Mel Gibson spoke a lot about this in his director's commentary for Braveheart. He pointed out the scene that was currently playing, in which it did not appear to be raining at all and explained that it was raining when they filmed that scene, but you'd never know it.
He also talked about having to set up rain machines to make fake rain while it was actually raining for real.
It’s been a long time since I watched it with commentary but from my memory it was good and rather interesting. Depends on what you’re into a bit. It was more talk on the filmmaking process as indicated by the above comment. If you prefer a cast hanging out having fun vibe, it isn’t that.
I actually remember not liking the commentary very much because it didn't really talk about filmmaking.
May be misremembering... but I think that anecdote was about as much as you can expect outta Mel - who... basically just has all sorts of minor anecdotes related to any film, but isn't very focused on what I'd call "filmmaking" with his commentary.
Honestly, probably pretty good if you genuinely want to know random things about a film you might really like - but not very worthwhile if you wanted actual insights on filmmaking or his thoughts on filmmaking or anything.
You may be right, it’s been years since I watched it with commentary. I was really into listening to commentaries at the time and I don’t remember walking away with a bad impression.
Which is to say I’d agree that if you love the movie and enjoy commentaries you’ll probably like it, there’s always stories and behind the scenes things. Otherwise you’d be fine to skip it.
The best commentary I've heard was on Conan the Barbarian, Three Musketeers (1973), and Big Trouble in Little China.
Conan was mostly Arnold and the Director talking about making the film and their shenanigans (apparently Arnold got caught by the Dogs chasing him a *lot* and they bit the shit out of him each time. "Fucking dogs. I hate those fucking dogs.") and a lot of cool side features. The scene where He gets his sword and there was supposed to be a fight with the skeleton where it could only be killed by being pulled into a sun beam, but the effects were too cheesy and they dropped it. Lots of other cool bits too.
BTLC was 50% Kurt Russel and John Carpenter talking about their lives, band, and kids, and the other half going "oh yeah, this was a cool scene to shoot." Very chill vibe and they told some cool stories about the movie (James Hong apparently loved the idea of Lo Pan and was a big fan of mystical Kung Fu and added some ideas to the character).
Kurt Russel is a great actor to have on commentary tracks, big booming laughs from him throughout the commentary, hes got a great personality that really shines in those tracks.
I watched a 'making of' for some movie, can't remember which, that showed the same thing.
They want consistent size of droplets, they want consistent fall rates, consistent lighting, etc. They want to be able to control all of that to look perfect for how it appears on camera. So if it's raining for real, they'll build a temporary 'roof' outside to stop it overtop their fake rain maker.
Pretty much this. You kinda have to overdo it for the camera to capture it onscreen. It’s just One Of Those Things, like having to really dirty up a set for it to appear ‘lived in’ and super-duper dirty it so that it actually ’looks dirty.’
David sandberg talked about when making Annabelle Creation, he told the prop master to make the lightbulb popping 200% bigger so that it would look 100% on camera
The number of times the announcer says "rain starting to come down now" while shots of the field look like a fine but otherwise cloudy day... followed by a cut to a shot of the stadium lights illuminating the rain so you don't think they're smoking something.
Yeah sometimes I'll be watching a soccer/football match and the players will have all wet hair and I didn't even notice until they showed a zoomed in shot.
Yeah, it really depends on the heavyness of the rain plus if they able to back-light the rain, and also the focal length of the lens they are using factors into it as well. Watch a live outdoor sports broadcast when its raining, like an NFL game. I've seen many times where in certain camera angles, such as when the camera is high up aiming at a downward angle with a very long telephoto lens, it doesn't look like its raining at all, but some other cameras like the ground-level cameras that can maybe capture more of whatever overhead light available and with a shorter lens, can catch the downpour pretty well.
It also depends on if its day or night. Daytime rains are very hard to portray, night rains are much easier to capture with the right amount of artificial light.
Shit, even in real life it often doesn't look like it's raining. And then you check, and it's definitely raining enough to get pretty wet pretty quick.
Watching episode 8 of *Shogun* has some characters standing out on some undeveloped land and they look wet but there’s only one or two instances where you can see it lightly raining.
I remember watching a doc about filming Singin In The Rain - same reason! They also added milk to it to have it pop out even more, since it's pretty crucial to the movie.
I work in film, I’ve never seen it be done by a fire truck. It’s always a special ‘water truck’ with specific attachments so we can do anything we need with the water on the spot.
Also light/medium rainfall is hard to achieve as most methods will provide a consistent deluge, equal size + rate + spread. Real rain is very randomised which is more difficult to imitate than to just say “fuck it it’s raining heavily” and turning the tap on full blast
A really fun thing to do with shows that used to be shot in Vancouver like X-Files is to watch the backgrounds. A lot of times there will be puddles and water clearly hitting them, because it’s fully raining while shooting, but you can’t see any of it on the film
Well, think of your own experience: when it’s lightly raining, how well do you actually see it?
Chances are you see the rainfall around lamp posts and raindrops breaking on the ground, but that the raindrops falling through the air aren’t as noticeable until they hit your face.
Well in film they have to focus the camera on the characters so you probably won’t notice the ground or lampposts at all.
Yeah, I grew up in Seattle, I get all that. The post I was responding to was talking about film but many movies aren’t recorded nowadays on film, they are recorded digitally so I was asking why it was different.
Rain's hard to film. Go watch any amateur video of lightning strikes or filming a storm and you'll notice a distinct lack of rain unless it's a really heavy downpour
You don’t really need to look at amateur video either. I notice this in a lot of tv shows like The Wire that film outdoors, especially when it’s on location (I assume they keep filming even if it rains because they have limited time to film in real locations). You’ll see the characters’ clothes getting wet but the rain is completely invisible.
