Shooting Automobiles

[Dennis Size]

Everyone has had great advice, now you’re off and running Todd.
One note about bouncing light. My preference in lighting cars has always been to use the reflections. Consequently I usually use lekos with large breakups in them — shooting through the silks. The silk spreads the light over the car …. but the reflections the car windows “sees” appear to be clouds. The same effect is achieved lighting through muslin with your HMI’s.
You might have problems with only a 10’x10′ silk. As was pointed out, you need to have a surface bigger than the car itself. Normally I rent muslin cyc drops 30′ x 30′ or larger — and light through them.
I’ll hang muslin over the car (like a ceiling) and hang them vertically on both sides of the car.
When spotted, the HMI’s also create a “cloud” in the reflection.

I don’t know how long your shoot will take … but the wall of windows in the space is great. Why not use THAT source for daytime … and light up the columns and walls for night if you run late. The space could provide the opportunity to accomplish day and night looks.

Lighting under the car is another great gimmick I believe someone has pointed out.
I usually use a few Kino Flo 8′-0″ Mega Singles under the car.
You should also use a few Kinos (perhaps your 4 x 4’s)inside the car.
Laying on them on the front and back seats will help relieve the dark depressing looking car interior — especially if the car has tinted windows.

Have fun with it.
DS

[Todd Terry]

Good tips all…

Doubt I can fly something as big as 30×30 (wow that’s big), but will do what I can.

Actually yeah I’d love to do a night shoot there… in fact I kinda rather it would ALL be night, I think that’d be a better look to be able to light all the cool wood and brick with interesting spashes… maybe hit the trees outside the windows with some strong uplighting. Sadly, it’s not meant to be though… no budget for overnight shoots AND all the footage has to match well and reasonably intercut. Gotta work fast too, and not just in the setup… depending on our casting (which is still ongoing), it looks likely that we will have out-of-town talent that we can fly in for only a limited time.

SO much thanks to all… Mark, Bill, Rick, Dennis… mostly for re-affirming my general plot (I never know if I’m going off on a crazy tangent) and for a couple of cool new ideas I hadn’t thought of.

You guys rock….

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Again guys, thanks for the invaluable advice.

I have one more question about HMIs… I’ve used them forever but it occurs to me that I don’t have any experience with this particualar thing…

Looks to me that the easiest way to rig an instrument for the big top over-the-car silk would be to go up in the rafters or high on one of those huge posts and attach a junior wall hanger or floor plate, and use my instrument to shoot down onto the silk.

That’d keep me from having to hide a gigantic stand or other rigging to keep it out of the shot. That should be easy breezy…

BUT…

I’ve heard (is this anecdotal?) that you get some HMI performance issues when aiming the instruments at too far of angle out of horizontal. Is this true?

In this case I have both 1200w PARs and fresnels to choose from. With a fresnel, straight down would position the globe horizontally to the floor, of course… whereas with a PAR that would bascially point the globe straight down, butt end of the globe up. I’m sure the final positioning wouldn’t be truly straight down… but kinda. (all the instruments I’ve got have the single-ended Osram globes, none of them are the old-style double-ended)

Is this info true? Does that affect performance? Or longevity? The last thing I want to do in a shoot that’s already short on both time and money is waste either one of those by having to replace globes… at $300+ a pop.

Or instead of a silk I could use a white solid I guess, and light it from the floor. Sort of the same situation there, the instrument is just pointing up instead of down… although the angle might not be as sharp.

Wisdom appreciated.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[John Sharaf]

Hi Todd,

Horizontal globe better than vertical globe; promotes longer globe life and potential damage to socket from excess heat. Remember that the heat will rise into whatever is above it.

Depending on the ambiance it might not even be necessary to light the white, especially if it is very large. It’d suggest you try to source a
large white silk parachute.

JS

[Todd Terry]

Thanks John… I’ll use a fresnel then, if needed.

Come to think of it, a fresnel pointing straight down puts the globe in the same exact position as the globe in a PAR pointing horizontially (although some rising heat would be trapped by the mirror and housing). I’m not sure why I didn’t realize that before… it’s early and my brain is still foggy.

I might even be imagining the fact that up or down vertical HMIs were troublesome for some reason or another… but I swear I can remember hearing that from a couple of people, though not quite clearly enough to remember who said that and under what circumstances.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

To my knowledge, all larger Fresnel and par lights are not meant to burn either straight down or straight up. An open-faced 2K is as large as I’d go.

A thought: rig a shiny board or a large parabolic mirror in the rafters, angled so that when you hit it from the ground it bounces back to fill the silk. Avoids straight up or down.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Todd Terry]

[Rick Wise] “…a large parabolic mirror in the rafters”

Well they did build the Hubble Space Telescope here in my town 25 years ago. I’ll call and see if they have a spare.

🙂

But yeah I thought I’d heard you weren’t supposed to burn single-end HMI globes in awkward positions… but wasn’t sure of that.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Rick Wise]

Try the hardware store for security mirrors.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Harry C. Box states on p. 203 of the Set Technician’s Lighting Handbook, 4th edition, that “Most Fresnel and par fidtures that use single-ended globes have a good range of tilt. Lights under 4K can generally be pointed straight up or down. Fixtures 4K and over are generally limited to 75º up or down from horizontal. Double-ended HMI lamps generally are assigned a more restrictive range of up/down tilt and also have restrictions on how much they can be operated tilted sideways — usually plus or minus 15 degrees left and right.

Rick Wise
Cinematographer
San Francisco Bay Area
https://www.RickWiseDP.com

[Todd Terry]

Thanks Rick, great info.

Hmmm… I wonder why double-ended globes are more restricted. I don’t have any double-ended instruments, but isn’t the globe in those horizontal? If so, doesn’t seem like it would matter how much the head was tilted up or down, the globe itself is still horizontal. Hmmm. Interesting.

A moot point about that for me though… I haven’t seen a double-ended in years.

Sounds like with my 1200’s though they could point straight down. Fortunately though they are all hot re-strike, so probably best to kill them when I can, just to be on the safe side.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com