Day For Night

[Kenneth]

I have a question about shooting an exterior night scene--at a car pulling up outside a house. I understand day for night--avoid the sky, turn on car lights, house lights, etc. Shoot at dusk. But that seems like a really small window of time to just use dusk.

If I shoot it at night, how much lighting will I need to power? I have several Lowel DPs and Omnis. I shot a bedroom scene at night with just a 1K/Full CTB and a pattern gobo and it looks great. Nice hard shadows. Just enough light on faces, but plenty of dark to show it's night.

I would expect I can I get away with a similar single light outside coming through the window of the car. But what about the wide shot? I guess I could shoot that at dusk.

Any experience with a similar setup? The scene is supposed to happen late at night--like midnight.

Thanks!

[khmuse]

I applaud your desire to not go the "day for night route". Done properly it can be OK, but its never going to equal what you can achieve shooting night for night.

You should think about using practicals from the house to help your shot. Replace the globes in any exterior fixtures with correct color temperature ones. Things like the PH and EC series are perfect choices.

You will need one pretty big source to simulate moonlight. The best choice would be a HMI as CTBing a tungsten source really whacks its output down. I have tried to use a 2K Fresnel with CTB and not had enough to cover a street scene, but switching to a 1.2 HMI gave me more than enough.

You might also want to simulate a street lamp overhead (usually a pretty warm color temperature source so try some 1/2 CTO or straw on a tungsten fixture).

Shooting at dusk is OK if this is a master shot, but if you need coverage, you are going to run up against changing lighting conditions really quickly.

Post a photo of your location if you have one. Might help to make more specific suggestions.

[Kenneth]

Here are pics of the street. Where the green car is will be the van in the scene.

The second shows the whole street.

http://denverbouldervideo.com/btf/images/street1.jpg

http://denverbouldervideo.com/btf/images/westward.jpg

Ken

[khmuse]

OK your second image is a really big shot. I would recommend that you consider shooting this one as your master near sunset and then shoot your coverage (shooting toward the house nearest the curb) in a tighter frame. This will reduce your lighting requirements down to a reasonable level and will still give you enough time to get your coverage.

[SomewhereinLA]

Shooting at night can be very expensive. Is the camera going to be moving? An other method is to do it in post.

[Blaine]

I don't know where you're located or what your budget is, but I'd consider renting some lighting for the shot if it's really important.

[Kenneth]

Thanks everyone.

The scene is only one-page. I don't want to spend all night on it, but I need it to still work.

I know what I need to do--tests!!!