Flashing police lights effect - In shoot or post edit?

Inglorious Fiction · Sep 8, 2011

I'm shooting a scene for my short film tomorrow and need some help with an effects lighting aspect of it.

In this scene we see the drug dealers in an underground car park and they get busted by the police.
The idea is that we don't actually see the police cars (for logistical reasons), just the light thrown onto the dealers and the wall behind them.

Now, my issue is that I might not be able to access the LED par can lights to simulate the look of flashing police car lights.
Is there a way I can add in a similar effect to this in post without having the actual lights themselves?

Technical note: Shooting with a Sony XD EX3 camera and editing in Final Cut Pro (not FCPX, the version before)

All the help I can get with this would be greatly appreciated, I will try and get a photo of the location up ASAP too.

Cheers guys,
Josh

Inglorious Fiction · Sep 8, 2011

This is the location for the shoot. Will be shot more towards late afternoon/night so there will be less light that will be filtering in from outside.

http://twitpic.com/6hpem2

Lucky Hardwood · Sep 8, 2011

Your best bet might be to purchase some cheap generic party strobe lights like these and use blue gels to get the police light effect.

PaulGriffith · Sep 8, 2011

You need to do it practical. Strobes are great.

You'd have to spend a lot of tine in post rotoscoping and faking shadows and stuff that the practical lights do automatically. Plus, you'd need compositing software like Nuke or After Effects.

wheatgrinder · Sep 8, 2011

Real world lighting effect is best.

If you have to do something in post..

you can see how I did it post with this 100% CGI clip. The same techniques will work with live footage with some good tracking\ mapping, doable with AE, but requires a lot of time and effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1HVP72yys0

Gonzo_Entertainment · Sep 8, 2011

Yep, if practical is possible, it's ALWAYS better.
The strobes and blue gels sounds like the way to go.

Inglorious Fiction · Sep 11, 2011

Thanks for the input guys!
I ended up being able to get the PAR cans that I wanted, so I was able to do it practically which as you guys said was the much better option!
Thanks again

JohnJohnson · Sep 12, 2011

Check out this video around the 3:30 mark. Even though he is simulating the light of a movie screen in a theater, this could easily be adapted for police lights. Possibly instead of using the three color gel fan apparatus, use only blue and red.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyJoso2xx1c&feature=channel_video_title

*EDIT* Fixed the YouTube player