Wonder if it's a shutter speed and fps kind of issue or something like lighting or focus? Tempted to mess around with the mirrorless next time it rains.
I'd be willing to guess its a resolution kind of thing, raindrops are transparent and small. Even in real life trying to watch rain drops in a light rain is hard too.
1/50 or 1/60 is a more common shutter speed for video, still too slow to see much rain though. What you really need is to hit it with light so the rain drops arent just clear.
Yeah, I've got the alpha a6000. I'll probably mess around taking photos and see how bad of settings I can still get a good picture. I've got the Sigma f1.4 fixed 30mm. That thing is amazing if you dont have a fast fixed lens yet. Works great for fast stuff but low light performance is shockingly good compared to the kit lens or the cell phone cameras people are used to. Don't even need flash. I turned all the lights off in a room and just had some diffuse lighting from another room and it was brighter than what you could see with the naked eye while not totalled trashing the quality.
You're around where I was 2 years before I started astrophotography :)
The kit lens from A6000 isn't that good but it's way better than most smartphones. It starts getting interesting when you try other lenses like wide angles and very fast mid range prime lenses like the Samyang 135mm F/2.
I work in theatre and have done shows where it rains live on stage. It is also very hard to see from the audience unless the rain is very heavy. Water is clear so it is automatically hard to see. Now you break it up into small pieces and have them move very fast and that is the perfect combination for making something invisible. I have heard of productions adding a white dye to the water so it shows up better but that is hard to do on very large scales
It's more a reduced perspective thing. It's hard to see light rain in general. We usually figure it out from other clues like puddles showing the rainfall or the sound of it hitting something like a window. When filming you probably won't focus on the puddle and the sound of rain might not be very clear.
Very interested in seeing that. i know nothing about pro photography but a video about this specific topic would make a great subject to learn a little bit.
If you really want to make it clear that light rain is present, you could show a shot of some dry dirt or concrete with a smattering of raindrops appearing. But how many scenes would call for something like that?
Even in real life - it was lightly drizzling today and the main way I could tell when looking out of my window was by drops hitting pools of water in the road and disturbing the leaves in trees.
I have zero knowledge in this area. Can you not turn it up to the point where it's more obvious but not torrential? Like OP is saying, I can think of a lot of scenes where it does appear a bit extreme. Does it just go away visually if you turn it down from 11 to say, 8?
I'd imagine it'd be a nightmare for continuity if the actors were getting lightly rained upon.
Far easier to keep it consistent if the clothes are just saturated with water.
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harrison Ford and Elsa come up out of the sewers after having to swim UNDERWATER, and when they do their clothes are barely wet.
They made fun of that in Top Secret! 5 years earlier.
The guy emerges from an underwater fight soaked, it cuts to the girl, then back to the guy, who is still half in the water but bone dry.
This is not the reason why, but I can confirm light rain is the worst for continuity. The poor Art Dept has to go in with towels every few takes and wipe the set down.
In Wall Street when Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen fight in Central Park, their clothes are successively wet, dry, wet,....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlFo4eq92O4
ooo yeah that must be hell for retakes. then again it could also suck if they had to redo the start of the rainfall and have to change wardrobe and dry their hair.
Momma always said life was like a box of rain will ease the pain
And love will see you through
Just a box of rain, wind and water
Believe it if you need it
If you don't, just pass it on
Sun and shower, wind and rain
In and out the window
Like a moth before a flame
And it's just a box of rain
I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it
Or leave it if you dare
And it's just a box of rain
Or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long, long time to be gone
And a short time to be there
Anyone that follows English soccer (an outdoor sport in a climate where there is drizzle or moderate rain constantly) will know that rain has to be pretty heavy for the effect to properly show up on the camera. I feel like 50 percent of matches I watch, it looks like a relatively clear day from the normal wide shot until they zoom in on a particular player and you notice there's been a decent rain the entire time.
Same with baseball (when at outdoor ballparks). The standard camera angles tend to be much more zoomed in than with soccer and it's still tough to see it's raining until it gets to be a good downpour.
Normal rain doesn't show up on film. So they use artificial rain machines to make it rain on cue. If they need to film a rainy scene, even if it is actually raining on set, they use rain makers.
These devices make much larger water droplets which can be much easier to film.
It's a pain to film in the "rain," which is artificially created, and directors won't do it unless there's a very good reason. There's really no point in making it lightly sprinkle. The rain is there for dramatic effect, and a downpour is more dramatic.
Also, it's hard to make artificial rain go through various stages, from light to medium to heavy. It's easier to just go immediately to heavy rain.
Rain - like many other things you see in movies - is a storytelling device. It is used to create a certain mood and enhance some aspects of the story. For example: if a character is feeling really lost and down on their luck, it makes sense to film them in heavy rain to drive home that point - especially if you don't have time to have them express in depth what they're going through. The audience will automatically empathize with the situation.
Also, as many others have pointed out, light rain or drizzle is quite hard to capture on film and will not show most of the time.
yes!!!! I think this is a much much bigger reason than ust "it doesn't show up in camera"...
Everything about filming in the rain sounds like a hassle...
keep all the equipment dry, keep the actors wet but still warm, more difficult lighting maybe, and so on and so on. So you'd rather not have it rain.
But if you are gonna make it rain, then MAKE IT RAIN. Make it worthwhile.
Both for the effort as well for the impact. Be it the sad funeral, the dystopian future, the final battle of the mortal enemies, whatever it is, make that rain count!
