How to achieve night shots using low speed film

[Deniz Zagra]

I'm planning on shooting a student film, and we plan to shoot on 35mm 2-perf film for a 2.39 release. The DP suggested we use Kodak Vision 3 200T 5213 and overexpose it by a stop. There are some night shots planned, but I'm just a bit worried about exposing those scenes with these specs. I recently watched American Graffiti (1973) again. I believe it was also shot in Techniscope and on the famous Eastman 100T 5254. Regardless of the low budget nature of that movie, all of the scenes look absolutely fantastic. Any ideas on how they achieved it?

 

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The night work certainly it wasn't shot on 100 ASA 5254 rated normally at 100 ASA, or overexposed. It was probably rated at 200 ASA (underexposed one-stop) with a one-stop push, on fast lenses.  You can't judge the grain on a modern transfer because some noise reduction was probably applied.

I would try doing the night scenes at 200 ASA normal for 200T stock and using some lights if you want to keep the grain down. But if you really don't have the budget for lights, use 500T stock.  You could always try some minimal noise reduction in post to help match the 200T shots that were overexposed.

I shot "The Love Witch" mostly on 200T overexposed one-stop and it took quite a lot of light for interiors and nights, basically that means achieving 100 foot-candles to get a full exposure.

[Karim D. Ghantous]

This might be of interest? It's been posted before on this forum, so many are aware of it.