Overcast Production Day

[Nate Haustein]

Ok, here's a question for the masses:

I have a shoot tomorrow, some of which is outside. Content includes B-roll of a group of young people hanging-out together outdoors and having fun. Smiles, laughter, movement, engagement. You get the idea. Here's the thing –*the weather man is saying complete overcast.

Originally, the look would have been the basic afternoon-backlit-lens-flares kind of thing. Now, I'm not worried (nature's giant softbox and all), but I was wondering if there were any "hot tips" for making things look a little less dreary when the weather throws you a loop.

I've heard of using silver reflectors to add contrast, polarizer filters, and about not shooting the sky. Maybe some negative fill would work well too? Any other advice out there?

This is in the C100 forum, as it's the camera we'll be using, but more just looking for general tips to include in my long-term bag of tricks. Thanks!

[Don Platon]

Use silver or white bounce cards, reflectors or flexfills to fill in the eye sockets. Overcast usually looks way better on camera than you think. This is also a secnario where CTB gelled low power lights can make a big difference. Even LED's might read under overcast conditions where they would be blown out in full daylight.

[Chris Medico]

As already mentioned high gain bounces work well.

Probably way too late for this one but a couple 575w HMIs can work wonders if some gear rental is an option.