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Day for night advice please


John Milich

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Hi again. So I shot the first part of our little project which was a moon lit scene. Thank you David Mullen, Phil Rhodes, Travis Gray and Guy Holt for the invaluable advice you've provided me on prior posts regarding this project. The end result for me anyway, was exactly what I was after.

 

I now have to shoot the last part this weekend which has a Sheriff walking up a driveway to the door of a house. This is supposed to be at night. We do not have the equipment or budget to light up a street at night, so I'd like to shoot this in the day. There is also a dialogue exchange once at the door with the person inside the house, which would be under tungsten porch and foyer lighting. To do this, would I balance the camera to 3200K? Which would obviously blue up the outside light. Then play with the colour after in post?

 

Thanks

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If I'm doing this correctly in my head (and on the fly), you could go even more blue by adding CTO (Full maybe?) to your tungsten and balancing at 2700, or whatever the camera perceives as the new white. That way you could at least get closer in-camera before post.

 

Now, the amount of light outside vs. nighttime is a different beast all together...

 

-j

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The problem with this is having the light inside the house appear realistically brighter than the exterior, which it would of course be at night. Pumping enough light into the inside of the house to achieve this may be as difficult as lighting the exterior, and that's assessing the situation just as a sheer quantity of light problem. Doing that and making it look pretty will be even more difficult.

 

Given the high sensitivity of modern cameras, have you revisited the idea of actually shooting it at night? Day for night is difficult even under ideal conditions.

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I never thought of that. The porch scene I was hoping to shoot at night. I can actually light the porch. It's the walk up to the house that was the concern. Was going to use a glide cam, but can't pull focus on it so I was hoping to use a smaller aperture to keep focus.

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Why not make this much easier. You shoot the sherrif walking up the driveway at night as well. For lighting, you motivate based off of the car (i am assuming s/he has a car) headlights, maybe using PAR64 VNSPs to cheat them. They walk up rimed by the car headlights, to the porch where you can light easily. Pars have a pretty long throw.

Or you can fake a street light or a security light off of the house and have the car pull up and the guy walk through some light; then cut to the porch ect.

 

DfN isn't super easy to do in a situation such as this for the reason Phil mentions.

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The scene is up in Northern Ontario cottage country. Houses are spread out, lots of trees, no street lights so it's no suburban area. It's quite dark at night. The shot was supposed to be an over the shoulder of a Sheriff walking up the driveway using a glide cam set up following him. There is no car. The shot was holding on the house. I was going to use a sound effect of a car rolling up a gravel drive way, door opens and closes, then he walks into frame, and he's followed up to the door where the dialogue between Sheriff and home owner take place. It was to take place right at the door, with porch lighting, and the house interior light on as well. My dilemma was with the glide cam and focus. Perhaps I'll just nix the glide cam shot and go shoulder rig so I can keep the focus at f2.8.

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Day for night exteriors around a house would only work if moonlight was the only light source in the scene, no porch lights, no window lights (unless you are prepared to put 10K's and Maxibrutes inside every window when viewed from the outside), and then you'd want to use a lot of ND to shoot at f/2.8 so that you didn't have a lot of depth of field, which is one of things that makes day for night look fake, so that doesn't solve your focus pulling problems. Plus you can't really mix a day for night shot with a bunch of night for night shots unless you can light up the night work to almost daylight, lots of blue moonlight everywhere so that it almost looks like day for night.

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Hell w/o showing the car it'd make my life a lot easier. I'd just make very bright car-headlights. Or you could go with a silhouette against the lit up porch. Or you could "make" a street-light (like those sodium vapors a lot of farms happen to have, if it's period appropriate and aesthetically pleasing.) just spitballing here.

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I have an ARRI 650, 150, and a 1k to play with. I may fake the shed light or stay fairly tight and try moon light with the 1k and CTB. Here's the house. scene takes place under the overhang with the white pillars. I couldn't fit the whole pic but the driveway is quite a bit longer

post-62396-0-58415700-1382737971_thumb.jpg

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That's a beautiful house, and offers quite a few placed to put lights. Have you thought of throwing the 1K through one of those windows (and probably the 650 as well) to throw a shaft out onto the driveway?

