daytime car interior

[Mike Dominic]

i am shooting a short that takes place in a parked car during the day and i'm interested to hear what people have used for small lights mounted to the interior roof of the car or sun visors. this is going to be a guerrilla low budget shoot. we are trying to move fast and keep a small footprint, so i'm not really looking to use any large lights or grip equipment outside the car, other than maybe a reflector through some diffusion.

i have heard of people using kino mini-flos, litepanels, literibbons, or westcott flex LEDs... if you have experience using one of these (or something better!) I would definitely be interested to hear how it worked. the literibbons and westcott flex both look really interesting, but they don't seem to be a common rental item.

thanks for any advice you can give!

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It would look more natural to light from the outside through the windows if this is a day interior, and since it is a parked car, you don't have to deal with rigging to a moving vehicle anyway.

 

[Mike Dominic]

thanks david. unfortunately I won't be able to use a generator or any large lights for this. do you think bouncing some shiny boards through some diffusion would have enough oomph to give me some exposure?

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Sure, though it depends on how sunny it is. But often just a white card outside the window is enough to bring up the interior, you don't want to overdo it. One issue will be window reflections making it harder to see into the car -- a pola filter will help but sometimes you can use some large black flags like 4x4 floppies armed out above the glass to reflect black instead of the sky so you can see better into the car.

The trouble with lighting up close from inside the car, other than for an eyelight or dim fill, is that it can look like you have lights on inside the car, unless you are simulating an overhead sunroof with a spread of LED ribbons or something.

 

[Mike Dominic]

thanks for the input! that is my concern too about interior lights. do you know if any battery-powered lights (like a litepanels astra) are strong enough to add some fill from outside the car? i'm guessing they're not strong enough to compete unless i put it inside the car, but i've heard the new ones are much brighter than the old models.