Early Morning look and Night

S

Scott_Uhlfelder

Member
I am going to be shooting a scene this weekend that requires and early morning look. I was thinking of trying to accomplish this with some kinos that have CTB on them along with some china balls with day light balnced bulbs. Any suggestions as far as contrast ratio and other ligthing suggetions? ALos one oterh sence I am lighting for is the top of a parking garage at night. I figure that i should try to imatate the sodum streets lights in some way but I am worried about it looking to grainy on the DVX an ways to avoid that?
 
Re: Early Morning look and Night

In early morning the light is substantially redder than it is at mid-day. Early morning light is directional, hard, and orange/red. You probably don't want to use CTB, or, for that matter, a kino or china ball (except as fill light). THe CTB will take away that early-morning warm glow of the light, and the soft lights will take away the streaming-in punch of morning light, and you'll probably need both in order to effectively sell the idea of "morning".

In morning scenes, the sun is typically low on the horizon and shining directly in to a window, so you want to simulate that.

You maybe want a good hard punchy tungsten light, with maybe a 1/8 or 1/4 CTB to take the hardest of the orange out of it. If it's too strong and contrasty you can try some light diffusion gel in front of it.

Just a suggestion. As with all ingredients, mix to taste.
 
Re: Early Morning look and Night

As for the night scenes...don't worry about grain...if you haven't switched "gain" on, your blacks will be as black as blacks can be! You'll only have a problem with grain if you use gain, or try and lift the blacks in post...otherwise it'll be clean. You may lose shadow detail, obviously, but it'll be a clean dropoff to darkness.
 
Re: Early Morning look and Night

Barry wrote what I would have about the early mourning scene.

Jessica Gallent, a DP in L.A. with a couple of DVX-shot features under her belt, told me that she found the camera to be a bit noisy in low contrast situations so she used a bit more back light than she normally would. She said this worked. I am taking her word for it until I test it myself.

While at the hardware store I saw some sodium vapor globes with medium sockets. I have been mulling over some ideas of how to use this lamp’s unique color properties to its greatest effect.  In your situation I would want a couple for fill.
 
Re: Early Morning look and Night

I was able to achieve and early morning look by just using a light orange gel on a hard light. I mounted the light outside and had it shining through a bedroom at an angle.
 
Re: Early Morning look and Night

Sodium vapor lamps have a green spike in them that isn't visable to the eye but most cameras pick it up. Plan for it. They also are extremely low on the color temp scale, I think around 1800k. Half CTO on a tungsten lamp is about the right match plus a 1/4 to a 1/2 green.
 
Re: Early Morning look and Night

Morning light looks slightly different at different parts of the world during different seasons. Everyone else's suggestions are definitely right according to my experience, and the only thing I'd add is that you might want to experiment with CTS and some light Coral gels if you want a tone that's slightly different from the standard CTO.

You could be a little more specific about how long after sunrise your scene is supposed to be and whether it's interior or exterior.

As far as a parking lot night exterior, if you've got the money use a couple of low to medium watt PAR HMI's they have a nice hard cool light. You probably don't want to imitate the color spikes of the sodium vapor lights, but you could suggest a similar quality with gels. Of course, if you're already going to have existing lights on location, that will complicate things. Does your garage already have lighting, and can you turn it off if needed?

Does your scene cover the whole garage, some small part of it, or perhaps is moving?
 
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