Shooting in Bad Weather

Weather is one of the few things on a location shoot that nobody controls. A schedule assumes a certain sky, temperature, and amount of wind. When the day does not match, the production has three options: wait, work around the weather, or use it.

These eight commentaries describe each option and what it cost. They also show a problem that weather creates after the fact. Once a scene has been filmed in a particular condition, every later shot in that scene has to match it.

§1 Use what the weather gives you

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind production arrived at a beach location and found it covered in snow overnight.

The production stayed, and half of the scene was shot on the snow-covered beach. The commentary describes the result as better than the plan, and notes that snow on a beach is an image audiences rarely see in films. Cancelling would have meant returning to New York without the scene.

Peter Greenaway made the same choice on The Draughtsman’s Contract when morning mist covered the location.

Waiting would have produced the planned image. Shooting in the mist produced a different one that suited the film’s interest in the English landscape. Using unplanned weather works when the new condition fits what the scene is about.

§2 Accept what it does to the performance

Wind affected a scene in The Return of the King in ways nobody planned.

The wind made Christopher Lee’s work harder and changed how the scene looks. The filmmakers kept it because they liked the natural quality the movement gave the scene. The decision had a consequence years later.

Once weather is part of a shot, it becomes a continuity requirement. Pickups filmed in a studio three years later had to recreate the same wind with machines, with Lee delivering new lines into them. Using the weather on the day committed the production to reproducing it for every later shot in the scene.

§3 Keep shooting when you cannot wait

Waiting for better weather costs days, and many productions do not have them. The Dr. No commentary describes filming in Jamaica during an unsettled season.

The commentary adds that director Terence Young had to get a great deal done in the time available. A production that cannot wait has to plan scenes that can absorb changing light and rain, or accept some inconsistency.

James Mangold describes a hailstorm late in the 3.10 to Yuma schedule.

Mangold moved the sequence’s close-ups indoors and kept the camera below the windows so the world outside would not appear. The close-ups could be filmed immediately, using the part of the location the storm did not affect.

§4 Watch continuity between takes

Rain that comes and goes creates a continuity problem even when filming continues. The Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem filmmakers describe a lucky day.

The rain stopped for the takes and returned between them. If it had fallen during some takes and not others, shots from different takes could not have been cut together without the change showing. Weather that varies during a scene has to be tracked as carefully as costume or props, because the editor will need shots that match.

§5 When you need weather, make sure it shows

Sometimes the problem is the opposite: the scene needs rain and the production has to create it. Paul Davis describes a rain scene in An American Werewolf in London.

Film does not record light rain well. Rain has to be heavy, and usually lit from behind, to show up on screen. The production’s rain machine produced rain the camera could not see, so a crew member stood out of frame with a fire hose aimed into the air. The solution was crude, but it put the rain in the shot.

Created weather can also be defeated by real weather. The Phantasm filmmakers needed heavy fog for a scene on a road.

Outdoors, wind would have carried the fog away between takes, and no two takes would have matched. Building a small section of road inside a warehouse gave the production a space where the fog stayed where it was placed. When an effect depends on still air, the only reliable location may be one with a roof.

§6 Questions when the weather changes

These accounts suggest five questions:

1. Does the new weather suit the scene? Eternal Sunshine and The Draughtsman’s Contract used snow and mist that fit their subjects.
2. Can the production match it later? The Return of the King had to recreate a windy day in a studio three years afterward.
3. Can the schedule afford to wait? Dr. No could not, and filmed through inconsistent weather.
4. What can be shot without the sky? 3.10 to Yuma moved its close-ups indoors during a hailstorm.
5. Will the weather match across takes? Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem needed rain to stay out of every take, and Phantasm moved its fog indoors so the wind could not change it.

Weather changes the plan, but it does not have to ruin the day. The productions that handled it well decided quickly whether to use it, avoid it, or wait, and kept track of what that decision would require from later shots.