Hmm, no I didn't. Would that be realistic, to have that much light pouring out of a window like that? I know it would look good as the light could be shaped by the blinds and what not. I also want to be able to kick the actor off the black sky, and be able to justify the light. Or am I over thinking this? I was kind of thinking to put that 1k up high just off to the right side of that white down spout on the right of the photo to hopefully throw some moonlight across the porch. But I also realize that may not be a good idea seeing as the whole yard would probably be flooded with that kind of light, and I don't exactly have a Musco truck.

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I mean; realistic in reference to what? Of course no one really has 1Ks in their living room shooting out of a window-- but then again; how often are people rim-lit by the moon with a glisten in their eye? Realistic is all well and good, but at the end of the day it's all about what is believable in the world of the film.

 

I'll give you a great example of something I've shot. Once I was filming a kid on an MX red, and the scene was the kid sitting on the bed, so I threw up a 1.2K HMI through both windows, one in front of him, and one behind him. The one in front I threw through the lace curtains, and the one behind we put through a little opal on a 4x4 frame. Now when you looked at it in the room, it looked like the planet had 2 suns-- but when you're looking at the shot in the monitor, it looks good. Now I know there's "2 suns" in this room, as does the gaffer and the dir ect, but I don't think anyone in the audience ever noticed, nor cared-- certainly no one I showed it to ever asked me "hey why did you have two sources like that?" We often "cheat" reality quite a bit so long as people are engrossed in the film they're not going to start dissecting the shooting so long as it flows.

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I mean; realistic in reference to what? Of course no one really has 1Ks in their living room shooting out of a window-- but then again; how often are people rim-lit by the moon with a glisten in their eye? Realistic is all well and good, but at the end of the day it's all about what is believable in the world of the film.

Good point. And to that I guess it's the eye that sees it so bright, not the lens. I do like the idea and will play around with it. Thanks for the advice

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So my shoot went well. After seeing it, there are some things I would have done differently, i.e kicked a bit more light off the back of the subject to create more background separation. All in all it worked out well. On an earlier post, it was mentioned to expose a touch under for scenes like this. I've pushed and pulled exposure with film long ago, but digital scares me a bit. Would you get a good night lighting result by exposing spot on, then playing with it in colour correction with software such as Colorista II by Red Giant? I exposed this recent project about 2/3 under overall and it yielded good results. Just wondering what you guys do.

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Depends on the camera a bit. Some of them do better with over exposure than others-- but since you can normally see what you're getting i find it best to judge by eye and temper by experience-- e.g. get it lit to look good, and then go hmm.. meter says I should be at a F4, but that looks too bright; so i'll maybe close down a stop and a half.

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Depends on the camera a bit. Some of them do better with over exposure than others-- but since you can normally see what you're getting i find it best to judge by eye and temper by experience-- e.g. get it lit to look good, and then go hmm.. meter says I should be at a F4, but that looks too bright; so i'll maybe close down a stop and a half.

Right now I'm shooting on DSLR with a 7D and T2i. I actually did come across the scenario you mentioned, where the meter told me one thing, but it looked a little bright on the LCD display. My question is, how accurate are the on board displays? i know once the footage is viewed on the computer, it's vastly different from monitor to monitor. I tend to trust my meter, it's given me great results especially since the one I use has the software to calibrate it to the cameras sensor/lens combination, and It displays midtone measurements. By using this midtone information I know if I'm to far one way or the other regarding exposure, as the cameras dynamic range is displayed right on the meter. I remember well, shooting on the ARRI BL 16mm a long time ago, and obviously then, all you had was the meter to go by. I tend to treat the digital realm, at least on DSLR the same. Maybe I'm not making full use of the technology as it stands today.

