Night Time lighting

[Zac]

Hi, im thinking about making this movie but most of it is at night time outside, but if i filmed anything with my camera it would just be too dark to see anything. i noticed how on actual feature films they have shots at night and you know that its pitch black or very dark and yet you can see pretty much everything. could someone tell me how to achieve this lighting affect.
thanks.

[mickcar73]

i think they do it by having a huge bright light , then they float it up in the air in a clear colour baloon type thing (which is huge) so id say it takes alot of money / equiptment to pull off. I had the similar problem filming my new film which is 20% outside at night aswell. i just tried to use halogen torches , car headlights and places that are all ready half let up by hidden streetlights etc

[ctbullet]

just have white light behind your camera facing the actors faces, lights up fairly well

[wildstorm]

Yeah have a bright light off in the distance about 20 to 30 feet high to simulate the moon light and if it to brighten up the actors and the area too much then you can just adjust the brightness in whatever software you use to edit or add effects.

[OutcastJiob]

Wildstorm is correct. And you should always err on the side of overlighting, rather than underlighting (in my opinion), because it's easy enough to darken footage in post, while underlit footage is going to be grainy and awful, regardless of what you do to it in post.

[wildstorm]

The lighting effect particularly looks good when your in the woods filming. You get this creepy feeling.

[Bodysnatcher]

for night time shots outside, I have used a car inspection Halogen lamp that plugs in to the ciggy lighter, loads of cable, and with the headlamps on you can adjust lighting from the side with the inspection lamp.

[rhys]

I did lighting in premiere pro, but seeing as you have lost the disk and cant install it onto your new computer i guess you cant, but if you find it here is what i did:
Changed the hue/saturation so it was slightly blue and i desaturated it until it was a little gray,
then i played with the darness levels and moved it down a little, it turned out alot better than i expected, then again, doing it for real would rule!

[Kentertainment]

For me I would simply find locations that are well lit at night then add a filter to the color you want it. Location scouting is a very useful step in the filmmaking process. When Gyro and I are planning on making a movie we head out location scouting almost every weekend.

[Zac]

yeh, except the location pretty much needs to be in my backyard. cos if they've just run out of the house their not goin to end up in some park or street or something like that.

rhys, i did not lose the disc, IT WAS YOURS! remember? we installed it off it wen you came over.

and finally, what excactly do you use for a white light, are there torches or lights that you can buy specifically white or what? (to you this is probably a stupid a** question but i'm not a genius about film making and stuff)
thanks

[wildstorm]

Hell, you can use those motion sensor flood lights. They are pretty bright. You can get them at Walmart (if you have a Walmart) or some hardware store.

[Kentertainment]

Well now that you mention it is taking place in your backyard a flood light would work fine. Are you trying to make a backlight brighter or trying to create the effect of the moon?

I used a flood light (as wildstorm said) in one of my movies and it looked fine, check out http://kentertainmentpicts.tripod.com the trailer on the main page at minute mark 1:22.

If you plan on making it the moonlight, I'd suggest using less lighting and adding a bluish filter to the film in post-production.

[Zac]

Nah, i dont want to make everything just lit up so it's bright, yeh i suppose you could say i want the effect of the moon, its just that even if its a full moon and you can see everything with your own eyes my camera will just see black (its only a mini dv).i was meaning for the look thats in hollywood or whatever movies that you can see the characters and stuff but theres still shadows and a sense that it really is actually quite dark, if you know what i mean. if you dont then go watch a movie with a/and or lots of night scenes, i would recommend "Underworld". (kick-a** movie, plus i think the whole thing is at night)

[aaronv2]

Realistically since you wont have the money or time for lighting you shoot your scenes in the day time and color grade and change the levels to make it look like night time. This is a well practiced technique called "Day for Night"

from wikipedia
(In the early days of cinema, before the invention of the lighting systems used, such scenes were filmed "day-for-night"; that is, they were filmed during the day, and the film was "corrected", either with a polarized lens on the movie camera, or via a variety of post-production techniques.)


Its basically underexposing your footage and a little thaught and planning for the post work and color.

http://www.cineshare.com/columns/techni ... rnight.htm

[Ornsack]

For Shosk we lowered exposure and gave everything a blue tint. It looked more like early morning but it certainly doesn't look like the middle of a sunny day.