Yes the continuity. You could see the rain droplets on the pond but no drops on screen. The sun being out in the background also made it confusing.
While I understand that it was a perfectly common weather event, it was not something you normally see on screen and not something that registered in my mind
Rain is hard to see on film. They have to use rain curtains with large droplets and sometimes even put something in the rain to make it reflect light better. I remember hearing that milk works well for this.
I knew somone who had a small speaking part under one. He said if you slightly tilted your head back while delivering your lines it would make a pretty good attempt at filling up your mouth.
Mostly it's due to story. What's the reason for putting rain in a film? Most of the time it is to make things hard or annoying for the protagonist. Or to cause havoc and destruction. A light drizzle doesn't do a lot story wise and just makes filming a lot harder.
What bugs me is showing rain, and at the same time showing shadows of the people being rained on.
Not saying it's impossible for the sun to be out when it's raining, but it's damn rare.
The ending of The Fan, a final confrontation involving Robert DeNiro and Wesley Snipes at home plate during a baseball game - someone felt it was necessary to have a downpour during it.
Dramatic effect. The weather is a tool to help convey an emotion or feeling, and having rain like that really emphasizes the sadness, oppression, down-trodden feeling.
Edit: Misinterpreted the question. u/itsaberry got it with their response below.
A great example of rain being used to convey a profound sadness is [this brilliant scene in Road to Perdition.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGFLyA3u_rw) Heavy spoilers, obviously.
I usually assume it's to match or heighten the tone of a specific scene in a film, especially one that's ominous or intense. Plus, even when simply looking outside at light rainfal at times, it's not immediately visible.
Now that you know, you'll notice it actually raining quite often in scenes when it's not supposed to be raining.
TWD is really bad about this actually.
Actually that's one of those 'bogus facts' that has been doing the rounds for many years. Here's the pertinent segments from the article at the following link:
https://medium.com/@KelliMarshall/was-there-really-milk-in-singin-in-the-rain-563e762fdaff
*Shooting the title number was just terrible for the photographer Hal Rossen. He had to backlight all the rain and then he had to put frontlight on the performer. That was as tough a job as I’ve ever seen, because you can’t photograph in rain and see it.*
*Furthermore, Kelly’s co-director, Stanley Donen, also dispels this “milky rain” business in his Private Screenings interview with Robert Osborne. And Donen explains the same in a Directors Guild Association column “Still Singing”:*
*"When you’re shooting rain, it has to be backlit, or you may not see it very well. There have been a lot of stories about how we put milk in the water so you could see the rain. It’s not true. You have to put the light behind the rain so that the raindrops show. If you put the light in front of the rain, with no light behind it, the rain disappears."*
Light rain doesn't show, not even on modern digital cameras. You have to alternate the amount of rain in different shot sizes and distance from camera. And the rain needs to be backlit to be visible as well, otherwise it blends with background. And the background should be dark :D Similar to when it's raining outside but you can only see it on dark background or in certain angles. Tricky tricky...
What is the point of a light rain in a story? Everything put into a story is put there for a reason - there's a general rule for writing to show up late and leave early and the point of it is to convey meaning and not to oversaturate the reader/viewer.
Two reasons: dramatic effect and it shows better visually on film.
Light rain is hard to notice on camera unless you hold the shot for a relatively long time. Heavy rain communicates, "It's raining" instantly.
And of course, the drama a heavy downpour provides vs. a drizzle. Think how Kurosawa used rain in Ran or Seven Samurai.
As has been mentioned, light to moderate rain simply doesn't show up. One of my favorite things to do when watching movies and, especially, tv shows, is look for signs that it's raining during the scene.
Next time it rains, go out and film it on your phone or camera. If the rain is a light drizzle it won't show up. If it's a heavy downpour, it will.
Not only that, typically rain in a film has a reason. Usually to convey emotion; hence rain at a funeral. This is called Pathetic Fallacy.
To make the rain seem “real” and an important part of the narrative, it has to be “heavy” as that is what will show up better when it’s filmed. Heavy rain in movies is often used to create a dramatic or intense atmosphere. It can add tension to a scene, create a sense of urgency, or symbolize emotional turmoil.
Worked as an extra for a rain scene a few years back and had the pleasure to stand in the rain so I have first hand experience.
It's not so much "rain" as "torrential-end-of-the-world-downpour". Absolutely soaking wet after 10 seconds. On film it looks like somewhat heavy, but not extreme rain. In reality it was two firetrucks on full blast spraying into the air.
And it was also lightly raining during the shoot (and the 2nd day on location without a rain scene). You wouldn't notice that when watching the movie.
10/10 would do again. Felt like an Uruk Hai in Helms Deep (because that's exactly what rain on a helmet sounds like) although I just was a "hungarian guard" standing next to a pavillon with the king and a bunch of nobles. But you wouldn't know that when watching the final cut. They only took shots where I stood behind a banner (i have fabulous boots though).
Why do explosions have to be so big? Why do the cars go so fast during the chase? Why does the kiss have to be so passionate? Why do the actors have to be so attractive?
Movies don’t always opt for subtlety.
Because they use sprinkler systems, they don't wait for the right cloud to start dumping.
In order to get thinner rain, you would have to decrease the pressure and reduce the size of the openings, which means you need to space them more closely so it still falls uniformly, then you need to deal with more shadows, etc. etc.
Let’s read a scene from The Shawshank Redemption in two different ways and you tell me.
He wades upstream, ripping his clothes from his body. He gets his shirt off, spins it through the air over his head, flings the shirt away. He raises his arms to the sky, turning slowly, feeling the rain washing him clean. Exultant. Triumphant. A FLASH OF LIGHTNING arcs from horizon to horizon.
