Outdoor scenes with heavy fog

[George]

Dear Roger and much appreciated community,

I will be shooting several exterior scenes, set in a small mountain village where it is supposed to be very foggy. The fog is should get stronger and stronger in the course of these scenes, until at some point only outlines and silhouettes of houses and people are recognizable.
I’m already in contact with a SFX company regarding strong fog units and pipes but I’d like to ask you all additionally for experience values and tips. Especially sun and wind worry me for the conitnuity and credibility of the fog. I am very thankful for all comments and inputs, thank you!

Here are a few mood pictures from the film “Come and See”:

Topic

[Roger Deakins]

Yes, a brilliant scene from a brilliant film. The fog is so good in that scene that I imagined it was done on the right day. Maybe it was! There is some equivalent work done on Antonioni’s ‘Red Desert’, although the wind does give the effects away at one moment. Serious fog and wind machines were used for ‘Red Desert’ as can be seen in some behind the scenes images. I have never seen images of the ‘Come and See’ rig but I imagine it must have been substantial.

I have had mixed success with fog, the best being done on stage. For an exterior you are at teh mercy of the weather. I would suggest setting your rig the day before you shoot as, invariably, smoke/fog will hang early in the day rather than later. Otherwise, if it is possible to have a flexible schedule and wait for a calm damp day …. Yes, that might not be possible. It seldom is.

 

[Stip]

Given Klimov’s obsession with realism, which went as far as shooting live bullets over the heads of the actors (the cow in the picture above really was shot dead during the scene) and the quality of the fog, I think it may have been natural.

[Roger Deakins]

We talked with Aleksey Rodionov for our podcast and we should have asked him about that fog. I suspect it was a combination of real and added smoke but it certainly looks real.

[Stip]

That would make sense! Maybe you can drop him a little Email  🙂

To the original poster, the plugin Scatter from Video Village does a great job of emulating diffusion filters, among them haze and fog filters. While it can never replace real fog, it could help balancing out continuity discrepancies between shots caused by sun and wind.

[George]

Thank you very much for the answer – the “Red Resert” scene is also a very good example for what we are aiming for.

I´ve just relistened to the podcast episode with Aleksey Rodionov and actually, Roger, you even did ask him about the light an the fog – he answered that he used smoke cans for the effect. He prefered that to regular smoke machines, because its smoke is heavier, so it stays longer and didn´t have a blueish tint. They had around 20 people with cans on set. And they were lucky with the wind, but it even was a sunny day..who would have thought. Your reply then was “it sounds so easy” haha =)

So, Roger, I guess that shot of Blade Runner 2049 was on an indoor stage, right?

 

[Stip]

Wow, I listened to the episode back then but had forgotten also. It’s at the 25 min mark. They burnt 150 smoke cans that morning.

[Roger Deakins]

I’m glad that I did remember to ask Aleksey on our podcast, even if I had forgotten I had! It really was the best I have seen.

Yes, we used smoke on the ‘BR 2049’ shot on a studio backlot.

[George]

Yes, we all are glad that you´ve asked him that question! =)

Thank you very much!

[Author]

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