood paneling, etc. to inter-cut later. A tracking shot of an arm on the armrest, perhaps wearing an expensive watch and cuff links…? CU Shot of woman’s calves and her expensive designer shoe, “stepping into security and luxury”….? And the door closes on the shot as a cut or wipe, with a solid thunk sound effect of the armored door. You’re showing images and using sound to convey the message, not just words.
You may have to remove a side door to get lighting and camera into the profile shot area… this is not usually so hard to do, if you check the manuals first. You’ll have to disconnect an electrical harness and the hinge pins. Maybe bring an auto body guy with tools for this.
Put the go-pro wide angle cam on a short stalk clamped to the front bumper, low-angle, about three feet ahead of the bumper. Drive on a controlled non-traffic area like a parking lot or airport taxiway.
Put it all in a blender, wait for the CLIO invitation.
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Wow Mark, that response was like a FRIGGIN’ MASTERS CLASS! Thank you for another wonderful and detailed set of suggestions, for which I’m EXTREMELY GRATEFUL!
If I may I wanted to ask you about several parts of this:
‘I’d put blue screen material on the inside of the side and back windows. You’re going to add outside traffic shot from a pickup truck bed with 3 go-pros a night or two before this shoot.’ WHY ARE THREE GO-PROS NECESSARY HERE? Blue screen the front window when shooting POV from rear passenger seat to the driver. I prefer blue to green in this case due to spill color issues, and the blue chromakey may work in a dark nighttime shot where a green would be more easily spotted.
The interior of this thing is NOT as big/wide as a limo, so I’d choose a wide lens with a little bit of fish-eye WHAT’S THAT? to make the interior feel larger.
I’m going to shoot the front-facing rear seat shot first, from the front, looking back between the two front seats in a short slow zoom or dolly/slider shot of about a foot… and the setup is all about that. Front seats will be pressed forward to the limit, to make the rear compartment look bigger. THIS IS JUST GREAT, THANKS MARK!
What they wear inside will have a great influence on the lighting: an all-white suit and dress will bounce a lot of light around, and reflect on the glass, where a black suit and dress will suck up light and make it hard to define contours and shapes. Aim for something in-between, some autumnal colors would be nice against black leather, and maybe moderately shiny fabric can help. WONDERFUL, THANKS!!!
Blue screen the rear window with flat matte paper on the inside of the glass. Outside is easier but doesn’t treat interior reflections. Also have on hand several yards of the most useful yet undervalued tool in the world: flat black cloth. Cover the outside of the windows with the cloth if you lack chromakey materials. Cut a hole in the cloth for the lens to shoot at glass windows without leaving outside reflections. An adjustable polarizer on the lens is also important. Black cinefoil and black foam core are also good friends to have. HMMMMMMMM
I’d take the real driving footage from the pickup truck, and play it on a video projector, out of focus, shining it into the car from a window that’s out of shot, over the shoulder of the camera POV. I WAS A LITTLE CONFUSED HERE. DID YOU MEAN PROJECT THIS FOOTAGE INTO THE CAR DURING THE SHOOT, OR SUPERIMPOSE THIS ON THE BLUE CHROMAKEY PORTIONS IN POST? SORRY. Alternately, some multicolored and white party bulbs on a stick could be waved past the window to cast the fleeting lights of passing storefronts, ads, headlights, street lighting, etc. Be sure the direction of the light sweep is correct based on travel direction and camera angle… don’t make a continuity error here. MY HEAD JUST SPUN COMPLETELY AROUND LIKE LINDA BLAIR, BUT GREAT STUFF. I’M NOT SURE I’LL BE ABLE TO BRING THE CREW AND LOGISTICS TOGETHER FOR SOME OF THIS, BUT YOU’VE INSPIRED ME TO MOVE A LOT FARTHER IN THIS DIRECTION.
For a base light, the LED panel, practically sitting on the male passenger’s knees, with a lot of diffusion on it, and the adjustable output dialed down to a very low setting. What still photogs call a “butterfly or book setup”. A reflector card clipped to the ceiling bounces that lap light to fill the front of the face. Angle of the lap light will need to be adjusted. If there’s room between the seats, the lap light can go there. You will set an f-stop and scope levels for the faces, lock the iris, then adjust lighting until the shot looks good. Tube lighting vertically on the front door pillars or the front headrests with diffusion and “squeezers” to adjust levels. JUST GREAT, THANKS SO MUCH MARK!!
A stagehand or two will ever so very gently bounce the car bumpers up and down, randomly. Make it subtle: you don’t want to slosh their drinks or whatever, and the car is supposed to have a fancy suspension. WOW.
The newbie mistake to make when shooting people with dark skin is to throw additional light on them. What you want instead is to shine a light that glances off the skin, revealing texture and dimension with highlights and darker shaded areas revealing contour. You also want the light to penetrate the outer skin layers and bounce back out. You can try a gold or silver foil reflector card on the window side and bounce light to the face from the foil. TERRIFIC.
A shot from outside the “moving” car, window up, passenger staring up and out at the city: Shoot this with a large black “tent” of cloth enclosing the window and camera lens. Add the go-pro footage as a reflection layer at low opacity with some blur, afterward, and you can control the opacity of the window, almost like doing a rack-focus shot, to convey security within, adventures outside. Same deal on the front windshield outside on the hood shot. Don’t forget to flip the reflected background when you composite it. MY HEAD SMOKING A LITTLE ON THIS ONE TOO, AS THIS IS SO FAR BEYOND ANYTHING I’VE DONE BEFORE.
