Shooting Fire on a budget

[Mike McMillin]

So I have done a couple shoots with fire now and I am having some trouble finding a nice way to get a perfect exposure (maintaining detail in the flames and enough light for subjects) I shot this footage with HDR at 6 stops but to be honest I don't really know much about the post workflow of HDR. Is there something I can do to bring it up more? Here I only had 4 2ks maxing out the power in the building, 2 on the left one on the right and one behind for a rim. Can anyone think of a better way to do this with 4 2ks or HDR settings?

 

[Mike McMillin]

playing with the color a bit still very hard to find balance. Screen Shot 2014-08-05 at 1.59.38 AM by sheepdog89, on Flickr

 

[Michael Tiemann]

First, I would look at doing compositing. In these setups the flames are truly backdrops, so it should be easy to shoot the band, shoot the flames in their various configurations, and then composite at will. You might even find you can make better fire effects by playing with the order, sequence, multiplicity, scale, etc of the flames.

Second, if your 2Ks are tungsten, scrap them and rent some 1.8K HMI lights. The shift from tungsten to daylight balance will cut the red channel by about 2 stops (not to mention making your fire look a lot redder).

 

[Robert Hart]

Would there be any utility in trying an IR filter to see what happens?

 

[Eric M Hurt]

First, I would look at doing compositing. In these setups the flames are truly backdrops, so it should be easy to shoot the band, shoot the flames in their various configurations, and then composite at will. You might even find you can make better fire effects by playing with the order, sequence, multiplicity, scale, etc of the flames.

Second, if your 2Ks are tungsten, scrap them and rent some 1.8K HMI lights. The shift from tungsten to daylight balance will cut the red channel by about 2 stops (not to mention making your fire look a lot redder).

Good advice. Hell, rent a couple 18Ks and you'll really be in business. Although I prefer practical, the compositing idea seems like the most logical step if the entire sequence is shot like this.

 

[Mike McMillin]

First, I would look at doing compositing. In these setups the flames are truly backdrops, so it should be easy to shoot the band, shoot the flames in their various configurations, and then composite at will. You might even find you can make better fire effects by playing with the order, sequence, multiplicity, scale, etc of the flames.

Second, if your 2Ks are tungsten, scrap them and rent some 1.8K HMI lights. The shift from tungsten to daylight balance will cut the red channel by about 2 stops (not to mention making your fire look a lot redder).

compositing for this seems so gnarly because those flames totally change the entire ambience and light on the subjects. They throw out so much light. I originally had suggested this because we only had 4 fire throwers or whatever you want to call them and I wanted a couple in the front but anyways I really wish I would of had some HMI's for this I feel like it would have come out a lot nicer. Anything I can do with the HDR settings?

 

[Keith Putnam]

Anything I can do with the HDR settings?

The only way HDR would help you is if you wanted to open your iris as far as necessary to get your desired exposure on the faces, and let the fire go where it may, recovering as much fire detail as you can from the HDR.

Remember two things: HDR doesn't do anything for *underexposure*, because it works by taking a second exposure per frame with a shorter exposure time; and HDR will introduce motion artifacts that you'll have to deal with somehow, unless your main exposure already has very little motion blur.

 

[Dr. Sassi]

Perhaps you have access to this course DOP215
http://www.fxphd.com/fxphd/courseInfo.php
E.g. with Epic.

 

[Eric M Hurt]

compositing for this seems so gnarly because those flames totally change the entire ambience and light on the subjects. They throw out so much light. I originally had suggested this because we only had 4 fire throwers or whatever you want to call them and I wanted a couple in the front but anyways I really wish I would of had some HMI's for this I feel like it would have come out a lot nicer. Anything I can do with the HDR settings?

In the still frames you posted there is already very little light on the subject spilling from the flames.
Everything is relative.... if you light the subjects very hot to match the flames the spill from the flames will be very minimal anyway. The actual flame will still read as hot (but not overly since you have exposed for it, but the fire won't have the punch to blast your subject (much like the photo you posted). By lighting your subjects incredibly hot in order to match the flames you're already creating a situation that won't necessarily look all that natural, which is not a good or bad thing, but does open the door to compositing. You can always add warm backlight to the subjects during the entire shoot as well.