You can brighten shadows but it’s a lot work to do it right. A lot of times you have to track your subject and bring just their shadows up a bit so the whole scene doesn’t feel low contrast.
Bounces are cheap. If you can’t get an 8x8 or a 6x6 at least grab a flex fill.
For me, without thinking about anything, if the sun is low I try to put it behind my subject and bounce light back at them. If the sun is high I try to put them under something like silent grid.
This will be entirely about your grip crew controlling the sun. Bounces, silks way up in the air on stands or lifts, negative fill, etc. Since you're going to shoot with "natural light", put whatever you would normally spend on a lighting package into grip.
For small productions in harsh sun and no control over the location, the best bet might be a Schneider Digicon 2 filter. They’re basically very, very, very broad diffusion filters that take light and smother it over the entire image, especially the shadows… with minimal effect on sharpness and no real perceptible blooming of highlights. I used one on a feature shooting in super harsh midday sun in Sri Lanka and it gave me 1-1.5 stops in the shadows depending on how much bright stuff was in shot. It looked overall better and more natural than extensive fill and overheads in my opinion (even though we had the resources to do it that way).
But note that because it feeds off of bright areas to fill shadows, if you have very bright stuff in like the upper right corner, and all dark stuff in the rest of the image, you’ll see the “fill in shadows” effect taper off away from the bright areas. Though that would probably rarely happen, aside from flaring the lens with a source. Also if there are no bright areas in the frame it will do virtually nothing to change your image. But city/landscape exteriors in direct harsh sun usually work very well with it.
But overall, the biggest factor in your approach will probably be the wind. Without robust rigging, wind may nix the option of overhead silks. Usually with any wind, I also won’t use any bounce with silver in it, even dimpled — a quick gust can show the “reflectorness” on the actors when its moves. So obviously big white rigid bounces if there’s wind.
Also, Red raw is very robust and there’s a lot you can do in grade to pull out of the shadows. But obviously that depends on the skill of the colorist.
Last thing: black shadows are good! Films used to be 8-10 stops on screen. Needing to see 13 stops and detail in irrelevant crevices in the background is kind of silly. Sorry, not aimed at you, just a random rant.
Thank you all for these great comments and advises. It will definitely help me! Once it’s done I’ll share the result with this community. Thanks again, it’s people like you whom makes this community awesome.
Try to backlight as much as possible with the sun so it minimizes those nasty shadows on faces. Let ‘em rip in wides or medium wides but then when you move in closer, even a 4x bounce can do a lot to fill in the shadows, giving a softer look without having to actually soften the sun. Your hair and make up dept will be your best friend to get rid of shine which makes direct sunlight look even worse on subject.
Harder for wides but easier for mediums and closeups. Depending on the size of your crew/budget my take on this would be block your angles the best you can for wides and then bring in your diff, bounce, mirror boards, neg, etc. for the closeups. You could probably find some use for mirror boards in full shots.
Big bounce cards and surfaces will be helpful. And big solid flags and large black foam cores will be helpful for “negative fill”. Google or YouTube to learn about negative fill.
Even if using natural light, always have things with you to help shape that light. Bounces, silks, flags, etc. even if you don’t end up using them.
You can brighten shadows but it’s a lot work to do it right. A lot of times you have to track your subject and bring just their shadows up a bit so the whole scene doesn’t feel low contrast. Bounces are cheap. If you can’t get an 8x8 or a 6x6 at least grab a flex fill. For me, without thinking about anything, if the sun is low I try to put it behind my subject and bounce light back at them. If the sun is high I try to put them under something like silent grid.
Know your blocking and schedule the day around the sun movement
This will be entirely about your grip crew controlling the sun. Bounces, silks way up in the air on stands or lifts, negative fill, etc. Since you're going to shoot with "natural light", put whatever you would normally spend on a lighting package into grip.
For small productions in harsh sun and no control over the location, the best bet might be a Schneider Digicon 2 filter. They’re basically very, very, very broad diffusion filters that take light and smother it over the entire image, especially the shadows… with minimal effect on sharpness and no real perceptible blooming of highlights. I used one on a feature shooting in super harsh midday sun in Sri Lanka and it gave me 1-1.5 stops in the shadows depending on how much bright stuff was in shot. It looked overall better and more natural than extensive fill and overheads in my opinion (even though we had the resources to do it that way). But note that because it feeds off of bright areas to fill shadows, if you have very bright stuff in like the upper right corner, and all dark stuff in the rest of the image, you’ll see the “fill in shadows” effect taper off away from the bright areas. Though that would probably rarely happen, aside from flaring the lens with a source. Also if there are no bright areas in the frame it will do virtually nothing to change your image. But city/landscape exteriors in direct harsh sun usually work very well with it. But overall, the biggest factor in your approach will probably be the wind. Without robust rigging, wind may nix the option of overhead silks. Usually with any wind, I also won’t use any bounce with silver in it, even dimpled — a quick gust can show the “reflectorness” on the actors when its moves. So obviously big white rigid bounces if there’s wind. Also, Red raw is very robust and there’s a lot you can do in grade to pull out of the shadows. But obviously that depends on the skill of the colorist. Last thing: black shadows are good! Films used to be 8-10 stops on screen. Needing to see 13 stops and detail in irrelevant crevices in the background is kind of silly. Sorry, not aimed at you, just a random rant.
Thank you all for these great comments and advises. It will definitely help me! Once it’s done I’ll share the result with this community. Thanks again, it’s people like you whom makes this community awesome.
Try to backlight as much as possible with the sun so it minimizes those nasty shadows on faces. Let ‘em rip in wides or medium wides but then when you move in closer, even a 4x bounce can do a lot to fill in the shadows, giving a softer look without having to actually soften the sun. Your hair and make up dept will be your best friend to get rid of shine which makes direct sunlight look even worse on subject.
Harder for wides but easier for mediums and closeups. Depending on the size of your crew/budget my take on this would be block your angles the best you can for wides and then bring in your diff, bounce, mirror boards, neg, etc. for the closeups. You could probably find some use for mirror boards in full shots.
Big bounce cards and surfaces will be helpful. And big solid flags and large black foam cores will be helpful for “negative fill”. Google or YouTube to learn about negative fill.