Day for night?

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
I am working on a project at a horse racetrack where I have to shoot the workers arriving VERY early in the morning (basically night). Problem is they actually come in at 4:30a and it is pitch black at that time (no street lights). I can re-enact with a few workers coming in at sunrise or after, but how do I make it look pre-dawn?

Thanks
 
You can always use a day for night filter. I used one a few times on a short film that I shot last year. It makes your sky sort of a dark-pale blue, but it looks more like dawn than daylight does. Another thing that I did was add a neutral density filter to it while I was shooting. It looked pretty darn close to night time. Good luck!
 
I did. I was shooting in San Diego on a completely clear day. I would only suggest using an ND with the Day for Night if you're sure about the look, otherwise you can darken it in post with just the Day for Night.
 
First of all, you will want to use ND filters to keep a shallow depth of field(if your camera will allow a shallow depth of field). If the sun is up and the sky is already bright,
you'll want to compose your shots so that the sky is not seen, unless you plan to replace to sky in post. If the sky must
be in the shot, use a polarizer to darken it. You might want to push the color to the blue side, and underexpose about 1 1/2
stops. If the sun is hitting the actors, set up the scene so that the sun hits the actors as a cross light or back light.
 
Bruce/Chris thanks. Do you think it might just be best to do CC in post? Should I underexpose if I'm going to do CC?
 
Presuming there's power available onsite, why not just shoot in the dark with a couple of off-screen lights pretending to be streetlights / security lights?
 
scorsesefan said:
Bruce/Chris thanks. Do you think it might just be best to do CC in post? Should I underexpose if I'm going to do CC?
Click to expand...

You can do the CC in post. If you have software that will alter the exposure of the footage without adding noise/artifacts, you can also darken the image in post.
The 1 1/2 stop is for an actual day for night look. If your able to shoot just at dawn, before the sun has come over the horizion, you may not need to underexpose at all.
You may want to shoot at dawn, because when you shoot the day for night with the sun hitting the subject, the sun becomes the moon to the viewer--which is a night
look, not a pre dawn look. Sunrise shots can be beautiful-sun behind the subjects--check out the scene from "The Natural" where Roy Hobbs(Robert Redford) is trying to strike out "The
Whammer"--it's near the beginning of the film. If you do choose to go the "dawn" rout, the light will change quickly, so you'll need to shoot fast.

Hope this helps!
 
Avoid losing highlight detail, avoid seeing the sky (as mentioned) or any bright background, and I would also add - shoot a normal exposure and "print down" and grade in post. I think a slight desaturation and a slight addition of blue looks best. Also, you should never gain noise when printing down - only when printing up. You can adjust your on set monitor to be darker in order to make judgments about fill or lighting.

If you're shooting actors, think about how you're going to see their faces (if you want to). If the sun is behind or off to the side, their faces will be very dark unless you either light them, or you use some bounce on them. Consider that.
 
One thing to think about is to try and avoid contrasts. During night you rarely have too much contrast. So try to keep everything fairly level. And while it seems cheap, try to have a blue-ish tint, it really signals night. Oh and try to get rid of reds too, which often kills the night mode.
 
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