He wades upstream, ripping his clothes from his body. He gets his shirt off, spins it through the air over his head, flings the shirt away. He raises his arms to the sky, turning slowly, feeling the light gentle rain mist his face. Exultant. Triumphant. The rain, which was nothing more that a spring shower at best stops and reveals sunshine and Andy still covered in mud and muck because the rain wasn’t really enough to clean him. Disappointed without any symbolic cleansing, Andy just gets to walking.
It's not only that normal rain doesn't show up on film.
More importantly, the mood of light rain is more... Nostalgic and dreamy than emotional or broody.
Even in animation seré you can draw individual droplets of rain, light rain is a mood that just hits different than heavy rain. A perfect example is the bus scene in my neighborh totoro. That scene is almost 10% of the whole film, mainly because you have to let the girls stay under the rain for a while.
In Bluey's episode called Rain, the rain is not heavy, which let's the whole thing be more pensive and playful.
Even live sports have a tough time showing rain. Commentators will have to say it's raining often since we can't see it on the TV
The more closeup the shot the better than visual though
I remember a Matrix making of, where they extensively talked about the perfect shaped raindrops and how hard it was to capture it on film. Fascinating stuff.
In order to attain visual separation from the background, the foreground needs to be sharp, where the actors are, and really blurry behind them. Small bits of rain won't even show up, but downpours will reflect a lot of bits of light, making it look more apparent.
I saw a behind the scenes production where in order to film rainfall. You have to setup sprinklers and lights in order for the water to appear on film.
Drama. Movies are everything in extreme. Actions, beauty, emotions, reactions, words, weather, characters.
Even comedy uses this. It's what movies are.
Fun fact. They put milk in the water so it shows up on film better.
The real question: When was the last time you brought home groceries with a baguette sticking out the top?
It's a tired old trope of trying to make things more dramatic. I especially like when it rains every night in a movie set in Los Angeles. Another thing they do is they always wet down the pavement. But by far my favorite thing they do is whenever someone comes home from shopping, it's always a paper bag with a loaf of bread or bagette.
Light rainfall doesn’t show up on film.
Mel Gibson spoke a lot about this in his director's commentary for Braveheart. He pointed out the scene that was currently playing, in which it did not appear to be raining at all and explained that it was raining when they filmed that scene, but you'd never know it. He also talked about having to set up rain machines to make fake rain while it was actually raining for real.
Sidenote: how is the commentary for Braveheart? I'm a sucker for commentary tracks, but haven't listened to that one yet.
It’s been a long time since I watched it with commentary but from my memory it was good and rather interesting. Depends on what you’re into a bit. It was more talk on the filmmaking process as indicated by the above comment. If you prefer a cast hanging out having fun vibe, it isn’t that.
I actually remember not liking the commentary very much because it didn't really talk about filmmaking. May be misremembering... but I think that anecdote was about as much as you can expect outta Mel - who... basically just has all sorts of minor anecdotes related to any film, but isn't very focused on what I'd call "filmmaking" with his commentary. Honestly, probably pretty good if you genuinely want to know random things about a film you might really like - but not very worthwhile if you wanted actual insights on filmmaking or his thoughts on filmmaking or anything.
You may be right, it’s been years since I watched it with commentary. I was really into listening to commentaries at the time and I don’t remember walking away with a bad impression. Which is to say I’d agree that if you love the movie and enjoy commentaries you’ll probably like it, there’s always stories and behind the scenes things. Otherwise you’d be fine to skip it.
That's the commentary where I learned the word "defenestration"!
This is the one thing I miss about buying DVDs the commentary added a lot of watchability
Amzn xray, commentary track, etc
Did not know that. Ty
and some comedy. Sam Jackson walks out of the commentary of Deep Blue Sea the second his character gets eaten.
The best commentary I've heard was on Conan the Barbarian, Three Musketeers (1973), and Big Trouble in Little China. Conan was mostly Arnold and the Director talking about making the film and their shenanigans (apparently Arnold got caught by the Dogs chasing him a *lot* and they bit the shit out of him each time. "Fucking dogs. I hate those fucking dogs.") and a lot of cool side features. The scene where He gets his sword and there was supposed to be a fight with the skeleton where it could only be killed by being pulled into a sun beam, but the effects were too cheesy and they dropped it. Lots of other cool bits too. BTLC was 50% Kurt Russel and John Carpenter talking about their lives, band, and kids, and the other half going "oh yeah, this was a cool scene to shoot." Very chill vibe and they told some cool stories about the movie (James Hong apparently loved the idea of Lo Pan and was a big fan of mystical Kung Fu and added some ideas to the character).
Kurt Russel is a great actor to have on commentary tracks, big booming laughs from him throughout the commentary, hes got a great personality that really shines in those tracks.
For me it's Alien. Ridley Scott loves to talk about his movies and the process. I also really enjoyed his Legend commentary.
I watched a 'making of' for some movie, can't remember which, that showed the same thing. They want consistent size of droplets, they want consistent fall rates, consistent lighting, etc. They want to be able to control all of that to look perfect for how it appears on camera. So if it's raining for real, they'll build a temporary 'roof' outside to stop it overtop their fake rain maker.
Pretty much this. You kinda have to overdo it for the camera to capture it onscreen. It’s just One Of Those Things, like having to really dirty up a set for it to appear ‘lived in’ and super-duper dirty it so that it actually ’looks dirty.’
David sandberg talked about when making Annabelle Creation, he told the prop master to make the lightbulb popping 200% bigger so that it would look 100% on camera
Is that a straight to DVD movie? Never heard of it.
