Who'll Make The Rain???

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I went to a music event to talk to some people, make some connections etc. And I ended up talking to a person who wanted to do a music video. I know, who doesn't when you are at a music event. Here's the idea:

How could I make rain?

I am thinking: water hoses with the setting to spray widely, sprinklers, I would have to have maybe 3 or 4 hoses or sprinklers.

What could I build to hang the hoses/sprinklers from? How could I control the direction of all this water?

Any suggestions on makeshift protection of my camera? I have some ideas that I think would work, but there is absolutely NO WAY I will jeopardize my camera.

What else should I be thinking about?

As I said, I only started thinking about this last night about 2:00am when the event was just ending. But I really starting thinking:
I wonder if I could do this....???

-- spinner :cool:
 
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I'm with you on keeping the camera dry, and performers with electric instruments and microphones usually don't mix well with water.

How about getting them to soak down before they perform, spritz a little vegetable oil on their faces and hands to simulate droplets and then overlay a rain effect in post?

Looking forward to other ideas

Neil
 
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Make a square out of wooden planks.

Attach rubber garden hose to perimeter of the frame.

Poke holes all along the hose.

Suspend frame above actor and turn on hose. Should make a golden shower like no other.
 
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georgiahoosier said:
I'm with you on keeping the camera dry, and performers with electric instruments and microphones usually don't mix well with water.

How about getting them to soak down before they perform, spritz a little vegetable oil on their faces and hands to simulate droplets and then overlay a rain effect in post?

Looking forward to other ideas

Neil
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I have no desire to end up getting fried or worse yet! ruining my camera! I'll dry off but my camera is forever!

I remember there being an inexpensive effects package that someone posted on this site, but I don't even remember where it was or where the thread was. If anyone remembers.....:hmm:

In terms of what the band was thinking, I think they are looking for a downpour....


-- spinner :cool:
 
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I tried a little scene with Effectslab but am not too thrilled with it, I think the rate of rainfall needs to be faster, I will have to work on it. I'd like to give it a lightning flash too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/TfLiTCzMcmo&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TfLiTCzMcmo&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

I'll be interested to see how your vid turns out, keep us posted!! :)
 
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georgiahoosier said:
I tried a little scene with Effectslab but am not too thrilled with it, I think the rate of rainfall needs to be faster, I will have to work on it. I'd like to give it a lightning flash too.
Click to expand...

I think the reason it's not terribly pleasing visually is due to two factors. Firstly, the sky in the background destroys the effect, because it doesn't look like it should be raining. Secondly, your effect with that mis-en-scene (composition of the scene) makes it look like it's raining indoors. (Also the rain particles just don't look the right size to be in front of the dog when it's that large in the frame)

Even though you're not using After Effects, the 3 part podcast series on changing the weather over at Creative Cow would probably prove useful. Here's the direct podcast links:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
 
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Will Vincent said:
I think the reason it's not terribly pleasing visually is due to two factors. Firstly, the sky in the background destroys the effect, because it doesn't look like it should be raining. Secondly, your effect with that mis-en-scene (composition of the scene) makes it look like it's raining indoors. (Also the rain particles just don't look the right size to be in front of the dog when it's that large in the frame)
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True enough, I just grabbed something I shot that was a little dark to start with and layered over a darkening filter, then put on the rain effect I found on the FX Home site.

Yes it looks like rain in the house, or a leaky roof but it was the only footage I had!! LOL

At least no Pekingese were moistened in the making of the video.

I've never done anything beyond day-for-night with grading in that program, this thread has gotten me interested in weather effects.

Thanks for the links, that looks like some interesting stuff. Effectslab certainly isn't the industry standard that AE is but it's got a lot of similar features that I can adapt.
 
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That does look interesting and I am looking up the Indymogul page and I'll take a look at the Creative Cow stuff.

Right now it is just an idea from a guitar player who actually did a nice job of pulling together a video for his band, his first one. He was just considering an idea for the next thing they do. He isn't a filmmaker, but he possibly could be. Anyway, he is looking at the band members being rained on so the effects wouldn't work for him.

As for me, I want to know how to do this. If I don't have any money to do the big budget production, I better be able to fake it. So, keep making the suggestions because I might be attempting to do this sooner than I might expect....

I'm thinking one of the bigger problems will be making the water actually look as though it is raining and not coming from any particular direction. The Indymogul thing isn't a bad idea, but I'm thinking it would have to be really big to fit a five person band plus all their equipment and enough room for them to move around under....
:huh:

-- spinner :cool:
 
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I suppose there's only so much you could do trying to convey the illusion of having a lot of space (and not actually having that much space) and creating the rain effects as laid out in the Indymogul outline.
 
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I'm going to have to go shoot some fresh footage to make these things look right, but I think you can get some pretty good results with a little experimenting.

more rain stuff

I know the greenscreen was too close to the car but I had cleaned most of the stuff with better lighting off the hard drive.

I'm going to try to get down to Tybee tomorrow to get some ocean footage like the demonstration podcast.

This may seem like book one stuff to a lot of folks on this board but I love to experiment with production things that are new to me. :D
 
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georgiahoosier said:
I know the greenscreen was too close to the car but I had cleaned most of the stuff with better lighting off the hard drive.
Click to expand...

Well, other than the greenscreen issue it's a bit better.. Problem now though is that it's only raining behind the car, and the windows are all dry and such. There's probably not too much you can do about the windows (not easily anyway) but I think with a little color correction to make the FG better match the BG and a layer of rain over the top you might be able to better sell that shot as believable.

Have fun experimenting, it's the best way to learn. :D
 
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Don't forget that for practical (on set) rain effects you'll need to light the rain from behind as the drops act like little lenses collecting the light and rebroadcasting it to the camera. They don't reflect, they refract ;)
 
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OK... here's a technique I've used, that works. All you need is a watering can, a tray and a light source.

Rain is a layer thing... providing stuff in the picture is suitably wet, then you don't need to constantly wet the whole scene to create the illusion of rain. All you need is water going past the lens.

So you set a light to go horizontally across the front of your lens... then you pour the water through the light beam, in front of the lens. The end result is the illusion of rain.

There's no risk to the camera because there is a gap between it and the water... plus the volumes are minimal.
 
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