MattHawkins Online - Film Making Forum

so here's my problem: in a movie, I need to get an undead man raising from the water at night. Now everything's ok with this; my camcorder isn't great but i'll film at day and make it look like it's night.... which should work, BUT, 2 important elements in the story is both his pipe and a lantern... how could I get it so that the lantern and the pipe's embers stay bright? I thought about actually filming at night, but I'd see two dim spots of light and nothing else except a grainy mess... I thought about filming it at night and flooding the character with light, but then, the embers and the lantern's light would be lost! I also thought about adding the light of both the lantern and the pipe in post-pro, but I don't have the slightest clue how to do motion tracking (I use sony vegas 6.0)

what should I do? please help me out!

If I was doing this shot I'd create two layers in After Effects or Combustion or something, and colour correct both of them (making one dark blue and one bright orange) and then use masks to select which areas need the right colours by hand

Saying that, I doubt a pipe and lantern would stay lit if they'd been submerged!

didn't watch scooby doo much huh? Not sure, maybe if you shot it just before one of the two golden hours (early morning or evening) as the sun is right below the horizon. You'll get the light from it, but not the brightness.

If you're going to day-for-night it, shoot when the light is fairly low anyway, not broad daylight, and, vitally important, remember to underexpose your camera a few stops. Blown-out whites are the biggest giveaway to day-for-nighting.

I'd certainly be doing some tracking/roto or other post work to bring the stuff you want light back out after the grading process. I can't help you with Vegas; I do all of my post work in After Effects. If you read up on the topic sufficiently beforehand you might be able to get the work done with the 30 day trial.

ok... film it at the perfect hour... like 5-8.. where its getting dark.. then you
ll get perfect light, and darken it more in post

Ornsack's ideas the one that pleases me the most, I'll try that... I just need to find out how masks work with vegas...

and the undead is more a ghost than a zombie, so the weirder the better

Try with backlight or side-back light and maybe some smoke (no flooding with light - it doesn't fit to horror). You'll get silhouette of undead.
Use electric bulbs instead real embers and lantern to get stronger light.