Help: Night/Mountain Scenes for a Documentary Reenactment

maniemjr

maniemjr

Member
In two days I will be shooting a documentary show on TV about a hostage taking that took place on the mountainous area here in the Philippines. I am really into a realistic lighting. For the night scenes, the hostage survivor told us that the rebels only brings with them a very small flash light. I am wondering how could I design the lighting that is very realistic yet not so dark as we know that TV has certain limitations as too how dark the lighting should be because the picture suffers in long transmission (in far away areas where cable is not accessible, grains will kill picture especially those with less details).

Any help/suggestions will be appreciated. I have few things in mind but I prefer hearing more inputs from the experts. We will be having (I think) 60KVA generator and a very limited lights. The production has a very limited budget and we are using Panasonic DVX100B.

Thanks fellows!
 
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I'm no expert but maybe you could shoot at dusk and do a day-for-night type deal and get your desired look in post.
 
Thanks but we only have one day (overnight) shoot. I think it wouldn't be enough
to shoot all night scenes (I'm still not sure the final number of sequences)
from dusk till sunrise.


Nice idea though. If only we have all the luxury of time and budget.


:smile:
 
Well you should see about the budget. Maybe it will be cheaper to have 2 days of shooting instead of one. With the lights and other equipment you might need to light the whole night may be more expensive than just shooting at dusk and doing the rest in post.
 
I think CCing it in post is your best bet.

But if you don't have the time, you may be forced to increase the lighting a bit sacrificing a bit of the realism. As long as the narrative explains what it was really like, the audience will ignore the fact that you used more light in production.
 
I think the day for night thing would also be your best bet. Magic Bullet has a pretty good preset for Day for Night. Other than that, you could use the flashlights and put them up against a bounce board to motivate some type of light. Or you could use a china ball from above to emulate moon light. If you watch a lot of movies you can always almost bet that there is going to be some type of moon light and or street lamp involved for the night scene. Depends on what power you have accessible and or weather it is indoor or outdoor. Also was the scene around a lite area, motivation from a street lamp. Good luck hope I gave some ideas!
 
Thanks guys for the inputs.

I'm really considering the use of a china ball. It's not a regular practice here in the Philippines thats why I'm not very sure of the effect but I'm pretty sure it will work. One more thing that made it difficult for the lighting design is that he setting is on top of the mountain without any light motivation except from the moonlight.

Well, the last thing I could do is to sacrifice realism as well... Too bad though because it's very "TV" and our group is somehow acknowledged as one that's bringing a different style (more cinematic) into television.
 
No matter how cinematic the Director of Photography could be, thousands of night scenes in some of the most expensive films, you can always guarantee the same moon light in every night scene!
 
Thanks folks. I did a very simple lighting which I think looked almost the way I wanted with a very limited light.

I raised one 6K Fresnel on a 20-foot scaffolding just the same level with the branches of the trees and bounced the light downwards through an 8'x8' Styrofoam. We had a 20'x20' butterfly but so hard to assemble because it might be ripped off by the branches of the trees.

On one scene where the rebels and the victims were sleeping in the camp, we made 1 small kerosene lamp as motivation so I could use 3 Dedo lights to cover all angles and to show the face of one victim crying. We used leaves to make a flicker effect in front of the Dedo lights. It turned out satisfactory.

KIDNAP_Shoot

KIDNAP_Shoot


The actual exposure is really dark simulating that of the actual moonlight.
 
I have done a few "night" shots using the old "Day for Night" routine. The DVX100B can do a good DfN shot by setting the white balance preset switch to 3.2K (indoor tungsten) to give that bluish cast (to simulate moonlight) and closing down the iris to darken the shot. I've had some decent images come out this way even when shooting in the late afternoon, as long as the sky is cloudy and not too bright. Just remember to keep the sky out of the shot! You can even buy special DfN filters just for this purpose, but I think the 3.2K white balance setting does fine.

Just my two cents' worth!
 
I haven't thought of that. If you replied earlier, I might have considered it (although, we don't have enough time so, we really have to shoot night scenes at night to maximize the day).
Your idea I think is perfect because our location is covered with trees. We barely see the clouds and most of the time it was gloomy. There is no strong light from the sun.

Maybe I'll try that in my future projects.

Thanks Paladin.
 
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