shoot day fo night exterior

[firdaus]

i want to shoot ext. scene in town with day for night technique....

i will use 16mm but i dont know wich ASA better for this technique and

what i have to prepare to make it???

 

thank's very much to help me solve this problem..

 

best regards

 

 

firdaus

Edited August 30, 2008 by firdaus

[Adrian Sierkowski]

If it's day for night, the slower the ASA the better as the less ND you'll need in front of the lens. Part of the "effect" is the shallow DoF you'd use when shooting night for night. . .

[firdaus]

If it's day for night, the slower the ASA the better as the less ND you'll need in front of the lens. Part of the "effect" is the shallow DoF you'd use when shooting night for night. . .

 

if i shoot with ASA 50D then when i read in my lightmeter f-stop 11..

i use nd 9 to make my t-stop normal is 4..

 

better i shoot in t-stop normal or i underexposed??

if i shoot underexp. how much -stop??

 

thx

[Adrian Sierkowski]

For these things testing is quite important, but yes, you want to underexpose. The question is to what degree. Wikipedia mentions this:

 

"Day for night, also known as nuit américaine ("American night"), is the name of a cinematographic technique to simulate a night scene. Mainly intended to avoid costly (and technically challenging) night filming, outside scenes can instead be shot during the day, with special blue filters and under-exposed film to create the illusion of darkness or moonlight. Lighting the characters two to three stops more than the background also helps the effect, but doing so requires powerful lights to compete with the sun. Many of the night scenes in the film Jaws were done this way.

 

While this technique has largely disappeared owing to advances in film technology and increasing viewer expectations, it was recently used in the 2007 film 28 Weeks Later, due to the impossibility of shooting in an entirely dark London.

 

Interior day-for-night shooting can be more time consuming and labor intensive. Grips need to cut all the daylight entering onto set. If the scene is "blocked" or staged away from windows or other openings to the outside, the light may be simply blacked out with cloth or plastic sheeting. However when windows or doors are seen from camera, these openings must be "tented" to allow some exterior dressing to be seen.

 

While never fully successful in creating "realistic" night, the special visual style of the American night nowadays has many fans among historic movie buffs, thanks to its frequent use in early B-movies, Westerns, and film noir. Day-for-night shooting seems to have become more common in recent years which goes against the trends of a decade ago."

 

 

However, getting your people 2 or 3 stops brighter than the background (which is what you'd underexpose) is probably outside your means (else you could light up night for night!). What I would recommend would be underexposing the image for around 1 and 1/5 stops to 2 stops but keeping the talent a bit up and hit with slightly harder light, have them only go under by around 1 stop. A blue filter will really help. If memory serves, Tiffen makes a day for night filter already, but I have never used it.

Another option would be to use Tungsten stock without fully correcting it for daylight balance, such as can be achieved with an 81EF filter, which will 1/2 correct.

If you can't get your hands on some negative stock to test, you can mickey-mouse it with some still film just to get an idea of how negative will react to under-exposure, but I strongly suggest testing the stock you'll be using.

[firdaus]

For these things testing is quite important, but yes, you want to underexpose. The question is to what degree. Wikipedia mentions this:

 

"Day for night, also known as nuit américaine ("American night"), is the name of a cinematographic technique to simulate a night scene. Mainly intended to avoid costly (and technically challenging) night filming, outside scenes can instead be shot during the day, with special blue filters and under-exposed film to create the illusion of darkness or moonlight. Lighting the characters two to three stops more than the background also helps the effect, but doing so requires powerful lights to compete with the sun. Many of the night scenes in the film Jaws were done this way.

 

While this technique has largely disappeared owing to advances in film technology and increasing viewer expectations, it was recently used in the 2007 film 28 Weeks Later, due to the impossibility of shooting in an entirely dark London.

 

Interior day-for-night shooting can be more time consuming and labor intensive. Grips need to cut all the daylight entering onto set. If the scene is "blocked" or staged away from windows or other openings to the outside, the light may be simply blacked out with cloth or plastic sheeting. However when windows or doors are seen from camera, these openings must be "tented" to allow some exterior dressing to be seen.

 

While never fully successful in creating "realistic" night, the special visual style of the American night nowadays has many fans among historic movie buffs, thanks to its frequent use in early B-movies, Westerns, and film noir. Day-for-night shooting seems to have become more common in recent years which goes against the trends of a decade ago."

 

 

However, getting your people 2 or 3 stops brighter than the background (which is what you'd underexpose) is probably outside your means (else you could light up night for night!). What I would recommend would be underexposing the image for around 1 and 1/5 stops to 2 stops but keeping the talent a bit up and hit with slightly harder light, have them only go under by around 1 stop. A blue filter will really help. If memory serves, Tiffen makes a day for night filter already, but I have never used it.

Another option would be to use Tungsten stock without fully correcting it for daylight balance, such as can be achieved with an 81EF filter, which will 1/2 correct.

If you can't get your hands on some negative stock to test, you can mickey-mouse it with some still film just to get an idea of how negative will react to under-exposure, but I strongly suggest testing the stock you'll be using.

 

 

ok thank's very much about your answer...

i will try that way.

thank's

 

 

firdaus

[Scott McClellan]

As an additional note- shooting on an overcast day sells the day for night effect much better- nothing says daylight like pronounced clouds and deep, sharp shadows. If you have to shoot on a clear but cloudy day try and avoid seeing the sky as much as possible. Also, since you are shooting in a town remember that things like street lights, window INTs, etc will not be visible. There are lots of good and helpful threads on this site for shooting day for night. Just do a search and see what you come up with.