Capturing exterior footage in extreme weather conditions
When planning a shoot and creating a schedule, we can account for (almost) anything in our preparations, however when it comes to the unpredictable nature of weather, that’s another story.
Still Moving’s recent Christmas-themed shoot at the splendid Davenport House in the English midlands was the pinnacle of this.
Arriving on location at 7:30AM to torrential rain and stormy conditions wasn’t quite on our agenda, and with our first shot being an exterior one, due to some restrictions from the location, we knew we were in for some challenges. However, as always, our team rose to the challenge - it may be raining, but we’re Still Moving.
So, to help you learn from our challenges of adapting to and overcoming extreme weather conditions, we’ve shared our technique below.
Pre-build lights inside and seize clear sky opportunities when you can
Pre-planning your lighting setup is crucial. A recce, in times like this, to test lighting and understand the movement of the sun and where light and shadows fall can make unforeseen circumstances much more easy to adapt to. Luckily, we knew the location well, having shot there previously, and Nathan had a clear idea of what the lighting should be. Along with the 1st assistant and the rigging grip, they started to pre-build the lights inside to stop them getting wet. Once the rain calmed down, we seized the opportunity to get everything into position.
About our Broncolor lighting setup
The exterior shot was lit with a Para88 as the key light and a 180x120cm softbox as a top light, our team began to shape the light around the sleigh and models. It was really important to make the entrance to our beautiful location seem inviting, so we added a Siros L with no modifier inside in the entrance hall, which lit a strong frame in the middle of the image. We also used two Siros L's with grids to highlight the models and the Christmas Reef above the door.
Having the Siros L inside the house also gave a strong kick and brought out the falling rain, which can almost be mistaken for falling snow!
Lighting people and interiors
Our personal favourite shot of the campaign is the interior shot in front of the tree. With Spencer directing the models and working on the composition, Nathan and the team lit each model individually. The key focus was the couple at the centre of the frame, so we used a Para88 and grid to make them pop in the centre. The ballerina was lit with a beauty dish and grid, shaping the light around her to create a soft glow.
The pièce de résistance was the human bauble, which we lit with a 100x100 softbox with only one thin layer of diffusion to give her a harder cast. The background was lit with a Siros L at the top of the stairs to backlight the falling snow. We also added a Siros L behind the tree with an orange gel to give the tree a warm glow.
Top lighting tricks and tips
Another firm favourite shot has to be Santa crashing the bridal photoshoot. For this, we took the same approach and lit each grouping individually. This allowed us to keep the viewers focused on the things we wanted. Using a small lighting trick to stop the model on the far left from being lost in shadow, we added a white card behind the bride to bounce the light from the beauty dish back into his face, which gave us enough info in post-production to bring the level up.
Prior planning prevents prolonged post-production
Using the Litepipe as a backlight in a few of the images gave a great glow in the model's hair, something that would be difficult to do without lighting the model separately from the rest of the image. For us, this was all about getting all the lighting in one shot, without the need to composite. Although this meant creating some pretty complicated setups, it saved time in post-production and allowed us to turn around the images quickly in time for Christmas.
This shoot was a lot of fun to work on, bringing many lighting challenges, even without the added weather defiances. Nothing our team couldn't solve, however, with prior planning. The shoot was made all the easier by having high-quality lighting in place, saving hours of time in post-production.
