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shooting "Day for Night" or shooting at night?


Lee Tamer

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Mr. Mullen, thankyou so much for your help

 

About the 575 HMIs that you mentioned,

 

its this, correct?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/102982-REG/Arri_512365_Arrisun_12_Plus_HMI.html

 

Sure, but there are older 575w HMI's, or a Joker 400 or 800 HMI could work too -- but you might not even need that much light unless you want to rake the whole backyard with it, if it is just some weak blue light falling through the windows, then a 650w or 350w tungsten with some blue gel might be enough, one for each window. Or a daylight-balanced fluorescent or LED-type fixture.

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Sure, but there are older 575w HMI's, or a Joker 400 or 800 HMI could work too -- but you might not even need that much light unless you want to rake the whole backyard with it, if it is just some weak blue light falling through the windows, then a 650w or 350w tungsten with some blue gel might be enough, one for each window. Or a daylight-balanced fluorescent or LED-type fixture.

 

Could I get away with a daylight balanced Kino/Diva? If I used a Kino would I gel it to match the practical lights inside?

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Could I get away with a daylight balanced Kino/Diva? If I used a Kino would I gel it to match the practical lights inside?

 

If you are using them to create some blue moonlight, you'd use Kino 55 tubes (daylight) outside the windows and light the interior with tungsten. If you were using them inside for a tungsten practical look, then you'd use the Kino 32 or Kino 29 tubes. Or get a set of both daylight and tungsten tubes for the Kino.

 

If you had a 75 post discussion about this already on another website over something this simple, my suggestion is to just go ahead and shoot this and learn something rather than get bogged down in theoreticals. At some point you have to use these lights to know what to do with them, you can't learn all of this just through reading posts. Go find a cheap light kit, anything, and play around with it.

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Hi Lee & all:

 

I want to help you lee in your problem, but my advice may be useful to you in outdoor scene if it required in your project.

My advice is an android app, helps you to get lucky with sunlight called "SunPhos".

 

Here its description:It is designed as an aid to Cinematographers and Stills Photographers who needs to plan a day around the constantly changing character of sunlight. It provides you with valuable information like day length,sun rise & sun set, golden hour, twilight and more. In addition to that you can select the location where you would like the sun to be in specific place by tapping on the map and SunPhos will provide you with the time when the sun will be there.

 

It's an amazing app really, know more about it: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.symbyo.suntracker&feature=search_result

 

Hope it will be useful to you :)

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Here are some tests ...Any thoughts?

 

I personally believe that in night scenes you should always combine color temperatures in the frame. You can shift your overall color balance to the cool side to create moonlight, but without a white light or warm light reference in the frame, your audience will subconsciously adjust and filter out your moonlight effect. Putting white light in the frame gives your audience a reference point and a color effect like moonlight stands out in contrast to it . It doesn't need to be much - just a dim light in the room behind your father or a streak of light across the foreground as if coming from another room.

 

- Guy Holt, Gaffer, ScreenLight & Grip, Lighting and Grip equipment sales and rentals in Boston.

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  • 2 years later...

img7323lc.jpg

 

Here's my location.

 

One actor will be standing in front of the table. The other actor will be standing next to the kitchen island. I plan to keep the lighting simple. Im hoping to get away with only using the light above the table (raising it up higher) and using the light above the kitchen stove. There is a florescent light fixture above the island but I dont want to use it at all because of the mixture of lights. The fixture is turned on in the picture.

 

I plan on blocking off the screen door and the two windows. There is also a large window coming from the dining room which I will block off.

 

 

Could I get away with only using these two lights?

 

You can do a lot in post.

 

Here is a good grading starting point for your location. Just make sure you have sufficient sunlight coming through the windows. etc. Take care of highlights in the grading, as they can fade quickly and look muddy.

 

img7323l1c.jpg

 

Jens

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You can do a lot in post. Here is a good grading starting point for your location. Just make sure you have sufficient sunlight coming through the windows. etc.

 

img7323l1c.jpg

 

 

 

Post grading day for night doesn’t work in IMO. Blue moonlight is a theatrical convention that has become cliché in film lighting. Another drawback to post grading is that by necessity the color tinting is overall so it lacks color contrast. Finally, while crushing the blacks creates an underexposed look, the source of highlights are still obviously that of an exterior source (the brightness of the curtains, the sheen on the table from the sliding doors, the highlight on the refrigerator) and so the contrast in brightness is all wrong for a night interior. For example compare the post grade above to the night interior below lit by Barry Sonnenfeld from “Millers Crossing” :

 

Millers_Crossing_Example.jpg

 

This scene from “Millers Crossing” is not underexposed, but rather the exposure values in the scene are balanced relative to a proper exposure so that most of the scene remains dark but serves up the full contrast range the medium is capable of without the need for overall color tinting to create the effect of a night interior.

