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Filming in forests / abandoned locations

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Michael Frymus

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We (The director/writer and I - Director of Photography) are currently working on a feature film or possibly a series.
It wont be shot for a long time as we want it to be shot in the fall time, and now is too late for this year. But, we want to start brainstorming everything.

The majority of the film will take place in forested areas and abandoned locations.
I want to say, very similar environments as the TV show 'The Walking Dead'

At the moment, no budget has been determined.
It is a big film and will require a nice chunk of money. But, I'm going to assume that we wont have a big budget to play with for everything.

I have worked on the TV show, 'Reign' as a Rigging Electric, setting up power in the forests.
I would love to have a whole power system like they do, but I doubt the budget will be that big.


Any tips on shooting in forests where there is no power, or anything nearby in the area?
Has anyone shot stuff like this? What did you do? What should you have done? etc.

As a DOP on this, my main concern will be power and lighting.
 
Just worked on a movie that filmed in the forest for 3 1/2 weeks. I would say a lot depends on what kind of shots you'll be looking to get. There were times when we had big lighting and other times where it was minimal and more about modifiers. My gut instinct says you'll want a generator of some sort, size of course dependent on the size of the lights. For smaller lights you may be able to get away with one of those Honda 2000s which are small, relatively quiet, etc. But if you get into throwing up big lights, you'll be forced into a full size generator with everything that goes along with that.

Will shots take place during day, night, both?

To put it in perspective, the film I'm referencing had a crew of 60+ so along with the lighting requirements, there's also man power to consider.
 
And don't forget where there's generators, there's noise. You've got to find a way to push the generators away from the actors so the microphones don't pick up that noise. Longer cables = more money and more amps. I've been on shoots where the grips very kindly dug holes for the generators so that 75% of the sound was subdued, which made a big difference in quiet forest settings.
 
I did a shoot for a "vampire related thing" in the woods at night a few years ago. Planning ahead and utilizing 5X large LED panels via a fair amount of V-Mount Bricks for long run times worked well and the audio was great. Basically bringing enough juice to power all the lights for 16 hours a day. Several Pelicans of charged batteries overall. There's also larger XLR power bricks that we've rented in the past.

Did something in 2007 with generators far away from talent. That works too.

Here in LA some places have restrictions or rules on using generators in forests, so make sure you aren't going to piss anybody off or break the law.
 
Your main worry shouldn't be power or lighting but monkeys, if one put his hands on your Red camera, he might claim for some director's rights.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/monkey-see-monkey-click

Monkey-Selfie-320.jpg


You'd better shoot in the desert to be sure, or in New York, but someone told me New York isn't a safe place for that too.

Kristin
 
Phil Holland said:
Planning ahead and utilizing 5X large LED panels via a fair amount of V-Mount Bricks.
Click to expand...


I planning to shoot some forest night scenes too and it's really, really dark there... what kinda LED Panels would you suggest Phil...??? I was planning with 4-5 Litepanels Hilio D12... You thing that'd be enough...??? Other suggestions...???
 
I do wildlife as well as shooting features. Did a low budget horror with night time shooting and hence used a C300 for that for its high ISO abilities. In a forest the ambient sound levels are low. So if you are using a generator, then you are likely to pickup the sounds. We tried to hide it behind rocks, but I was not too happy. I used high ISOs and plasma and other LED lights including even small ones to give definition to shapes. Since you have good budget, it shouldn't be a challenge for you.

One main issue apart from forest permits from the Park/wildlife sanctuary authorities is to keep the crew silent as well as safe. Not many people are comfortable in the dark, and they lose orientation, so despite lighting people often trip and fall while moving around. It is better to plan the shots and only keep the crew who are needed in and around the area. People invariably slap mosquitoes, feel jittery and move their legs making noise.

Also, it is important to visit the area during the season/time you want to shoot. For example if you are selecting an area near a wetland/lake in monsoon, there can be lot of loud frog sounds for several hours at a stretch. Once we had several loud sounds which was like a motor making noise. And I was fooled. And after lot of investigation found out the source. :) It would be a good idea to take your sound guy while selecting the location as well as check with someone who is knowledgeable about the forest.
 
