Now, how do you film a beach scene at night, lit by the moon and a camp fire, especially if the real background at your disposal is a desert? In this short, three actors are on the dune side and three are on the surf side. The dune side is easy as it won't be distinguishable from desert, but the ocean side is stumping me. I thought a green screen behind the actors might work except it's a night scene and I doubt the green or blue would stand out enough to later knock it out. Perhaps green fluorescent? The ocean could be stock that's cut in later. If anyone has a suggestion, I would love to hear it.
Cinematography : Filming a night "beach" scene in the desert by Leslie Weller
Filming a night "beach" scene in the desert
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Shoot day for night with a camera filter. Greenscreen can and does work outside.
By far the easiest way to make this work is to use stock footage of a beach and ocean, a few different shots that look like the same location would be ideal. You chances of finding the perfectly framed stock shot to insert folks into is almost zero. We spend a lot of time and effort to get angles, look and lighting correct to make shots work together. Simplest is to use the sound to always tell you that your characters are at the beach. Characters are seated with their backs to a dune, a small fire in front of them, and then teh beach and ocean beyond. -We hear the ocean and gulls over the whole scene. -Tilt from sky down to WS of characters with fire in the foreground and dune in the background. -MS from the front on two characters on the dune “look at the beach!” -POV moonlight ocean and beach. -MCU character A “so romantic” -MCU character B turning head toward ocean “did you see that” -POV pan of ocean and beach. fade out Note that you never see the ocean and your characters in the same shot. No VFX. Use the dunes to limit the amount you see behind the actors. Quick, easy and small. After that anything else is more complicated, but here is a very very rough overview of a couple of methods. Best is to have your action on any piece of ground with a defined edge that looks like it could then drop off to the beach, but you do not see the actual drop off, think edge of a cliff. Shoot from behind so that they would be above the beach. Put a green screen between them and the ocean that is large enough to cover all of your characters and the fire. If your green screen isn’t large enough to cover the complete area this will need more VFX post work to put it together but the green screen must cover your characters. If your characters do not go in front of the ocean and beach shot, i.e. the characters are on one side of the frame and the ocean and beach are on the other, then it is a relatively simple matter of cutting out the shot of the characters and pasting it over the shot of the ocean. But finding a usably framed stock shot will be difficult. The lighting of your night scene has to be derived from the stock footage in either scenario. You will have to light the area of the dunes that is seen behind the actors. The actors will need to be lit with a fire effect. Make friends with someone who does VFX. If you go with green screen. it will have to be lit separately to the correct levels to achieve a clean matte. There are a number of ways to do the green screen, the issue with lighting it is not that big a problem, but the issue with green bounce from the greenscreen means you need distance between the greenscreen and your characters, There are no shortcuts with greenscreen shooting or you end up with poop (technical term). This is the kind of thing that most DPs will have done. Not really hard if you have the toys. Talk to your DP and VFX folks. But frankly the easy way is very effective and used more often than you might think. and it is cheap. If the storytelling can use imagination to transport you anywhere, then trigger that same imagination to help you with the scene. Ask if you want more info.
Andrew, Wow! Thank you for a great response. This is seeming progressively more feasible. I definitely will need to work with an experienced crew. One question still remains. If it's in the evening, are you saying that the green screen can be lit up behind the actors? - and now I've learned a new technical term :)
I just saw JD's comment above. Am wondering the tradeoffs of shooting during the day and pretending it's night. And I'd still need the camp fire.
