filming at night

J

JSF

Member
I have a shoot coming up for a commercial and the scene takes place at night. I have a guy staring at a tv airing white noise and two people in the house watching him...
Here's my q. Usually to simulate night you want to throw blue as your key, right? Well, would I throw white as a key for the guy sitting in front of the tv and give a blue fill? I was going to have a lamp on in the corner of the room where one person is standing, watching, but then she would need blue from the *window* (moonlight?) and yellow from the lamp. If so, we would be talking about 3 different colors of light. Is that too many?
We were going to end with a wide shot with all three people in it but I don't know if it would be possible with the three colors.
And the next q. would be, what do I callibrate the camera to? Do I show it true white and then put gells on, or do I show blue and adjust in post?

Is this rambling? Or do I not know what I'm doing? Well, actually, I don't know what I'm doing :)

JF
 
Hey JF. I'd say first off in figuring out what needs to be done, is to analyze what resources you have to your disposal. Do you have a lighting package? School equipment, etc? Lets for say for a second that you do have some lights to use, here is what I would do with the shot description you gave.

If you have a window next to the location, for example you are shooting on location, then I would go with something like a 4K HMI through the window, at a high angle. (One night when you have some time, go out and look at the angle of the moon at the time the shot is supposed to take place, recreate this!) I would recommend silking the HMI, as just an open face 4K might be too harsh.

Try to get some of the blue to fill in on the actors side, almost acting as a rim light. Try to keep this subtle, since it will mostly be used for ambient light. Then, at the position of the TV, try using something around 575W or 1K HMI to act as the practical light being emmited from the TV. If you use a 1K, I would suggest scrimming it down 2 stops, as well as throwing some diffusion on it. Think of how the light from a TV would really affect someone, maybe even take photos of this for reference. You don't want this to be overbearing, just enough to give them a coat of white across the front, try to make this blend a little, test your different diffusions. This light shouldnt really affect the background or other elements, just his chest and face, depending on where he is sitting.

For the lamp, it's a little trickier. You want to simulate a lamp being on, but without actually using a lamp as your source. You don't want it to be too dominant, but at the same time, you don't want it to be too dark. Use a midget (200W) or something similar above the lamp, and try positioning it so that it only hits the back edge of the actors hair/shoulder. This rim light will help seperate from the background, as well as give some contrast to the shot. For the lamp itself, I would hook this up to a hand dimmer, and turn down the intensity to about 50% when it appears in the shot. Lampshades tend to cast pretty unattractive shadows, so try to contain those in your MS's and MCU's.

As for a quick simple method, that should be sufficient, if nothing else, at least to get a starting point to work off of. I would say most importantly here, is making sure all your sources blend togethor realistically. Use real life to your advantage before the shoot, and grab some friends, turn on a lamp next to a window at night with the TV on. See what kinds of lights and shadows you see, and then recreate that in a more attractive way.

Whew...Sorry for the book!
 
JSF, you have it right. Blue shouldn't be used for everything at night, only as a replacement for moonlight, so just coming from the direction of the window. Nothing wrong with intentional mixing of colors temps, as long as you motivate it properly.
 
Thanks, I'm going to try some of those ideas out. I hadn't thought of taking pics of a fake setup. I can't get into the location for a test shoot so I wasn't sure that trying to set it up in my house was going to work. But I like the idea of bringing some friends over and taking some pictures that I could past into the storyboard.

Another problem I forsee is that one observer is supposed to be leaning against a wall as she looks forward. I'm not sure how I can "rim" her without having her stand 3 feet away from the wall, but I think that will look awkward in the final cut.

As far as equipment goes, i'm using all home made things. Homemade scrims, reflectors, and work lights (halogen and hand held florescent). I was planning to borrow some gells, and I found some cheap plastic clamps and a stand in the trash that I'm going to try and use. The good news is that I have plenty of people willing to help out.

I'm hoping to end the scene with a full DOF shot with each tallent in 1/3 frame spaced 8 feet deep from each other. Does that mean that I will need to have an enormous ammount of light on the furthest tallent or do I adjust by using even less light on the closest actor that I would in a single person shot?

Thanks for your ideas, they are great!
 
Honestly I would just use either a 3.6k softbox (go buy some ripstop nylon and put that in front of your light if you don't have a softbox) with CTB gel through the window, and then Gel another 3.6k with a CTB gel with diffusion, or softbox for the TV light. ALSO make sure you mimic the TV's video by moving something in front of the light casting different shadows on your character and their surroundings. Then use a low wattage bulb for your incandescent. Now white balance to the 3.6k without the gel, once white balanced, put the gel back on and you will have pretty good color. The moonlight is close enough to the blue TV light that it should be believable, but if you are still worried, just get a darker CTB gel. NOW if you don't have enough gels, then white balance to the 20Watt incandescent bulb and use the regular halogen bulbs, AT LEAST 500W IF YOU DON'T HAVE 3.6K COLOR BALANCED BULBS. The unbalanced are somewhere around 2.6k-2.8k at 500Watts, and the incandescent will be 2k-2.4k hopefully so you will still be ok. You're colors wont be as great in the camera, because it has to use so much gain to get the colors where they need to be, but at least the effect will work. By the way, if you don't have color balanced bulbs, go to FilmTools the FDF500W is 3.6k and it's pretty cheap and they fit in 500W hardware lights.

As for your rim light problem, you might want a hard reflector on the ceiling out of frame, such as aluminum foil. This will give you rim light that will appear natural to the room because it will only be reflecting colors in the room. Not enough rimming? Add more foil, or try a mirror with a diffused light pointed at it. The rim light doesn't have to be a blue tint because you have the incandescent in the room, but rather, have only on the objects closest to the window rimmed with "moon" light.

As for your last question, I would say light them separately but appropriately. If they are further from the incandescent, then they should be darker, or put one of the shop lights out of frame, but from the same direction as the incandescent light. Make sure it's diffused or it will be to harsh of a shadow. Make sure to place it far enough away, or dimmed so that it doesn't wash out your blue light from the TV, or you "moonlight" from the window. By the way, WalMart sells dimmer switches that you can wire to your shop lights for around $8.00, and by dimming them, you are lowering the color temp to a more red color, selling your incandescent even better!

Sorry for the three act novel, and I hope it is helpful!
 
blue light for moonlight is old school. there is no rule when it comes to the color of night. maybe your lighting motivation is a yellow porchlight, how about a sodium vapor from across the street. how about some car headlights if it is a busy street. how about some lightening on a rainy night. you get the idea.
 
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