Creating Falling Snow: A Lighting Tutorial

By Jay P. Morgan.
In this Slanted Lens tutorial we are going to show you how to build a snow falling rig and then how to light falling show. I have seen many snow falling rigs in Hollywood over the years and all of them were made by a special effect house. Its hard to find a set up at Wall Mart that will create a curtain of falling plastic snow 10 feet wide. Consequently I have built many of these over the years and have simplified the process so it can be built in an hour or so and then thrown away when we are done. I use a plastic snow that I get from Studio Specialties here in Los Angeles. This is the web address http://www.superiorstudio.com. Shipping is not to expensive because the product is very light.
I shoot snow mostly in the summer time when there is not any good snow in the US that is easy to get to. This means shooting snow scenes with talent wearing ski jackets and mittens in Los Angeles heat. During one shoot we did, on the back lot at Warner Brothers, it was 90 degrees and the talent were sweating profusely. It is hard to look cold when large beads of sweat are rolling down your face. It is a fun process. Here is how we build a snow rig and light and shoot falling snow.
Good luck and Keep on click'n!

Jay P. Morgan
http://theslantedlens.com/

http://www.kesslercrane.com/
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http://www.customslr.com/
http://www.henselusa.com
http://ikancorp.com/
http://triplescoopmusic.com
http://www.glidecam.com/

****No assistants were fired during this shoot*******

Category:

Education

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[gwendolann]

I love how he says "there is an illusion that the light is coming from inside of the room"....seriously no there is not! The light shows on the bench with the outlines of the windowpane....this is a dead give away...I like the idea of this shot....but seriously....could have done better...

[levisarts]

OMG the guy in the jacket. It has to be like 80 degrees.

[JustinOval]

Manuel mode?

¿qué?

[Deweeyy]

lol! gotta love that digitalrevtv ending ;)

[citizensauto]

Again top notch stuff...

[djlaxa]

at least he didn't wrecked up another camera.. wait, what?!

Seriously??

[jambaj0e]

@infringinator : If you watched pretty much most of the SlantedLens tutorial, there's always some off-the-wall humor in it, from chopping fingers off, hitting someone w/ a prop break-apart bottle, to using a chainsaw (or a flamethrower here) on a vintage camera. Part of the charm =D

[djadudeguy]

@infringinator Um, you are aware that it wasn't real right?

[kcoock]

I hope you sat aside some of that snow to pack those fingers in until the shoot was over.

[tobsol]

Or... you wait until it starts snowing? :D