Use one of the go pros with a macro lens and do some close up “flying” shots over interior details of the car: nice upholstery, wood paneling, etc. to inter-cut later. A tracking shot of an arm on the armrest, perhaps wearing an expensive watch and cuff links…? CU Shot of woman’s calves and her expensive designer shoe, “stepping into security and luxury”….? And the door closes on the shot as a cut or wipe, with a solid thunk sound effect of the armored door. You’re showing images and using sound to convey the message, not just words. FANTASTIC.
You may have to remove a side door to get lighting and camera into the profile shot area… this is not usually so hard to do, if you check the manuals first. You’ll have to disconnect an electrical harness and the hinge pins. Maybe bring an auto body guy with tools for this. GURGLING SOUNDS.
Put the go-pro wide angle cam on a short stalk clamped to the front bumper, low-angle, about three feet ahead of the bumper. Drive on a controlled non-traffic area like a parking lot or airport taxiway. JUST GREAT, THANKS MARK!
ULTIMATELY, I LOVE EVERY ONE OF THESE SUGGESTIONS. I PLAN ON EXECUTING EVERY ONE OF THESE I CAN, ALTHOUGH I’M NOT SURE HOW MANY I’LL BE ABLE TO DO OF THE ONES INVOLVING BLUE-SCREENS, MULTIPLE CREW MEMBERS, REMOVING DOORS ETC GIVEN THE DEMANDS OF MY DAD JOB AND OTHER PROJECTS. I PLAN TO BRING ON AT LEAST ONE PRODUCTION ASSISTANT. BUT I’M CERTAINLY GOING TO TRY TO DO AS MUCH OF THIS I CAN. I’VE GOT ABOUT 3 WEEKS BEFORE THE SHOOT, AND I’LL KEEP IN TOUCH ON WHAT HAPPENS HERE, AND THE END RESULT. I AM EXTREMELY GRATEFUL FOR ALL OF THIS, MARK. VERY MUCH APPRECIATED AGAIN!!
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Q:WHY ARE THREE GO-PROS NECESSARY HERE?
A: each one will be “mapped” to a corresponding side or rear window view in post, that’s why the blue screens. I suppose you could make do with one, and drive the same area of street three times at the same speed, accelerating and slowing and stopping the same exact way, but gopros are cheap to own and cheaper still to rent in quantity.Q; I WAS A LITTLE CONFUSED HERE. DID YOU MEAN PROJECT THIS FOOTAGE INTO THE CAR DURING THE SHOOT, OR SUPERIMPOSE THIS ON THE BLUE CHROMAKEY PORTIONS IN POST?
A: I meant that you project live motion video on the set, playing it off the interior and their bodies and faces as if they were disco lights at a dance club….only not as vivid. Todd terry gives an example of placing a huge high def flat TV screen up against the car window and just playing captured driving POV video into the interior shot while shooting. it *can* work! In your case, if you can’t get the video projector, put lights on a piece of wood or plastic pipe, and physically move it across the window, over and over, with some variations in how it is held, and variations in timing. it will create the effect of the outside world’s lights coming in. Another way this used to be done was a hand-held pair of spotlights to simulate car headlights passing.Watch how this kid does it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cavbSR3igkA
or this guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMr2UsBLZxA
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWDe3Ubt9lE
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FF08MU-R2k
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FF08MU-R2k
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w638djAPyA
or… you get the idea.Most of this isn’t hard, or even all that expensive: just time-consuming and demanding in detail of execution. Don’t try to keep it all in just your head; document everything out on paper with drawings. Being able to show the cast and crew storyboard shots of every angle will help everybody share and execute your particular vision. Taking some stills into photoshop and playing with layering and opacity effects on the windows will help you figure out some things for effects. Even more so in AfterEffects or Apple Motion, either of which is fine for this job.
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Mark, thank you SO MUCH for this great feedback and the WONDERFUL links!!! This is extremely helpful and very much appreciated!!! It’s fascinating to consider the different approaches. It seems like access to a spacious garage is pretty important for most of them. Just let me know if you or others disagree there. I’m about to talk to my client, and plan to ask him if has such a space available. I myself don’t have a garage. Just let me know if you or others have feedback there. And just to make sure I’m not misunderstanding one other point, how important do you consider access to a flatbed or pickup truck for the footage of the world/road passing by? Or is it just as good to hold the camera on a pillow, like one of these videos suggests, outside a normal car window? Then for the go-pro shots, I would just clip the camera on to his SUVs in the select spots.
Thank you so much again!!!
Neil -
Sorry, and I DO understand what you said about the go-pros showing the different angles etc. Just checking how important it is to have a flatbed/pickup truck for that, as I’m trying to gauge if certain elements could be dispensed with to simplify this.
Thanks, Neil -
I’m sure you could mount the go-pros on the roof of any car; you have to extrapolate what I say a little. Use those links as a start and do some more homework on your own… I feel that if I give you any more advice, I’d need to start invoicing you.
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I hear you Mark! I didn’t mean to abuse your generosity – my apologies there – and am very grateful for your tremendous feedback and suggestions!
Have a good weekend, and thanks so much again.
Neil
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