The Cinematographer’s Least Favorite Light
‘Midday Matte’ is a wry, slightly derogatory slang term used by film crews to describe the notoriously difficult and unflattering quality of light that occurs when shooting outdoors around high noon. During this period, the sun is directly overhead, creating a harsh, top-down illumination that is the enemy of beautiful cinematography. The ‘matte’ part of the name is likely ironic; while a matte in visual effects is a tool of control, midday light is wild and uncontrollable. It creates a flat, high-contrast, and deeply unforgiving look that cinematographers spend a great deal of time and effort trying to mitigate.
The Problems of High Noon
Shooting under the midday sun presents a host of aesthetic and technical challenges:
- ‘Raccoon Eyes’: The high-angle sun casts deep, dark shadows directly beneath an actor’s brow bones and nose, creating an unattractive ‘raccoon eye’ effect that obscures their most expressive features.
- Extreme Contrast: The difference in brightness between the sunlit highlights and the deep shadows is often too great for the camera’s sensor to handle. This forces the Director of Photography to choose between ‘blowing out’ (overexposing) the highlights or ‘crushing’ (underexposing) the blacks, losing detail at either end of the spectrum.
- Flatness: The overhead light eliminates the modeling and texture that comes from side-lighting, making faces and landscapes appear flat and one-dimensional.
Taming the Sun
To combat the ‘midday matte,’ the grip and electric departments must employ an arsenal of light-shaping tools. They will often erect large overhead frames with diffusion fabric (known as a ‘butterfly’ or an ‘8-by’) to act as an artificial cloud, softening the direct sunlight. They will then use large white or silver reflectors (‘bounces’) to bounce that softened light back into the actors’ faces, filling in the harsh shadows. This entire process is a labor-intensive effort to recreate the softer, more pleasing quality of light that occurs naturally during the magic hour at the beginning and end of the day.