Peter Granqvist said:
I planning to shoot some forest night scenes too and it's really, really dark there... what kinda LED Panels would you suggest Phil...??? I was planning with 4-5 Litepanels Hilio D12... You thing that'd be enough...??? Other suggestions...???
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I've used panels as I've moved onto the preference of LED Fresnels, however, check out Lumos. I've used 3X of their 700 series, which comes up to about 1.5K tungsten each, with decent results.

Area48 or Sumolight have smaller panels that have a lot of punch.

Nila Boxers are really actually idea for this and are built for war. I still use those here and there. Their SL unit draws 4 amps much like Mole Richardson's 400 watt LED Fresnel. The SLs throw is massive for an LED source. I'd likely start with the Nilas in this case and see if you want to work down from there.
 
thanks a lot phil... very, very helpful...cheers...:thumbsup:
 
Awesome. Thanks for some of those tips.

So, I don't have much knowledge of loss of 'power' with long cables.
Can you explain this?

If I have very long cables running though the forest, will I actually loose power, and how much?
 
Here are some exterior night forest scenes I've done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpzgFG4vbl4&t=8m12s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSalMwfHn_I I guess there's only a few frames in there.

Scarlet-X w/ Leica R Elmarit (F2.8) primes in both cases.

What I would like to improve is more grip control around the sources of lights, I can read how the trees and ground are hotter closer to the source, and I'd prefer more even illumination. I'd love to have about a million blades all taking down each bright tree trunk (wouldn't have been a problem if they weren't birch trees with white bark). And I wish the key sources were higher up... it just looks too lit and unnatural, and that's because you can read the source of the light so clearly.

I also was short on time, money, crew and gear on the day and in colouring on both projects. I wish we could have had more tracked windows over trees and hot areas in both cases. Anyway, as usual I pretty much did fully max out my time, budget and crew energy both in post and on the day.

In general for exterior night I look for locations with a terminated background (trees, thick brush, hills, buildings) that can hold light so the edges of my frame are defined and don't just fade off into black.

I'd love to have balloon lighting out there one day.

Consider the A7s with a 4k recorder if you're short on power and need more ISO. You may get a better result out of that camera vs a severely underexposed image from a Red.
 
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Naim Sutherland said:
What I would like to improve is more grip control around the sources of lights, I can read how the trees and ground are hotter closer to the source, and I'd prefer more even illumination. I'd love to have about a million blades all taking down each bright tree trunk (wouldn't have been a problem if they weren't birch trees with white bark). And I wish the key sources were higher up... it just looks too lit and unnatural, and that's because you can read the source of the light so clearly.
Click to expand...


Another approach to lighting forests at night is to do what Shelly Johnson did in "The Wolfman” and smoke the background and light it from below. As you can see from the frame-grabs below Shelly Johnson was able to separate the layers of trees and characters by lighting haze with large lights far down an embankment and diffuse them heavily so that they spread evenly before reaching the action area. Of course the action has to be on a low hill or rise so that you have room to light from below.

wolfman2.jpg



wolfman3.jpg

A lower budget approach that would accomplish the same thing without a steep embankment or large HMIs would be to use a ground row of Color Kinetic ColorBlaze 72 LED fixtures. Each fixture is 6 feet long and can be strung end-to-end to cover a long distance. If you use the newer dmx four channel RGBA fixture, you will be able to dial in with a dimmer board the color blue you want without losing output to color gels. And with a maximum draw of 420 Watts at full output you can operate up to 15 of them (enough to cover 120 linear feet) on a 7500W modified Honda EU6500is.

1857.jpg

In fact, you could probably light your entire night scene with one of the new Honda EU6500 paralleling systems. These systems use a paralleling box to combine the 240V output of two modified Honda EU6500s for 100A of power. Since the 100A is at 240V they use a step-down transformer to convert it to a 100A/120v circuit. The transformer is outfitted with a 100A Bates receptacle so that you can use standard 100A Bates distro to run power around set, and so that you can get the generators off in the distance where they won’t be heard, the transformer has a voltage boost switch that enables you to compensate for the voltage drop over long cable runs described above. If you did want to light with a bigger light from above and at a distance so the coverage would be more even (less discrepancy between foreground and background), paralleled Honda EU6500s are capable of powering a 12k PAR.

Paul Dean
 
Thanks Paul, that looks fantastic. Thanks for the description as well. It's definitely something I will look for an opportunity to try out!
 
A7s is incredible in lowlight and with 4K I can't wait to give it a bash. Defo check this one out!
 
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