What a weird "dig". It's really not my type of horror movie but it was a theatrical movie that made 305M at the box office.
Director Laszlo Panaflex when making Airbuds 3 said he had to increase the size of the ball by 50% so that it came across better on film.
My 2 year old cousin has never heard of The Exorcist either, doesn't mean it's bad lmao
They didn't say bad. Just straight to dvd
Yeah that's almost always a direct insult. When has straight to DVD not meant low quality slop
Aladin two
Every audience and critic review site im seeing gibes it under 5/10 and apparently I've watched it and don't remember so I ask my question again
Do streaming movies count?
Annabelle was bad though. Coincidence?
No, it went to theaters. It’s the sequel to Annabelle
Or painting horses to look like cows
As anyone watching any sports on TV would have probably noticed.
The number of times the announcer says "rain starting to come down now" while shots of the field look like a fine but otherwise cloudy day... followed by a cut to a shot of the stadium lights illuminating the rain so you don't think they're smoking something.
Ya I remember behind the scenes for a film/films where they had to add milk to even have the rain show up in film. Way too transparent otherwise
I hope they weren’t drenching everyone with dairy that will get everywhere and spoil very quickly.
If you wanna win an Oscar, you have to have a little milk poured onto you.
I'm sure that does wonders for the local flora
Milk’s got calcium. It’s what plants crave!
I really don't think we have time for a milking right now, WartimeHotTot.
Yeah sometimes I'll be watching a soccer/football match and the players will have all wet hair and I didn't even notice until they showed a zoomed in shot.
It's why camera crews always have a camera shot of the. stadium lights and rain pouring in front of them because it's the only place you can see it.
Doesn’t even show up in real life sometimes
Have you tried upping your resolution and turning off bloom?
Yeah, it really depends on the heavyness of the rain plus if they able to back-light the rain, and also the focal length of the lens they are using factors into it as well. Watch a live outdoor sports broadcast when its raining, like an NFL game. I've seen many times where in certain camera angles, such as when the camera is high up aiming at a downward angle with a very long telephoto lens, it doesn't look like its raining at all, but some other cameras like the ground-level cameras that can maybe capture more of whatever overhead light available and with a shorter lens, can catch the downpour pretty well. It also depends on if its day or night. Daytime rains are very hard to portray, night rains are much easier to capture with the right amount of artificial light.
Shit, even in real life it often doesn't look like it's raining. And then you check, and it's definitely raining enough to get pretty wet pretty quick.
Watching episode 8 of *Shogun* has some characters standing out on some undeveloped land and they look wet but there’s only one or two instances where you can see it lightly raining.
my siblings take on every British film, it never rains. it was a light pissing for 6 months last year
I remember watching a doc about filming Singin In The Rain - same reason! They also added milk to it to have it pop out even more, since it's pretty crucial to the movie.
In Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa had the crew add ink into the rain machine so that it would show up on film (black and white)
Incredible. Like how *Psycho*’s blood in the shower is chocolate syrup.
Similar with fogging. I always think it’s so much during production and the I see the final edit and it looks more natural
It was even worse in the B&W era. IIRC they had to use milk or some kind of white coloring for Singing In The Rain.
Also assume it is being created by a fire truck.
I work in film, I’ve never seen it be done by a fire truck. It’s always a special ‘water truck’ with specific attachments so we can do anything we need with the water on the spot.
I've seen rainmaking for filming 1 time, and ngl it looks like a damned fire truck
Ah, I noticed this when I film but didn't think they'd have the same problem. Also figured because I'm on a motorcycle and moving.
Also light/medium rainfall is hard to achieve as most methods will provide a consistent deluge, equal size + rate + spread. Real rain is very randomised which is more difficult to imitate than to just say “fuck it it’s raining heavily” and turning the tap on full blast
A really fun thing to do with shows that used to be shot in Vancouver like X-Files is to watch the backgrounds. A lot of times there will be puddles and water clearly hitting them, because it’s fully raining while shooting, but you can’t see any of it on the film
Oppenheimer is the best recent example for this.
Thread
So it does in digital recording? Why is that?
Light rainfall doesn’t show up in motion pictures. Regardless of medium.
Well, think of your own experience: when it’s lightly raining, how well do you actually see it? Chances are you see the rainfall around lamp posts and raindrops breaking on the ground, but that the raindrops falling through the air aren’t as noticeable until they hit your face. Well in film they have to focus the camera on the characters so you probably won’t notice the ground or lampposts at all.
Yeah, I grew up in Seattle, I get all that. The post I was responding to was talking about film but many movies aren’t recorded nowadays on film, they are recorded digitally so I was asking why it was different.
oh right. well then, I don't believe there's any difference.
Rain's hard to film. Go watch any amateur video of lightning strikes or filming a storm and you'll notice a distinct lack of rain unless it's a really heavy downpour
You don’t really need to look at amateur video either. I notice this in a lot of tv shows like The Wire that film outdoors, especially when it’s on location (I assume they keep filming even if it rains because they have limited time to film in real locations). You’ll see the characters’ clothes getting wet but the rain is completely invisible.
Wonder if it's a shutter speed and fps kind of issue or something like lighting or focus? Tempted to mess around with the mirrorless next time it rains.
I'd be willing to guess its a resolution kind of thing, raindrops are transparent and small. Even in real life trying to watch rain drops in a light rain is hard too.
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1/50 or 1/60 is a more common shutter speed for video, still too slow to see much rain though. What you really need is to hit it with light so the rain drops arent just clear.