 

There are a few tricks, all of which are evident in this shot, to lighting a night scene. They are as follows:

 

1) Edge light objects in frame. Use reverse keys for talent and underexpose flesh tones by at least two stops or more. As long as you define the contours of your subject with subtle underexposed edges, don’t be afraid to let your talent fall off into black. There is a scene beautifully lit by James Merifield in the “Deep Blue Sea” of Rachel Wiesz and Harry Hadden-Paton standing in a dark alley way. They are back light by a practical at the end of the alley. Their contours are defined by the rims motivated by the practical, otherwise their flesh tones fall off to complete shadows.

 

2) I personally believe you should always have a hot spot in a frame – a practical in the scene or something in the deep background. You can shift your overall exposure in the camera or in post to create a dark scene, but without a hot spot reference in the frame it will lack contrast and look underexposed. A hot spot in the frame serves as a reference point and creates contrast. Practicals should be close to clipping and appear to be the source of light in a scene.

 

3) Don’t try to light your talent with only practical’s because they will blow out – the hot spot in your scene has to look natural. Not only is supplemental lighting required to light your talent, but you must also treat the practicals to make them look realistic. I find that practical lamps never look convincing unless one treats the lampshade as well as boost the bulb wattage. That is because if you stop down to keep the shade from burning out, the output of the practical, on the table it sits on or the wall its on, looks rather anemic. I find you get a more realistic look if you boost the wattage of the bulb and line the inside of the shade with ND gel. It is a delicate balance to obtain.

 

You can obtain this delicate balance without a monitor, by using the old school method with incident and spot meters and a selection of practical bulbs including PH 211, 212, and 213 bulbs. Years ago Walter Lassaley, BSC, instructed me to balance practical’s such that an incident reading of the direct output one foot away from the bulb is one stop over exposure. I have found that rule of thumb gives a realistic output to the practical - the light emitted downward onto the table top and upward onto the wall or ceiling is realistic. After establishing the practical’s output using an incident meter, you then use a spot meter to determine how dense an ND gel is needed to line the inside of the shade so that the shade does not become too hot.

 

4) Define the edges of your frame with a little detail. As long as you define the edges of your frame with a little detail, as Sonnenfeld does here, you can leave most of it black without it looking under exposed.

 

5) Soft sources like China Balls and Kinos are the wrong kind of fixtures for this kind of scene. You will need fixtures that you can easily control because you will need to cut them off large parts of your set. It will be hard to keep china balls and Kino Flos from spilling light all over the place and filling shadow areas that you want to keep dark. Fresnels with light diffusion inside the doors, cut with flags and nets, will give you the control you need.

 

Guy Holt, Gaffer, ScreenLight & Grip, Lighting Sales and Rentals in Boston.

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IMO the best approach to lighting a night interior is to use “motivated reverse key lighting.” That is the quality (color temperature and hard/softness) and placement of a light is motivated by a source (practical or window) in the scene that is down stage of the talent. In this approach, the camera shoots into the shadowed side of the talent creating contrast and a low-key effect. The reverse key position also creates a third dimension to what is essentially a two dimensional medium by means of subtle graduations of light and dark in the scene.

bose_woodshp_sm_wspicframehor.jpg

Dramatic motivated reverse key lighting for a Bose spot.

 

Since your fixtures are generally downstage of the talent in this approach to lighting night interiors, some rigging is involved. A lot can be done quickly with “wall busters,” 2x4s, and inexpensive deck framing hardware. For example, while not a night interior per say, we created a low key dramatic lighting effect for a Bose spot, transforming a flatly illuminated woodshop into a scene with warmth and contrast, with nothing more than 2x4s and deck framing hardware.

 

bose_woodshp_sm_wsinteriorgridshor.jpg

A grid constructed of 2x4 lumber will enable you rig a light in the optimum position for motivated reverse key lighting

bose_woodshp_sm_wsinteriorgridhousehor.j

bose_woodshp_sm_grid_com_2_hor.jpg

A baby spud on a 2x4 joist bracket will enable you to inexpensively rig a light to lumber.

bose_woodshp_sm_grid_com_3_hor.jpg

2x4 joist brackets will enable you to quickly construct a lumber grid capable of rigging a light anywhere overhead.

bose_woodshp_sm_wsmirrorexthor.jpg

 

We used the “big budget” approach of Speed-Rail Wall-Busters, Speed Cs, and Speed-Rail Pipe to create low-key reverse key lighting for a party scene on another Bose spot.

boseparty_sm_picframehor.jpg

boseparty_sm_gridwshor.jpg

boseparty_sm_pipebusteralthor.jpg

boseparty_sm_speedchor.jpg

 

With the right equipment, time, and a little ingenuity there is nowhere that a good grip can’t put a light – so don’t let your mind’s eye be fettered by gravity.

 

Guy Holt, Gaffer, ScreenLight & Grip, Lighting Rental & Sales in Boston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hey Guy! Howaya.

 

Good examples and stills, however, keeping in the phraseology of day for night, you said downstage for upstage...!

 

Hey Charles! Thanks for the correction. I always mix those two up. To put it another way, in reverse key lighting the key light is on the opposite side of the talent from the camera.

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