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Author
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Topic: Night Lighting
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jollyjr
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posted 12-20-2000 12:29 PM
Some friends and I are making a short that involves shooting at night. Need help deciding how to light the scene. Thought about trying to do it in-camera, and also rigging some lights with a makeshift blue filter, but just wanted to know if anyone else had any other ideas about how to do it.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. |
sketchman
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posted 12-20-2000 01:47 PM
i recommend shooting day-for-night so you don't need to set up as many lights. shooting at night, regardless if it's film or video, will yield awful images.
just put a blue filter (i used a promaster 80a) on your camera and bring the exposure down until it looks dark enough (if shooting video... for film, i just bring it down 2 full stops, without compensating for the filter factor). also, i try to light everything evenly, because at night there shouldn't be any shadows, unless there's a strong source of light, like carlights or a full moon.------------------
Monkey Sea Entertainment
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Moviemakers Portal (moviemaking-only search engine) |
Gamecat
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posted 12-20-2000 03:05 PM
I always find in night lighting that what you want are pools of light, around the main action points. |
ADOM
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posted 12-23-2000 05:43 AM
The truth is that if your night scenes actually look like the world really does at night noone will like them. Day for night or filtered lights with higher concentrations on your actors are the ways to go.ADOM PS For an example of how Hollywood has poorly faked darkness check out Gone Fishing (I think that's it) with Danny Glover and Joe Pesci. There is a scene in a "dark" cave where Pesci is holding a flashlight. The only problem is that the cave looks like any street in the middle of the day and noone would need a flashlight. |
Gamecat
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posted 12-23-2000 10:37 AM
I HATE day for night shots. They are hard to do properly and therefore almost never done properly. They end up looking silly. High contrast ratios with pools of light on main subject areas are the way to go in my opinion. |
Fastlou
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posted 12-24-2000 12:11 AM
I agree Gamecat, I would rather shoot at night too.
However, when we're talking about being out in the woods or someplace remote, as a low budget filmmaker I have to figure out power, lights, generator possibly.
Shooting during the day you can avoid all this.
Right now my dillema is whether to put on a filter and notch down the f-stop during the shoot, or do it in post. I figure if I do it live, then I will have to live with whatever I get, but if I do it all in post, I have more chances to get it right. Any suggestions or preferences? |
Smiley Films
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posted 12-24-2000 03:30 PM
or film it just when it starts getting dark and lower the exposer a tad |
multimedia light & magic
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posted 12-24-2000 11:12 PM
at dusk, smiley?it's especially good in the winter cuz it gets dark at like 5 olcok for a while.  |
ADOM
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posted 12-26-2000 04:14 AM
If you're equipped to add filters and change F-stops in post, by all means do it in post. Doing it live and getting it wrong will mean reshooting. It's hard enough to get unpaid actors to show up once, but if you have to reshoot a scene you may never see them again.ADOM Early dawn gives off a nice light too, but only for about 45 minutes around here. I remember in Ireland in May it was twilight for hours. Great for shooting at night. |
Fastlou
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posted 12-27-2000 03:28 PM
What I meant by adding it in post would be using something on my computer to make changes to it. Since I am waiting till my work bonus to finish the computer I don't have premiere yet to know if it will do what I am planning. I assume I can lower brightness and use color filters and things, but I don't know if it owuld be as efective as doing it in camera. |
ADOM
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posted 12-28-2000 02:43 AM
I've shot "night scenes" all four ways.
1. Actually at night with access to plenty of power for lights---looks most real and isn't that hard to set up.
2. Actually at night with limited access to power and lights------looks real, but in a reality TV crappy kinda' way. Not really an option ever again.
3. Day for night in camera-----always looks twilighty and was hard to match from one location to another and as the day went on.
4. Day for night in post using partial fades to darken the entire scene or add tint---was easier to keep consistent level of "darkeness", but still always looked more dusk or dawn than true night.I hope this somewhat answers your question. ADOM |
Fastlou
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posted 12-28-2000 11:49 AM
That is good to know. I don't think for what I am doing at this time true night is an option (no lights or power for lights) so it sounds like getting the best shot possible during the day and then tweaking it in teh computer would work best. You comment on it being hard to match from shot to shot when doing it in camera sold me on that technique. Thanks for the advice. |
