DFN with moon in shot

Elie Kamal · March 9, 2008

hey there,

i'm shooting a scene (it's more like a dream or fantastic mood) where i have a very wide shot of a girl running away from dogs chasing her on a river's side. we could see mountains in the back and full moon in between these mountains. i'm using 7218 for the whole film.

i'm planning to shoot it day for night; placing day for night filter, ultra contrast filter and nd (graded for a darker sky,nd9 or nd1.2 because i need a shallow depth of field).

well my main 2 concers are the following :

1-i'm seeing the moon in the shoot (between the mountains) and no way the sun would look like it! and the shot is extremely wide so i can't avoid the sun (moon) being in the back. (which originally i want to shoot it in backlight to get the girl and the dogs in silhouette and nice reflexion of the water from the river)

i don't have the issue with the closer shots for which the "moon" is out of the frame.

b-i'm thinking of placing some heavy black promist or a sfx filter to have this "human eye" soft feeling at night but yet again i'm not sure of the effect specially that i already have an ultra contrast filter to get hard shadows (shooting 7218).

should i use only get promist and then darken the shadows in post?

any ideas? advices or tricks?

PS: for those of you who are wondering, yes i know how many filters i can place in a matte box but i can still tape them if i have no room left...hehehehheheh

thanks in advance!

Elie Kamal

David Mullen ASC · March 9, 2008

There's no reason to use an UltraContrast filter if you use a ProMist filter, since the ProMist filter will lower contrast too -- just use the regular ProMist instead of a Black ProMist and don't use the UltraCon.

Michael Nash · March 9, 2008

You don't say how you're posting the film -- on film, or will there be a digital step? If there's any digital post then you can manipulate contrast to your liking (within the limits of what's on the film), and you can replace the sky with black night sky and a moon. It's easiest if this wide shot is a lock-off.

I'm not sure what you mean by using the ultra contrast filter "to get hard shadows." An ultra-con lowers contrast, which tends to make even hard shadows look a little more "graceful." There's no such thing as an optical filter that increases overall contrast or darkens shadows only.

Elie Kamal · March 10, 2008

You don't say how you're posting the film -- on film, or will there be a digital step? If there's any digital post then you can manipulate contrast to your liking (within the limits of what's on the film), and you can replace the sky with black night sky and a moon. It's easiest if this wide shot is a lock-off.

i forgot to mention that i'm going DI to color grade and add some VFX scenes. and the shot will be on track and not lock-off.

well if it was a fix shot (lock-off) would i be able to do some sort of "bracketing" , i mean to place some light diffusion in front of the sun in the frame and then fix the final look in post? or it won't do much change and it will be complicated therefore it's likely to do everything is post?

Adrian Sierkowski · March 10, 2008

Well if it's a lock off, it would probably be easiest, if you frame it just right, to power window the sky and just remove it and replace it with a night sky and moon? that would be my thoughts at least.

Elie Kamal · March 13, 2008

i think i will probably forget about the track and shoot it lock-off. :P :rolleyes:

well, i just have another question: i already mentionned that i'm shooting 7218, which option you think is the best:

a-shoot it with no filters

b-shoot it with 85 and DFN filter

c-shoot it just with DFN

which one will look not too blue? (i want it a bit blue though moon light for me is just white...)

how much you think i should underexpose?or i shouldn't since i'm going to di?

i really appreciate all the help!

Kiarash Sadigh · March 15, 2008

Well if it's a lock off, it would probably be easiest, if you frame it just right, to power window the sky and just remove it and replace it with a night sky and moon? that would be my thoughts at least.

You may want to consider plating....I'm assuming that in a wide shot facing the sun you'll be dealling with some serious lens flare...with a simple plating technique you can both solve the lens flare and do whatever with your sky/sun later....I did a musical film a few years ago and plated an ultra wide shot, later we removed the top of the frame and replaced it with some fantastic moving clouds....in that very same shot I had back lit the entire group of dancers with 2 x 1.2 fresnel HMIs, which would've been in the shot.... then I rigged a small piece of cardbord on a c-stand and placed it about a few inches above and in front of the lens carefully covering the area of the lock-off shot that I wanted to later remove...the cardboard was in fact in the shot but was replaced with the fantastic clouds I told you about later....

Good luck, and have fun...