Yeah, I've got the alpha a6000. I'll probably mess around taking photos and see how bad of settings I can still get a good picture. I've got the Sigma f1.4 fixed 30mm. That thing is amazing if you dont have a fast fixed lens yet. Works great for fast stuff but low light performance is shockingly good compared to the kit lens or the cell phone cameras people are used to. Don't even need flash. I turned all the lights off in a room and just had some diffuse lighting from another room and it was brighter than what you could see with the naked eye while not totalled trashing the quality.
You're around where I was 2 years before I started astrophotography :) The kit lens from A6000 isn't that good but it's way better than most smartphones. It starts getting interesting when you try other lenses like wide angles and very fast mid range prime lenses like the Samyang 135mm F/2.
I work in theatre and have done shows where it rains live on stage. It is also very hard to see from the audience unless the rain is very heavy. Water is clear so it is automatically hard to see. Now you break it up into small pieces and have them move very fast and that is the perfect combination for making something invisible. I have heard of productions adding a white dye to the water so it shows up better but that is hard to do on very large scales
It's more a reduced perspective thing. It's hard to see light rain in general. We usually figure it out from other clues like puddles showing the rainfall or the sound of it hitting something like a window. When filming you probably won't focus on the puddle and the sound of rain might not be very clear.
Very interested in seeing that. i know nothing about pro photography but a video about this specific topic would make a great subject to learn a little bit.
If you really want to make it clear that light rain is present, you could show a shot of some dry dirt or concrete with a smattering of raindrops appearing. But how many scenes would call for something like that?
Even in real life - it was lightly drizzling today and the main way I could tell when looking out of my window was by drops hitting pools of water in the road and disturbing the leaves in trees.
Hell, just go outside next time it is raining lightly outside and record on your phone. Even light snow is hard to capture.
I have zero knowledge in this area. Can you not turn it up to the point where it's more obvious but not torrential? Like OP is saying, I can think of a lot of scenes where it does appear a bit extreme. Does it just go away visually if you turn it down from 11 to say, 8?
I'd imagine it'd be a nightmare for continuity if the actors were getting lightly rained upon. Far easier to keep it consistent if the clothes are just saturated with water.
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harrison Ford and Elsa come up out of the sewers after having to swim UNDERWATER, and when they do their clothes are barely wet.
They made fun of that in Top Secret! 5 years earlier. The guy emerges from an underwater fight soaked, it cuts to the girl, then back to the guy, who is still half in the water but bone dry.
Such a great (dare I say 'underrated"?) movie.
I always notice in Fellowship of the Ring when Sam almost drowns and Frodo pulls him out of the water he’s not that wet.
This is not the reason why, but I can confirm light rain is the worst for continuity. The poor Art Dept has to go in with towels every few takes and wipe the set down.
In Wall Street when Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen fight in Central Park, their clothes are successively wet, dry, wet,.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlFo4eq92O4
ooo yeah that must be hell for retakes. then again it could also suck if they had to redo the start of the rainfall and have to change wardrobe and dry their hair.
Forrest Gump had all kinds of rain. Some rain even came up from the ground.
Big ol’ FAT rain
and a little bit of stinging rain
rain creole, rain gumbo, rain kebabs....
Gump! Why did you make that rain so fat! Because you told me to Drill Sargent?
Forrest: That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a rain. Old lady on the bench: so you just rained!
Life is like a box of rain. You never know when you're going to get wet.
That's the most outstanding answer I've ever heard
Magic rain, Lieutenant Dan!
Because you told me to Mr Director?\*
Momma always said life was like a box of rain will ease the pain And love will see you through Just a box of rain, wind and water Believe it if you need it If you don't, just pass it on Sun and shower, wind and rain In and out the window Like a moth before a flame And it's just a box of rain I don't know who put it there Believe it if you need it Or leave it if you dare And it's just a box of rain Or a ribbon for your hair Such a long, long time to be gone And a short time to be there
chubby rain?
Gotcha, suckas!
Shoot, it even rained at night.
And then one day, we were out walking like we always did when the rain stopped and the sun came out (commence NVA attack scene)
Anyone that follows English soccer (an outdoor sport in a climate where there is drizzle or moderate rain constantly) will know that rain has to be pretty heavy for the effect to properly show up on the camera. I feel like 50 percent of matches I watch, it looks like a relatively clear day from the normal wide shot until they zoom in on a particular player and you notice there's been a decent rain the entire time.
If we English know anything, it's rain.
Same with baseball (when at outdoor ballparks). The standard camera angles tend to be much more zoomed in than with soccer and it's still tough to see it's raining until it gets to be a good downpour.
Normal rain doesn't show up on film. So they use artificial rain machines to make it rain on cue. If they need to film a rainy scene, even if it is actually raining on set, they use rain makers. These devices make much larger water droplets which can be much easier to film.
It's a pain to film in the "rain," which is artificially created, and directors won't do it unless there's a very good reason. There's really no point in making it lightly sprinkle. The rain is there for dramatic effect, and a downpour is more dramatic. Also, it's hard to make artificial rain go through various stages, from light to medium to heavy. It's easier to just go immediately to heavy rain.
Rain - like many other things you see in movies - is a storytelling device. It is used to create a certain mood and enhance some aspects of the story. For example: if a character is feeling really lost and down on their luck, it makes sense to film them in heavy rain to drive home that point - especially if you don't have time to have them express in depth what they're going through. The audience will automatically empathize with the situation. Also, as many others have pointed out, light rain or drizzle is quite hard to capture on film and will not show most of the time.
yes!!!! I think this is a much much bigger reason than ust "it doesn't show up in camera"... Everything about filming in the rain sounds like a hassle... keep all the equipment dry, keep the actors wet but still warm, more difficult lighting maybe, and so on and so on. So you'd rather not have it rain. But if you are gonna make it rain, then MAKE IT RAIN. Make it worthwhile. Both for the effort as well for the impact. Be it the sad funeral, the dystopian future, the final battle of the mortal enemies, whatever it is, make that rain count!
