Night lighting

[Ella]

Hiya,

Sorry if this is cheating slightly, it refers to film rather than theatre... : :P

 

I'm making a short of Cinderella, just the bit where she escapes from the ball. This is a student film. As its obviously midnight, there are a few options in terms of creating nightime, and I just wondered if anyone had any advice/ideas...

 

As some of the locations are pretty isolated, and like true students we have no money to hire extension cables, lighting that requires this is a problem. I was thinking about using powerful torches, maybe gelled steel or bastard amber to create some nice shadows. Has anyone tried torches? And maybe knows what kind of filters might work best if they're needed?

 

The other option is filming in the day time and using post production techniques to make it look like night: I think this involves turning up the greens and blues and darkening it slightly. I've never done this and am not sure how well it works. This is obviously entirely film related, but if anyone has any experience it would be most appreciated!

 

Thanks very much!

 

Ella

[DMXBandit]

I tried to do something similar last year. Our main lighting came from the car headlights, and I also took a couple of gas lights which turned out to be rubbish at lighting anything at all on camera, but where useful for finding our way around in the dark. I also did some of the filming in daylight (because, slightly stupidly, I filmed it in a non-linear fashion) and did some post production to make it look darker. The results where...mixed, but I'm sure if you spent more time on it than I did it would look better.

 

OT, but take spares of whatever your recording onto. I wasted a whole night of filming because the two MiniDV tapes I had taken where corrupted and on the second night my camera wouldn't work because it was too cold, but I was more prepared that night.

[woody74]

we have no money...using post production techniques

:P

 

But I digress.

 

Day for night is the simplest approach, but there is also the hybrid approach of the two you suggested: use torches/lanterns but do NOT color them, and then correct in post.

 

A really cheap solution is to gel the camera lens or matte box in a nighttime blue and shoot daytime.

 

-w

[paulears]

Trouble is that day for night shots are quite obvious - they worked pretty well in black and white - some filters do a really good job if you can cope with the colour shift - but you need a pretty overcast day, with no hard shadows - because they look very unrealistic. Post can produce some good results, but it needs time and patience. Shooting with filters also means you have no second chances.