Filming Fire Breathers with BMPCC

Hello everyone,

I will be filming a fire breather performer in the upcoming days. However, I never shot anything like this before, and google is not helping me much with research. I will be using the BMPCC with the metabones speed booster. I will be limited to natural light, I believe.

What is the best time of day to film this?
What would the best camera settings be?
I mostly shoot RAW and LOG, is this still the best approach?

The performer and I already talked safety.

If you guys and gals could help me out, I would be most grateful.

Thank you.

I would shoot raw, and use expose zebras set to 100%, and stop down so to not lose any detail in the fires.
The fire breathers might be completely dark between plumes of fire if you don't put lights on them.

Fire is high contrast. It's bright. You don't need the speed booster.

At 800 you'll want to be around F5.6 at least. So around dusk is perfect because the ambient light will be bright enough to see you subject when the do their thing.

JB

I recently shot a fire breathing performance during an event.

It was, as John suggested, just on dusk - on a beach. Dark enough for the the fire to create a lovely warm lighting effect on the sand and nearby performers, but ambient enough to see the talent and sunset (background). There was a little fill light for guests to find their way along the beach - mostly colour effect lighting.

I shot ProResHQ film - 25fps, 180 degree shutter, ISO800, f/4-5.6.

Wow, thank you everyone for all your input.

Of all the videos I saw, they took place on a beach, like Triston said, and it looks amazing. The only problem is that I live in a land locked state. If I can't film on a beach, where would a good location be?

Thanks again, everybody.

Don't you have any lakes or rivers?

Well, use any environment with a light colored ground, like sand or light gravel. It's nicer to have some of the light from the fire being reflected by the environment back on the people.
Plus, any water nearby can be used for reflections.

Of course I second to shoot at dusk or dawn, since the contrast will be too high at night. I've shot fire breathers once during a seminar to challenge high-end cameras like the Alexa, Red and Varicam and none of them looked great when the night was already pitch black.

If you don't expose for the flame, it will end up white and just not convincing. So I'd stay close to that within a stop or two over at the most. Experiment first some windless evening very carefully with the garden hose ready so you don't burn the house down.


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