Shooting day for dusk 16mm on water

[Ruben Woodin]

Hi, i was wondering if anyone might have any tips on shooting day for dusk. Im shooting a feature with alot set out to sea, and the director wants alot of that to be set at dusk. I will probably shoot 50D. Would it be as simple as to take it down in the grade or would it be worth underexposing in camera. Id want to schedule it around an overcast day, were shooting in scotland so this shouldnt be a problem:)

I read somewhere a good day for night trick around water would be a pola to take out some of the reflections of the sky, not sure if theres any thoughts on that:)

cheers!

[Brian Drysdale]

"Jaws" has some day for night with water.

[Tyler Purcell]

I would probably just take it down in post. Make sure if there is a sky shot, your actors heads and such aren't in the sky area. 

[Doug Palmer]

Polarising filter ? I'm not sure it would do much when weather overcast. This at least should help  the general effect of dusk, with hopefully nice thick cloud. Good luck and hope you can show us the result ?

[Doug Palmer]

I think I would put some flat light on the faces etc, allowing the exposure to be reduced and the sky/sea darkened.  And I'd use ND to allow me to focus near, rather than on the background....which I prefer soft as it appears at dusk.

[Dustin Supencheck]

Sounds counter intuitive, but maybe filming with a faster stock (250d or 500t) would sell the effect better. Considering that's what you would probably use if you were actually shooting at dusk? I'm sure you can achieve this in the grade, but just a thought. 

[David Mullen ASC]

Not sure I'd agree with using fast film if going for a dim soft underexposed look, in 16mm you are already risking some muddiness.  I'd stick to 50D but timed for a bluer look, or 200T without the 85 filter.  Underexpose a little then time it even darker.  You could, for example, shoot a grey card / scale 1-stop overexposed at the head of the roll and tell the colorist to transfer that to normal brightness, then everything that follows will have been brought down by 1-stop. Add a warming filter as well when shooting the grey card / scale and pull it for the footage and it should appear bluer.

Hard to avoid the sky on open water unfortunately.  I'd bounce a lot of fill into the faces, or a side key, so that once everything is darkened, their faces don't go silhouette. You could try an ND attenuator grad filter at least to help bring down the top of the frame without a strong grad line.

Also, use heavy NDs to avoid shooting stopped down, real night photography would not have been shot deeper than f/4, and often more like f/2.8.