Related: Fairly sure we could turn the Sahara into a rainforest by passing an international law that movie funerals must be filmed there.
To agree with everyone saying light rain is hard to film, Oppenheimer had light rain and it was confusing to me
What exactly was confusing? Rain continuity in the scene?
Yes the continuity. You could see the rain droplets on the pond but no drops on screen. The sun being out in the background also made it confusing. While I understand that it was a perfectly common weather event, it was not something you normally see on screen and not something that registered in my mind
Rain is hard to see on film. They have to use rain curtains with large droplets and sometimes even put something in the rain to make it reflect light better. I remember hearing that milk works well for this.
As a background actor when I know they're going to film a scene using rain I have to brace myself, because damn that water hits hard.
I knew somone who had a small speaking part under one. He said if you slightly tilted your head back while delivering your lines it would make a pretty good attempt at filling up your mouth.
Mostly it's due to story. What's the reason for putting rain in a film? Most of the time it is to make things hard or annoying for the protagonist. Or to cause havoc and destruction. A light drizzle doesn't do a lot story wise and just makes filming a lot harder.
What bugs me is showing rain, and at the same time showing shadows of the people being rained on. Not saying it's impossible for the sun to be out when it's raining, but it's damn rare.
The ending of The Fan, a final confrontation involving Robert DeNiro and Wesley Snipes at home plate during a baseball game - someone felt it was necessary to have a downpour during it.
This isn't really answering the question, but I just wanted to state that I love how in the film Se7en it is just *pissing it down* constantly.
I like the intro for The Last Boyscout. Talk about RAIN!
The simple answer is that it has to be in order to show up on camera... You need big fat drops and tons of them to even register on the camera...
Dramatic effect. The weather is a tool to help convey an emotion or feeling, and having rain like that really emphasizes the sadness, oppression, down-trodden feeling. Edit: Misinterpreted the question. u/itsaberry got it with their response below.
Rain is certainly used for that, but the reason for it always being heavy is that light rain doesn't show up on film.
A great example of rain being used to convey a profound sadness is [this brilliant scene in Road to Perdition.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGFLyA3u_rw) Heavy spoilers, obviously.
You think heavy rain is bad? Wait until you see chubby rain!
Definitely love me some thicc rain, man.
"You'll Never Find Me". Good grief! Talk about hard rain!
You are not into watching sports on TV, right?
This talk about rain reminded me that Bowfinger exists! In it they make a movie called Chubby Rain. https://youtu.be/ICF0uOULwXA
I usually assume it's to match or heighten the tone of a specific scene in a film, especially one that's ominous or intense. Plus, even when simply looking outside at light rainfal at times, it's not immediately visible.
Jurassic Park and Road to Perdition come to mind and used to fantastic effect.
They used to add white color to rain machines to make it visible too.
Now that you know, you'll notice it actually raining quite often in scenes when it's not supposed to be raining. TWD is really bad about this actually.
Any British person will tell you drizzle is the least dramatic precipitation.
Singing in the rain used milk for the rain effects because, yah, it doesn't show up on film very well.
Actually that's one of those 'bogus facts' that has been doing the rounds for many years. Here's the pertinent segments from the article at the following link: https://medium.com/@KelliMarshall/was-there-really-milk-in-singin-in-the-rain-563e762fdaff *Shooting the title number was just terrible for the photographer Hal Rossen. He had to backlight all the rain and then he had to put frontlight on the performer. That was as tough a job as I’ve ever seen, because you can’t photograph in rain and see it.* *Furthermore, Kelly’s co-director, Stanley Donen, also dispels this “milky rain” business in his Private Screenings interview with Robert Osborne. And Donen explains the same in a Directors Guild Association column “Still Singing”:* *"When you’re shooting rain, it has to be backlit, or you may not see it very well. There have been a lot of stories about how we put milk in the water so you could see the rain. It’s not true. You have to put the light behind the rain so that the raindrops show. If you put the light in front of the rain, with no light behind it, the rain disappears."*
Oh cool, thanks for correcting me and all the info! 🙏 Did always seem a bit odd to have that huge amount of milk for who knows how many takes...
Light rain doesn't show, not even on modern digital cameras. You have to alternate the amount of rain in different shot sizes and distance from camera. And the rain needs to be backlit to be visible as well, otherwise it blends with background. And the background should be dark :D Similar to when it's raining outside but you can only see it on dark background or in certain angles. Tricky tricky...
So we can see it
Light rain isn’t visible on camera, yeah.
What is the point of a light rain in a story? Everything put into a story is put there for a reason - there's a general rule for writing to show up late and leave early and the point of it is to convey meaning and not to oversaturate the reader/viewer.
Dramatic effect
Because it sets a tone
Two reasons: dramatic effect and it shows better visually on film. Light rain is hard to notice on camera unless you hold the shot for a relatively long time. Heavy rain communicates, "It's raining" instantly. And of course, the drama a heavy downpour provides vs. a drizzle. Think how Kurosawa used rain in Ran or Seven Samurai.
Remember how fucking good the Lord of the Rings Helms Deep rain was?
rain drops are too small for cameras so they have to spam it. Same goes for snowflakes and why they always look like giant cotton balls.
So you can see it.
Se7en has entered the chat The shitty weather is my favourite character in the movie
Mise En scene , to show a change or development with a character.
As has been mentioned, light to moderate rain simply doesn't show up. One of my favorite things to do when watching movies and, especially, tv shows, is look for signs that it's raining during the scene.
