{"id":86723,"date":"2017-12-05T07:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T13:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/?p=86723"},"modified":"2022-11-10T13:31:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T19:31:14","slug":"three-ways-light-tent-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.premiumbeat.com\/blog\/three-ways-light-tent-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Ways To Light A Tent Scene On a Low Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lighting a scene inside a tent can be a real challenge, but we have the solution. Check out these tips to make your next tent scene shine.<\/h2>\n

Cover image via Shutterstock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lighting a tent scene is no easy task \u2014 it\u2019s quite . . .\u00a0in-tents.<\/em>\u00a0Ok, that was a terrible dad joke, but in all seriousness,\u00a0lighting a scene inside of a tent is\u00a0quite problematic. We’re not talking about large wedding tents that can hold a host of people, or Roman military-style tents in Game of Thrones<\/a><\/em>. This is about filming a scene in a typical 2-3 man camping tent.\u00a0A tent is a cramped space, there\u2019s usually little to no lighting (save for a lantern<\/a>), and it’s usually at night. Those, it’s safe to say, are not ideal shooting conditions. Especially when working with a low budget.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s have a look at some of the methods to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

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Stay Indoors<\/h3>\n

First and foremost, while your character<\/em> may\u00a0out in the great outdoors, you can just stay your garage.\u00a0Let\u2019s face it, setting up and taking down a tent is usually the most stressful part of a camping trip, and it’s going to be an unnecessary burden to lump together interior and exterior scenes of the tent at the actual location. (Further, the sound of the tent material rustling in the wind will\u00a0wreak havoc\u00a0on your audio.)<\/p>\n

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1. Practical Lighting<\/h3>\n

Practical lighting\u00a0is going to give you the best results inside of a tent.\u00a0Roll back the clock\u00a0forty years, and an old Coleman camping lantern would only\u00a0barely illuminate a large tent. Today, however, we\u00a0have inexpensive LED lamps\u00a0that can light up an entire tent\u00a0like a Kino fixture. The\u00a0Fenix Flashlight CL25R LED Lantern<\/a>\u00a0is a lantern\u00a0with four different brightness settings, which gives you a bit of flexibility when shooting. However, the primary point of using a practical is that you can then use that light as a source of motivated lighting.<\/p>\n

For example, in the following still from British show The Inbetweeners<\/a><\/em>, we see the four characters are out camping, lit\u00a0by a typical camping lantern.<\/p>\n

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\nImage via Channel 4<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the scene, one of the characters gets up to turn off the lantern, and it would appear that the lighting technician was a second too slow. For a split second, we see that the lamp was providing little to no illumination for the set, and an overhead fixture was actually lighting the scene.<\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

By using a practical camping light, and shooting indoors,\u00a0you enjoy additional solutions\u00a0to the problem\u00a0of lighting in such a small space.<\/p>\n

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2. Bounced Light\/Diffused Light<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019re going to light a tent scene without an actual light source, in reality, it would be pretty dark. Of course, the shot would look atrocious if you\u00a0shot\u00a0it without any actual light \u2014 not even the Sony As7ii<\/a>\u00a0could save that shot. Therefore,\u00a0instead,\u00a0we can introduce a diffused\/bounced light, and then in post-production performing a light day-to-night grade. As before, this approach will work better in a controlled environment rather than out in the wild. You can see this method in action\u00a0in Twilight: Eclipse<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\nImage via Summit Entertainment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Please forgive\u00a0me for using Twilight<\/em> as an example, but scenes filmed inside of a tent are uncommon, and finding behind-the-scenes of a tent scene is even rarer. As we can see from the BTS still below, it looks like the light is directed toward and through the lower\u00a0portion of the tent.<\/p>\n

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\nImage via\u00a0Summit Entertainment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This is great because not every low budget filmmaker is going to have a C-stand and a set of diffusion silks at hand, but\u00a0since most tents are\u00a0made out of a\u00a0translucent material, we can, to some extent, use them as a diffusers for our light when shooting a dark scene. As long as there are no hot spots on your actor, and the light is soft, you’ll\u00a0can successfully grade the shot later, so it looks like your character\/s are in a dark tent with no light.<\/p>\n