In this instance JD's suggestion is certainly a good consideration, depending upon any wide shots leading into or out of the scene. The biggest give-away in day for night is the sky. Polarizing filters are just not enough. Sky replacement in post VFX and being very selective about the time and direction you shoot the wide shots is effective. The fire should look wonderful with no tricks needed to be able to keep it from over-exposing. However that means the people will need to be lit brighter than the daylight around you as they are being lit by the fire. Overcast works nicely as does using a large overhead if you can keep a tight rein on the amount of the background you will see. Both of these solutions though need a larger crew size. Shooting in full daylight and doing the effects in post colour correction would be a good way to go. Lots of power windows and the ability to track faces would be a must. IF the scene is short you might be about to shoot it just around sunset. Means moving very quickly, having all the shots worked out and camera marks done earlier in the day. Multiple cameras will be beneficial. The actors have to be perfect. Realistically you have about 20 minutes at most that is usable, starting with tight shots and ending with the wide shots allowing larger vistas as it gets darker. Also means changing the amount of fill light as the ambient daylight fades away. Either day or just near sunset will require the DP to control a higher end colour correction session. You will need to do a few tests to help decide what will work best for your situation and production. You can light the greenscreen, or not if you shoot in full daylight fully exposed. Lighting the greenscreen is honestly not a big issue, just choose a location that helps control the spill and has a place to put lights, cables and generators. Other than spill, the only thing that is troublesome with the greenscreen is if there is any wind as they are rather large sails. Remember you will only need the greenscreen if you are going to have a finished shot that shows actors in the foreground and the ocean and beach behind them. Avoid that angle and the complexity, size and cost of the scene plummets. Depends upon your budget.
Honestly, find a good crew, then you won't need to know every little detail and be second guessing them. Shoot day for night with a filter on an overcast day, towards the evening. It's been done and it's been done successfully. Watch for shadows, that's the biggest giveaway that it wasn't shot under moonlight. Lastly, you're shooting a (low budget?) short, not The Ten Commandments or some other epic. Get it done, learn from it, move on, repeat.
Curious, no lakes or rivers with sandy beaches within a reasonable drive from Phoenix, Az.? What part does the ocean play in your script. First rule (in my book) for low/no budget short scrips, don't write about it if: you don't own, can't borrow, make, buy or rent it.
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Should writers have to know how to budget? The budget will be up to the producer and if the script cannot be shot as called for then compromises are made to bring it in on the available budget. Yes there are many things that can be done in writing to bring costs down, but I would rather see all of the creative story-telling in the script and then change it into an affordable picture than to start off thinking “we can’t do that”. I want writers to be able to create a great story, we will then figure out a way to tell it.
Load your actors, crew and equipment into a car or van with a full tank of gas, head west, and enjoy a weekend in California. Gas is expensive, but perhaps you have the budget for it, or maybe it's the type of production where everyone can chip in.
And yes, I can't stress enough what both JD and Andrew said. No budget and microbudget films almost have to be done in reverse. Scout for locations, know what sets you can build effectively, and then write or adopt your script for those locations.
JD, Andrew, Bryan: Thank you for so many suggestions. I'm now convinced we could put out a decent product doing this in the desert. I wrote the short while living in LA, so there were beaches nearby. The shots of the ocean are a must for the story - no rewriting there. I could shoot beach scenes when I'm next in LA or Florida and get just the right angles to match the acting shots. My short is a modern take/response to a scene in Where the Boys Are.
Even in an era with cameras like Sony A7s that can work in "no" light, intentional and convincing mood in-scene is created, not "captured". A bit of light shaping on actors and balancing levels of ambience to the firelight plus an evenly lit green screen may be the solution... on the other hand, if you are shooting green screen, why not shoot it all in-studio? Another option is to shoot the beach and dune sides separately ( a thousand miles apart ), tying them together with a foreground element at some point- which could be mere flame, a bush, a beach chair... in any case, experienced crew save a lot of time for actors sitting around... and actors sitting around usually shows up in mediocre performance.
Royce, I did wonder about filming it in a studio, except for the issue of the camp fire. I think the best bet, unless I can drag everyone to California or Florida, is to film in the desert at twilight with the green screen. Even if we could film at the beach (as I sit here listening to the sound of waves on YouTube), it occurs to me that the ocean and wind would need to be fairly calm so as not to drown out the actors. So maybe filming at the beach isn't such a good idea anyway. I also just caught a few minutes of a movie scene next to the ocean that was clearly filmed during the day and then made to look like night (I'm looking for this stuff now). The odd sky gave the scene a slightly surreal atmosphere, which was actually quite nice; makes me wonder if that's how that brilliant night shot was filmed in the latest Mad Max. And when the credits roll on my short, the crew's talents will be on display when it's learned that the filming took place in a desert.
Set your aperture wide open and use a wide angle lens.