Hi,
We're making a short film in which one scene involves a person driving a car. I'd like to get some shots of the driver from the inside (closeups and such), but don't know how to light it, without renting speciality rigs.
We're doing 16mm color, btw.
My questions:
1. We thought of keeping closeups tight enough so that you can't tell that car is not moving. We could *maybe* find enough light that way. Provided it's sunny, will reflectors be a good way to pump light into the car ?
2. My friend has this thing called a "vectorlite", which emits about 1.5 million candlepower for 5-10 minutes. It should be enough to get a few closeups. Anyone have experience with these ? I can't find a color temperature for this source. The bulb is apparently a halogen quartz type.
As seen on: http://www.vectormfg.com/site2/vectormfg/product_info.php?products_id=337
3. Any other suggestions on how to light the driver of a moving car cheaply ?
thanks,
-amol
You might consider getting a truck (by truck I mean any vehicle large enough to block out the non-moving background. Parking the truck behind the car your shooting. Roll it back a bit, or close from time to time so that it looks like the two vehicles are moving. Have the character infuriated that the truck is tailgating and make that an extra bit of drama in the movie.
Have your car and truck go through a tunnel and use the headlights from the truck to blind/light the car for a few interesting cuts. Have the truck pass the car and you can shoot the driver from through the passenger window with the truck in the background (reflecting a lot of light) again hiding the fact that the car and camera aren't actually moving.
Have the truck end up in front of the car just in time for you to shoot from the backseat. Then you can actually shoot both vehicles on a freeway from the safety of the back seat as the truck races away, or so we see the How Am I driving Sticker or however you want to end the scene.
In most cases the truck doesn't even need to be driving, just have some tough friends push it. Since both cars are suppossed to be moving and its safer that way.
Just some thoughts, take them or flush them as you want.
RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA
RJSchwarz
