Best way to moon light/ambient

F

finchy

Well-known member
hey,
i have a night shoot coming up,shot on DV unfortunately, there is next to no budget so i only have access to basic Arri kits ( 800w down to 150w) and i need to know the best way to light a back street for the cameras benefit and also to suggest abit of 'criminal activity'. There will be street lights but im not sure of the exact proximity to the scene.

Its basically a reconstruction of a burglary and there's a guy climbing a wall into a back yard and then through the back door.

Im wondering what sort of colour temperature would be used for moonlight?
maybe throw some of that across the whole scene... and then add some accents in.

any advice would be great!

thank you.

tom
 
Hey tom..Ok not really an expert but just my two cents.The first thing i would do is go check out the place and plan the shoot in advance..best thing to do would be to get blue gels so as to get that moonlight look,then maybe use it on one light and get another light to act as the street light..Maybe put it directly above th street light.Just giving you ideas,just try to play around with the lights.but im sure some pro's here will tell u exactly how to do it
 
White balance is a good idea, use it often, but you always have "Day for Night filters for the camera and they are available also to use in post , thru FCP. "Pan's Labyrinth "used those camera filters for example all through those wood scenes that were supposed to be night. Cheers
 
Thanks for your responses so far guys!!

I also need to work out a way to light it, so that it doesnt look like it just has a load of lamps on it...
Am i better of trying to fake things like moonlight and street lamps to light the full scene or trying to light as much of it as i can with 'ambient' light, which will be harder than it sounds i assume with the kit restrictions.

I dont have alot of exterior lighting experience as you can probably tell so any other advice will be great!

many thanks.
 
motivation....look around and see whats lighting the actual scene and accentuate those lights (light from that direction). if there's nothing lighting it then ur gonna have to imagine how would this naturally be lit. set up some garden lights in the backyard and accentuate those with ur kit lights. Block the shots so ur charater runs/walks in those lights...lighting whatever part of the body u want lit. eg. he climbs the wall...ur blue gel moon light acting as a back light and a garden light lighting one side of his face.

Take a pic of the place and post it so we can help more.

I will say though..with only an 800w as ur most powerful lights then gels are gonna knock down that output quite a bit reducing it to a weak source. so maybe white balancing will work. Better go start testing :)
 
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I've done a lot of night for night lighting outside in my days. Unfortunately I don't have the actual cuts so I can show you what I did. I should be getting the cut for my reel within the next few weeks. But - what I typically do is have a few diffused lights with 1/4 - Full CTBs on them. For the basic lighting. Then I play around with gels for the other lights to get some color and feel in there. On quick setups without a full gel kit I toss a 1/4 - 1/2 CTO diffused up as a streetlight.

Other times I use a pinkish or magenta gel to toss in there as well. I don't have numbers off the top of my head. But just "blue" light doesn't look like night. It looks like blue light. You have to add other gels in there and really try and play with what you have.

Most typically to light night exteriors I use no fewer than 5 lights. But you got the right idea with lighting the whole area and then accenting and adding to it.

*mind you I am using on average (3) 1ks, a few 500s, and maybe a 120 here and there. I don't have access to what I'd like to have. So it's totally do-able*

PS> also use stuff around you. If there is a streetlight in the distance, use that to show that it is actually night. Have it in the background. And if you need some extra kick with the lighting on their faces and the general scene. Wet the road. Primary reason it always just rained during night exteriors on films is to get the reflected light working for you.
 
Thanks for your replies guys!
Wetting the road is an interesting tip!

Are reflectors an option for bouncing a soft/even light on the talent...? id assume so.... :-/

cheers
 
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