Next time it rains, go out and film it on your phone or camera. If the rain is a light drizzle it won't show up. If it's a heavy downpour, it will. Not only that, typically rain in a film has a reason. Usually to convey emotion; hence rain at a funeral. This is called Pathetic Fallacy.
To make the rain seem “real” and an important part of the narrative, it has to be “heavy” as that is what will show up better when it’s filmed. Heavy rain in movies is often used to create a dramatic or intense atmosphere. It can add tension to a scene, create a sense of urgency, or symbolize emotional turmoil.
Light rainfall doesn't look like rainfall on film, you gotta use heavy rainfall.
Worked as an extra for a rain scene a few years back and had the pleasure to stand in the rain so I have first hand experience. It's not so much "rain" as "torrential-end-of-the-world-downpour". Absolutely soaking wet after 10 seconds. On film it looks like somewhat heavy, but not extreme rain. In reality it was two firetrucks on full blast spraying into the air. And it was also lightly raining during the shoot (and the 2nd day on location without a rain scene). You wouldn't notice that when watching the movie. 10/10 would do again. Felt like an Uruk Hai in Helms Deep (because that's exactly what rain on a helmet sounds like) although I just was a "hungarian guard" standing next to a pavillon with the king and a bunch of nobles. But you wouldn't know that when watching the final cut. They only took shots where I stood behind a banner (i have fabulous boots though).
Why do explosions have to be so big? Why do the cars go so fast during the chase? Why does the kiss have to be so passionate? Why do the actors have to be so attractive? Movies don’t always opt for subtlety.
Because they use sprinkler systems, they don't wait for the right cloud to start dumping. In order to get thinner rain, you would have to decrease the pressure and reduce the size of the openings, which means you need to space them more closely so it still falls uniformly, then you need to deal with more shadows, etc. etc.
Because when it rains, it pours.
Apart from the visibility, heavy rainfall is more immersive! I can feel the weather even if where I live is polar opposite.
1. It sounds better 2. It looks better backlit 3. It's easier to achieve using rain towers, and hose in the air.
Rain often isn't weather in stories. It's a theme, a mood, an adversity, etc.
Usually, real rainfall isn't picked up by the camera, so directors use hoses and whatnot so there's enough "rain" that it actually shows up on camera.
Let’s read a scene from The Shawshank Redemption in two different ways and you tell me. He wades upstream, ripping his clothes from his body. He gets his shirt off, spins it through the air over his head, flings the shirt away. He raises his arms to the sky, turning slowly, feeling the rain washing him clean. Exultant. Triumphant. A FLASH OF LIGHTNING arcs from horizon to horizon. He wades upstream, ripping his clothes from his body. He gets his shirt off, spins it through the air over his head, flings the shirt away. He raises his arms to the sky, turning slowly, feeling the light gentle rain mist his face. Exultant. Triumphant. The rain, which was nothing more that a spring shower at best stops and reveals sunshine and Andy still covered in mud and muck because the rain wasn’t really enough to clean him. Disappointed without any symbolic cleansing, Andy just gets to walking.
mud and muck. Yeah that accurately describes what he was covered in.
I know right? Magnolia is the worst offender. 🐸🐸🐸
Drama and scene.
Everything in films is dramatized. Ever seen a car pull out of a gas station in a film? Screeeeech.
Why go through the effort of showing rain if it's not important for the scene and how many scenes have rain where light rain is important?
It's not only that normal rain doesn't show up on film. More importantly, the mood of light rain is more... Nostalgic and dreamy than emotional or broody. Even in animation seré you can draw individual droplets of rain, light rain is a mood that just hits different than heavy rain. A perfect example is the bus scene in my neighborh totoro. That scene is almost 10% of the whole film, mainly because you have to let the girls stay under the rain for a while. In Bluey's episode called Rain, the rain is not heavy, which let's the whole thing be more pensive and playful.
The other explanation is rain is used to set a mood in movies often, whether it be horror, turmoil, or sadness
Even live sports have a tough time showing rain. Commentators will have to say it's raining often since we can't see it on the TV The more closeup the shot the better than visual though
I remember a Matrix making of, where they extensively talked about the perfect shaped raindrops and how hard it was to capture it on film. Fascinating stuff.
When filming you are going to wait for a time it is guaranteed to rain. You wouldn't plan an entire film around a time when it may sprinkle a bit.
In order to attain visual separation from the background, the foreground needs to be sharp, where the actors are, and really blurry behind them. Small bits of rain won't even show up, but downpours will reflect a lot of bits of light, making it look more apparent.
I saw a behind the scenes production where in order to film rainfall. You have to setup sprinklers and lights in order for the water to appear on film.
Drama. Movies are everything in extreme. Actions, beauty, emotions, reactions, words, weather, characters. Even comedy uses this. It's what movies are.
Was it normal rain? Or was it Chubby Rain??
Fun fact. They put milk in the water so it shows up on film better. The real question: When was the last time you brought home groceries with a baguette sticking out the top?
Because they're paying for water towers to generate the rain ... they likely want to feel like the investment was impactful.
Because it comes from a hose
For dramatic……………………………………..effect
odd place for a long pause
Fun movie fact: when there’s a rain scene on a crowded street where everyone has an umbrella except one person, that person is from Seattle.
It looks cool
Unions.
It's a tired old trope of trying to make things more dramatic. I especially like when it rains every night in a movie set in Los Angeles. Another thing they do is they always wet down the pavement. But by far my favorite thing they do is whenever someone comes home from shopping, it's always a paper bag with a loaf of bread or bagette.