Edited by John Milich
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No, I think you're on the right path. Personally, I do about the same most of the time. I don't really trust monitors, and much prefer my meter. And then it's down to your experience. That all said, there is an expression i've come across recently which I find quite fitting for this type of stuff-- that the onboards are generally "good enough for government work." What I take it to mean is that if you assume the monitor is the worst possible viewing condition you have-- and normally it is on set-- then if it looks "Ok" there it'll also look "ok" in more ideal situations. But you can't control, obviously, for ever variable an mis-set tv or PC out there so I think it's all about making the most informed judgement you can based off of what you have around you-- meters, monitors, computers for DIT station, and just having done it day in day out for awhile.

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  • 3 weeks later...

What we often do in the Netherlands is: mount two equal lights (2k's, or 1K's or Parcan's, or anything) as the headlights of passing cars on a Western Dolly or a Wheelbarrow or anything that moves nicely. Find an angle that makes it logical that cars pass there without actually coming across in the rear of the frame.

Have your Best Boy fast-walk a steady course for practically all the night.

 

You have extra backlight on occasion, not every time, but thanks to walkie talkies you can have it when you really need it.

 

Sound effect of passing cars right from the start + this effect will make sure the audience is used to it BEFORE you really need it.

 

Many Greetings from Amsterdam,

(and excuse me if my English is not rock solid all the time …)

 

Wob

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Sorry all, my fake headlights thing was meant for a genuine night shoot only.

 

Day for night shooting is always hazardous.

In the Netherlands practically impossible because we almost always have a lot of clouds during the day.

(As we all know: if you see obvious clouds in the night, something is wrong. There are a thousand-and-one examples for this blatant mistake. One of them is the fun scene in LIFE OF BRIAN where John Cleese as the Roman Centurion teaches Brian to spell properly in Latin when his night watch catches Brian…)

 

All crew members hate night shoots, and understandably so. They all to the same job they were doing if it was day time.

But lighting crew and camera crew, they should have a ball !

Night shoots is so much fun !!

 

Thanks for having me here !!

 

Wob

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The problem with this is having the light inside the house appear realistically brighter than the exterior, which it would of course be at night. Pumping enough light into the inside of the house to achieve this may be as difficult as lighting the exterior, and that's assessing the situation just as a sheer quantity of light problem. Doing that and making it look pretty will be even more difficult... Day for night is difficult even under ideal conditions.

 

Day for night exteriors around a house would only work if moonlight was the only light source in the scene, no porch lights, no window lights (unless you are prepared to put 10K's and Maxibrutes inside every window when viewed from the outside), ... Plus you can't really mix a day for night shot with a bunch of night for night shots unless you can light up the night work to almost daylight, lots of blue moonlight everywhere so that it almost looks like day for night.

Phil and David are spot on about the difficulty in shooting something like this day-for-night. But I am surprised that no one mentioned the option of shooting the wide establishing shot dusk-for-night and then doing the close coverage night-for-night. The advantage to shooting dusk-for-night over day-for-night is that you can incorporate set practicals like window or porch light, car headlights, or even streetlight or moonlight raking the side of a building in wide establishing shots. But in order to get the balance right requires the right location and careful planning.

 

The key to success in shooting dusk-for-night is choosing the right location. To get the subtle separation of the night sky from a dark horizon, you don’t want to shoot into the after glow of the setting sun. Instead you want to find a location where you will be shooting into the darker eastern sky. After the sun has set, you have maybe a thirty-minute window of opportunity to shoot the wide master so you have to have everything planned out, rehearsed, and ready to go.

 

In order to get the balance right between the practicals and the ambient dusk light in the limited time you have to shoot the establishing shot, you have to start with larger fixtures and be prepared to reduce their intensity quickly. For instance if you want the glow of an interior practical light raking the lace curtains in a window, start with a PH213 in the practical and a bare 2k Fresnel on the lace. Wait until the ambient dusk level outside has fallen to the point where it looks realistic and then roll. To get a second shot or take, open the camera aperture a half stop and drop a single in the 2k head, dim down the PH213, and wait again until the ambient dusk level outside has again fallen to the point where it looks realistic and then roll. If you continue in this fashion with nets after you have exhausted your scrims, and a PH212 when the dimmed PH213 starts to look too warm, you will be able to get multiple takes out of the diminishing dusk light.

