i just use the day for night technique by putting it through blue filters and various lighting adjustments. what software do you use?

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But a film? Well, thats worth a thousand pictures."
-(Own3d Studios)-
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Hi thanks for the reply. I use Premiere to edit my work.

The lighting you use depends on what you need the project to look like. "Day for Night" never really works as well as one would like for a variety of reasons, so the best thing to do is to shoot night-for-night.

Having said that, it can take a significant amount of light to illuminate a large area. Professionals use very large units, like MUSCO trucks or 15 and 20K Tungsten lights. Another popular method in the past few years has been to float a balloon that has a light in it or you can bounce light off of it. Any method you choose will require a few large units or many smaller ones AND that of course means having significant amounts of power (usually provided by a generator).

As a suggestion, if you (or anyone reading this) has any real lighting or camera questions, feel free to register and post a question at http://www.cinematography.com. Do a search first, though, as most issues already have current or past discussions on the forum.

However, here are some links to your topic:

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/index.php?showtopic=34310&hl=night
http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/index.php?showtopic=29602&hl=night
http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/index.php?showtopic=29466&hl=night
http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/index.php?showtopic=28077&hl=night

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com

Hello, forgive my ignorance but I'm fairly new to this. My question is for Own3dStudios. I'm intrigued about Day for night technique. Would you or anyone explain a little further. What do you mean by "blue filters?" where do you use these? Thank you.

Peace

quote:

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Originally posted by atenasaori

Hello, forgive my ignorance but I'm fairly new to this. My question is for Own3dStudios. I'm intrigued about Day for night technique. Would you or anyone explain a little further. What do you mean by "blue filters?" where do you use these? Thank you.

Peace

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Light can be measured by temperature. Daylight is typically measured at around 7000K. Tungsten is typically around 3200K.

The theory is that if you are shooting a night scene, if you make the light look "blue" (to imitate daylight) by using Tungsten balanced film, and daylight balanced lights (using blue gel on tungsten units or HMIs), then it will look more like the light you see at night. This comes from the idea that moonlight, which is really just reflected sunlight, is blue, so you should make your image look blue too. I'm not personally sure that when I walk outside at night that everything has a blue cast to it, but filmmakers for years think that this is a way to indicate "night" to audiences.

The trick to day-for-night is to darken the sky using a polarizer and control the light on your talent so that it doesn't look like there are any hard shadows that could be caused by hard direct sunlight. That's it in a nutshell. DOING it so that it looks "real" isn't so easy. Polarizers typically work only in one direction in the sky (as they bend the light from specific angles) and no matter how well you control the light on your talent, you likely can't control the sunlight that falls on the background as well.

Day-for-night should be your fallback technique as it is rarely believable and difficult to pull off correctly especially if you do not have the resources necessary.

Again, for detailed information about cameras and lighting from working professionals, check out www.cinematography.com and www.cinematography.net.

Good luck!

Brian Dzyak
Cameraman/Author
IATSE Local 600, SOC
http://www.whatireallywanttodo.com

and if your just looking to adjust the film in post i suggest first setting your white balence on your camera to Tungsten, then in post you can put it through a color correcter and bring up the contrast.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But a film? Well, thats worth a thousand pictures."

-(Own3d Studios)-

www.own3dstudios.com

Thank you Brian and Own3dStudios for all your help!!

Peace