Malthe Freiesleben Ejlers Posted June 5, 2020 Share Posted June 5, 2020 Hello fellow cinematographers, My director wants to shoot a DAY EXT that has a certain gloomy night feel to it. How would you go about getting a "night look feel" shooting in DAY EXT. See attached reference frame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted June 6, 2020 Premium Member Share Posted June 6, 2020 That's classic Day For Night photography. Traditionally it involves: 1) Underexposure. Be conservative because you can always darken it further in post. Use lower ISO's if possible rather than underexposing at a high ISO setting. 2) Shoot at an angle to the sun where there are more shadows -- side or backlight. 3) Avoid the sky. You can try to use ND grads + Polas to darken the sky but that is limiting. You may have to plan on replacing the sky in post. 4) Go for a colder color cast. Setting your camera more around 4300K rather than 5600K would be a start. 5) Use bright tungsten lights in windows (this requires some big lights though but if there is a window in the background, putting a bright tungsten lamp behind the shade or something will help sell the night look. 6) Use heavy ND's so that you aren't stopped down too much, true night work tends to be a wide apertures so deep focus is a bit of a giveaway that it was shot in daytime. Matters less in a super wide shot like above where it is hard to tell the aperture used. 7) Use more fill light -- for areas in the shadows where you don't want things to go to black after underexposure, you need to pump them up. Think of how you'd light this at night for a moonlight effect. If you had a backlight for the moon, would you go for a silhouette or would you add a soft side key that is darker? 3 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malthe Freiesleben Ejlers Posted June 6, 2020 Author Share Posted June 6, 2020 What more helpful answer could I have wished for. Thanks a lot, David... Best Malthe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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