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Originally posted by dreamoftheiris

Hey all I have a shoot coming up and a lot of it takes place at night.

I hate day for night and think it looks ridiculous. I was wondering if any of you guys knew any tricks for DIY moon light?

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Well, like with any set, your lighting should be motivated by something that is either in frame or "could be" just out of frame. For the most part, the night is NOT lit up by moonlight, even when it is full. If your characters are out in the woods far from electric lights, then your lighting could be motivated by some kind of fire (campfires, mob torches, flashlights, car lights). If your characters are "in town," then you could motivate the lighting from streetlamps or cars or window lights.

Lighting at night begins to look obnoxiously fake when blue is overused. Night really doesn't look like that, even in full moonlight, so there is no reason to light it that way.

If there is absolutely NO motivating practical source for light and all you do have is moonlight (as a motivator), then consider using a bluish light to rim as a backlight, but key with a more natural "white" light as you would in the daytime.

Of course, if you are that far out in the wilderness that you need to light characters at night, your bigger issue will be lighting the entire set behind the actors. The challenge becomes lighting LARGE areas which is difficult for anyone, even when they have a studio budget to work with. That's one reason why Day-for-Night is used... pure economics. You could rent a MUSCO truck and light up a very large area (for about $5,000/day), but it would be from only one direction, so you'd have to fill from the other side of the set with something else while keying your actors with smaller units.

And whatever you light your actors with in the foreground, the LEVELS have to match whatever the footcandle levels are in the background or else your exposure (on the key) will render the background too dark.

With this issue of exposure ratio, you're dealing with A) the background light level that you may or may not be able to affect depending on your budget B) your key level on actors that has to be close to whatever the background level is and C) the ability of your camera/lens to record an exposure at low light levels without introducing unacceptable amounts of grain (film) or noise (video).

Shooting at night is a tricky thing with a lot of variables to think about.

You might try posting this question over at cinematography.com or on the discussion lists at cinematography.net for more thoughts and opinions.

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

This will depend upon your story and all, but I've seen a sort of night vision goggle effect used as shorthand for night. Personally I thought it worked better than day for night. But if your story is a medieval fantasy epic it might be weird.

RJSchwarz

You might try a lighting balloon too. Something like this:

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

Lol BJdzyak if I had the budget, I'd definitely try one of those balloons.

I recently tried some day for night in Final Cut using color corrector. It didn't turn out too bad so I think for ease we will try this out.

However, some shots will have to be shot at night due to actors availability. In this case, we do have access to a generator and some LED worklights which we will use. I also have access to photo flood lights which emit a daylight color temperature.

Would using this daylight bulbs be effective?

quote:

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Originally posted by dreamoftheiris

Lol BJdzyak if I had the budget, I'd definitely try one of those balloons.

I recently tried some day for night in Final Cut using color corrector. It didn't turn out too bad so I think for ease we will try this out.

However, some shots will have to be shot at night due to actors availability. In this case, we do have access to a generator and some LED worklights which we will use. I also have access to photo flood lights which emit a daylight color temperature.

Would using this daylight bulbs be effective?

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The color temp of the light doesn't really matter so long as you use the appropriate film stock or white balance your digital camera correctly for the light. A Daylight balanced film stock will render the 5600 light "white" and the same for white balancing a video camera.

If you do NOT use a daylight balanced film stock or do not white balance for 5600, then your image will appear more blue than it should.

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