Dusk-night_Ext.jpg

 

Likewise with a streetlight or moonlight raking across the front of a house. To create a moon dapple on the front of a house against a night sky, all you will need is a good sized HMI set on a high oblique angle so that it will rake across the front of the house. Break it up with a branch-a-loris and wait. When the ambient level of the dusk sky has fallen to the point where it looks realistic against the moonlit house and the practical lit interior - roll. You can even add a car pulling up to the house, but you have to be prepared and have enough manpower standing by to dim the practicals, net the lights, and scrim the car’s head lights very quickly. The final touch is to use a graduated ND filter on the lens to darken the sky and balance the camera between daylight and tungsten so that the ambient dusk light filling the shadows is cool and the practicals and tungsten lights motivated by them remain warm but not too warm.

 

Once dusk is past, you shoot the close coverage night-for-night when a package consisting of what you can run on a portable generator will suffice. If you use one of the new modified 7500W Honda EU6500is generators, as was done in the production pictured below, you will be able to use a 4k HMI for your moonlight at dusk. In this story of mistaken identity, a pivotal scene takes place in the middle of a near vacant parking lot of an all night convenience store. The establishing shot of the wide-open expanse of the empty parking lot at night was shot dusk-for-night and then the close coverage night-for-night.

 

GM_MontageSm.jpg

Left: Scene in parking lot. Center: Transformer/Distro hidden behind newspaper box (set 200' in distance.) Right: Generator baffled by truck (Transformer/Distro 300' in distance.)

With no building or other sound barrier within a reasonable distance to block the sound of the generator, the Gaffer had no recourse but to put it behind their grip truck as far from set as possible. This was only possible because he used a transformer to step down the 240V output of the generator, and in the process compensate for the voltage drop they experienced over the 500’ cable run to set.

 

If the 4k has one of the newer dual wattage electronic ballasts, you can even swap out the 4k globe you used for the dusk-for-night shooting, for a 2.5k globe as they did on this production. The 2.5k globe was all they needed to light the deep background for their doubles and singles around the car and the 8 Amps they saved went a long way toward powering additional lights. Knowing how to shoot dusk-for-night can be worth more than all the grip trucks, tow generators, and large HMIs in the world.

 

Guy Holt, Gaffer, Screenlight and Grip, Lighting rental and sales in Boston.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm fairly new to cinematography - self taught - so take my advice with a pinch of salt.

 

As David Mentions Day for Night only really works when moonlight is the only source. Why do you want to pull focus?! I find that a lot of cinematographers want to pull-focus, move the camera, what does it add to the scene - are you making hard work for yourself for nothing. Look at hitchcock films: 90% shots seem to be statics and they serve the story fine. Night exteriors are best done with either motivated lights such as Car Headlights, Street lamps, or Moonlight, or a combo. Day for night is a pain - try and shoot night for night. If you want to keep the atmosphere of moonlight - put the key light as far away from the scene as possible without loosing exposure - a soft bank of lights gelled with 1/4 CTB and shoot with tungsten balance. This will make the daylight moonlight appear more blueish. If he has just walked down the drive at night then why would he be walking in the dark - motivate a torch light. Use a little smoke if you want to add atmosphere. Otherwise have car headlights on. How many movies do characters get out of cars and leave the headlights on?!! It's quite commmon and nowadays it is fairly realistic given that certain cars have parking lights which stay on after locking the for about 3 minutes. If it's in town then motivate a street light on rely on existing street light. Don't worry if the night scenes are slightly underexposed, the camera meter reading will say you might be 2 stops underexposed - but that is often how it is! I'm sure if you took a meter reading of the following the camera automatic exposure would say it was underexposed by about 2 stops. Even he girls face was about 1 stop under (I guess)!

 

To avoid pulling focus make sure that the characters walk across the focus plane or use wide so that the DOF is big enough 21mm or 25mm.

 

This is from True Grit - the legend Roger Deakins. Probaby lit with a row of soft lights at 9 o'clock and a hard-light barn doored on background.

 

truegrit_fire.jpg

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