Fantasy moonlight

[Jan Kielland]

Hi

 

I'm shooting a short on super 16 200T and I want the nightime scenes to have this really dark blue filling up the space.

 

What I would like is the blue they got for many of the nightime scenes in Edward scissorhands or some of the nightime scenes in Harry potter

 

 

I have a 2.4 HMI and CTB gel

 

can I create this ambient blue I want with these gels? How much do I put on?

 

 

Also

 

what kind of gel did they use for the background of this daytime Harry Potter shot?

 

 

All replys are much appreciated

Edited September 8, 2006 by Jan Kielland

[David Mullen ASC]

An HMI used for moonlight is pretty blue-looking on tungsten film. If you want that effect, make sure you shoot a grey scale under white (tungsten) light before the shot lit with the HMI.

[Jan Kielland]

Some of the other students on my course used the HMI for moonlight and I actually found it a bit to pale blue looking on its own. I want a darker blue.

 

 

What do you mean by shooting gray scale tungsten first?

[David Mullen ASC]

Some of the other students on my course used the HMI for moonlight and I actually found it a bit to pale blue looking on its own. I want a darker blue.

What do you mean by shooting gray scale tungsten first?

 

It's pretty darn blue if underexposed for a moonlit look -- exposed fully at key, it would get more washed out. But moonlight would be more than a stop underexposed, if not two stops underexposed, to look like moonlight, and then the color will be darker and stronger.

 

Most people remove half the blue by adding 1/2 CTO (orange) to the HMI for moonlight scenes.

 

You really should shoot a grey scale under white (ungelled tungsten) lighting -- exposed normally -- at the head of the roll, before the shot with the underexposed HMI moonlight, or a timer making a print or a colorist doing a video transfer could easily correct out most or all of the blue. They need a neutral reference in order to judge how blue the light is -- if the first thing on the roll is blue-lit, they might assume it's supposed to be neutral, white light.

 

This is something you just have to test.

[Jan Kielland]

Thanks for your help David!

 

For lighting the talent I've gathered that tungsten with 1/2 blue and a pale green would look nice, is that right?

 

Do you have any coments on the Harry Potter daytime screen shot?

Would a quarter CTO look nice at all?

 

If I had the money I would have gotten some more gels, unfortunatly gels are not the top priority of our budget...

[Jan Kielland]

one other thing

 

could I use a full pluss green instead of a pale green? or some other green gel?

[David Mullen ASC]

Remember that if a scene is all lit with one colored effect, you can adjust the tone / shade in the video transfer or print, so you can have a blue-ish moonlit scene and add some green, cyan, or more or less blue later in post, or a white-lit day scene and make it more golden in post.

 

Often when I want a warmish transfer of a scene, I shoot the grey scale under a light gelled light blue (like 1/4 CTB) and then shoot the scene under white ungelled lights. Or outdoors, I shoot the grey scale with a pale blue filter on the lens and then remove it for the scene. The timer will adjust the transfer to make the blue-ish grey scale look neutral and thus shift everything that follows in the opposite direction towards the yellow/orange.

 

But if you want to mix colors, then you have to use gels most of the time, like a 1/4 CTO on a light coming through the window for a warm sunlight effect, but white light in the foreground.