Shooting at night time in a wide open area

[Louis]

Hello everyone. My name is Louis and this is my first topic here. I have a challenge that I'm having trouble with, and any feedback will definately be helpful. I have to shoot a scene in front of a dock in the middle of the night, so it will be night time and there will be very little in the way of available light. Shooting day for night is not possible, because it needs to appear empty, and night time is better for that. I'm gonna be using a fast film like the 500T from Kodak and shooting in color, and I am already aware of the fact that a high contrast between foreground and background light is the way to make night time look like night time, but I'm having trouble actually creating a lighting technique for the scene. One idea I had was to light actors from above with 5600k lights, and have little sprinkles of light in the background. Any other suggestions?

[Michael Nash]

Pick your camera angles where you see some distant lights, like streetlights and building and such. Try to edge-light or as you suggest top light you actors. If you put too much front light on them or light them too brightly, you lose that feeling of darkness.

 

I'm not sure where you got the idea that a high contrast between foreground and background is was makes nighttime look like night; it's more created by the amount of dark areas in the frame. Building up the light on the foreground too much just makes it look artificially lit, and darkens the available light in the BG if you have too much exposure in the FG.

 

Really, you're usually better off keeping your foreground as DARK as possible, and build up edgelight and backlighting if your subjects are getting "lost" in too much darkness. Then you can start to add more frontal light and side light to reveal detail like faces, but still erring on the side of underexposure.

 

You'll probably still need to light up strategic areas in the background, but again don't go for "perfect" exposure. Instead aim for shadow patterns and side-light where possible. If the light has to be frontal due to logistics, try to break it up with shadows and keep it underexposed.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Agree with Michael. Try to light the setting, not the actors. Create depth, silhouette agains lit backgrounds and so on. Night lighting can be very tricky, but it can also be very easy if you're not afraid to be a bit stylised. If you can't light with big backlights from afar on huge cherry pickers, create pools of light in the background or light facades and buildings like they used to do in the old days.

 

Although Road to Perdition is no low budget feature, Conrad L. Hall was a master of this technique - creating small unmotivated pools of light and refelections in the background to create depth. Very beautiful. Also check the older film Jennifer 8 from Connie which has some simple yet brilliant night lighting.