Day for night......
- Thread starter fenigirl
- Start date
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1 vote for day for night...
mrblue1022
Well-known member
I would rather shoot at night instead of day-for-night if I can. You have less setup (flagging out any moving sunlight takes a lot of valuable time).
I also have this question. I asked one of my professors about it, and he was pushing me to shoot at night. The problem is that I'm not sure if we can get the amount of light we'd need on location at night.
I suppose we could search around for somewhere else to shoot where there is naturally more light at night. We need to film a conversation next to a dumpster as the two people are throwing garbage bags away. That could take a while to film, and the lighting at dusk changes pretty rapidly, though if we're not dealing with lighting it could go quicker.
He said that filming at dusk and stopping down the iris is a valid option, and we'll probably have to do that w/ a wide shot of a car pulling into a hotel parking lot.
My big issue is that the rest of our film has pretty high light levels, and I do not want the night shots to stick out in negative way. I do not want any grain or video noise in the shots.
I suppose we could search around for somewhere else to shoot where there is naturally more light at night. We need to film a conversation next to a dumpster as the two people are throwing garbage bags away. That could take a while to film, and the lighting at dusk changes pretty rapidly, though if we're not dealing with lighting it could go quicker.
He said that filming at dusk and stopping down the iris is a valid option, and we'll probably have to do that w/ a wide shot of a car pulling into a hotel parking lot.
My big issue is that the rest of our film has pretty high light levels, and I do not want the night shots to stick out in negative way. I do not want any grain or video noise in the shots.
mrblue1022
Well-known member
Shoot at nights and beg, borrow and/or steal to get some lights. If the scene is shoot pretty tight you could probably get away with one well placed light used to reproduce a street light (if you want hard light) or moon light (if you are looking for soft light).
Through the school we have access to a bunch of Lowel Omnis and Totas. We have to check them out, and we've had access to as many as 6 Omnis and 2 Totas at one time (we could probably get more), but I'm more worried about our access to power when we're shooting outside @ night.mrblue1022 said:
The majority of our shoot is taking place at a hotel, but the parking lot / dumpster area where one scene takes place is not very well lit at all. We could try and find another dumpster in another location that has more lighting and possible power sockets, but I really want the scenes to look continuous, and not like the characters are suddenly jumping from one scene to the next without it looking like it could be a continuous location.
I was looking at some handheld battery spotlights the other day, but I had no idea what the quality of the light is going to be, so I didn't buy any. Maybe if we bounced them off of the tota-umbrellas or something...
The only day for night option I've heard might work is diffusion, shoot in the middle of the day with large diffusion material to remove any shadows. Overcast days work well too. Add lights in post, but it never looks as good as actually shooting at night with proper lights.
mrblue1022
Well-known member
agcohn said:
Two options for you.
If there is a light nearby with a standard light socket, you can unscrew the bulb and put in one of these which will allow to plug your lights in and run off the power from the building. Of course if the building owner shuts off the power to that light or you trip the breaker you're screwed.
The other option is to get a 12v power converter. This plugs into the power outlet in your car and let's you plug household items into it, basically turning your car's battery into a generator. The catch to this is that you can't use lights that draw a lot of power, and you will have to keep your car running in order to avoid draining your battery.