How hard is a night shoot?

VersuS

VersuS

Veteran
Dear users...this is my first post...after reading tons of threads in here I have decided to come forward and present myself

I am John from Athens Greece (25yo). I am a brand new filmmaker (2 shorts in the past 6 months). I adore this forum (and a few others to be totally honest) because reading your posts helped me more than going to any kind of school (I was supposed to be a scientist and not a broke artist....sigh)...

So to cut a long story short...our production company (yes we're so freaky that we started a company on our own -already-) is working on our first feature film. It's an action-driven film (24-like) and we re working night and day to make it as good as possible. We're aware that we cant do miracles and I know that it would be unfair for people with a richer background in filmmaking than ours to even say the words 'i want to make a good feature film'.

Anyway...not to take up on your time here's my 1st question:

A lot of our scenes take place in the middle of the night...and not only dialogues outdoor..but action scenes as well.... I love my story and our script and would hate to start twisting it around to make it feasible (in terms of shooting) but is it possible to shoot action scenes at night with an almost no-budget crew? We ll be buying basic light equipment but I have no idea how hard it is to present a respectable action sequence on screen that dont look like 'shadows dancing in the dark'

I hope I am not talking too much...

Looking forward to your comments
 
Hey
Welcome aboard. Obviously shooting at night is alot harder than shooting during the day. If you want to do it than go for it. Do some tests, practice with lighting and some action sequences to see if it is feasible for your crew. If it comes out looking crappy and you dont want to do it than change the script. Im sure there are some websites out there that give tips for shooting at night. Just make it bright enough you dont have to increase your grain. And I think you want the shutter off to allow more light in. Just do some practice shots and see what you think
Brian
 
Lighting for a "night" look is often much more difficult that a "day" look. There are many considerations and unless you want surveillance cam looking footage, it needs to be done correctly. If you are new to the entire process, consider getting an experienced DP or a gaffer to assist with the project.

Hectorxd's suggestion of shooting some tests is great advice. Don't try to learn how to do something when you have a full crew and cast on set, work it out in advance. You might want to consider shooting day for night, but testing the entire process is still necessary.
 
Also, watch a lot of movies with night scenes in them to see how they lit them. That can be a huge help. Notice the direction the light is coming from. Pay attention to anything they have used in front of the light to break it up a bit (like a tree branch). All of those elements come together to create that Hollywood night look.
 
thanx a lot for the tips guys

I m definetely taking my dvx for some tests..not only for night shots but for everything!

the plan is to shoot from may to late july so we ll take the time to be well prepared

and we re gonna shoot as many shorties as possible to implement our ideas for the feature to shorter versions

the one thing that I kept carved inside my head from reading posts and threads is that 'being prepared' is 80% of the process of filmmaking....
 
I know you already pointed this out, but I must bring it up:

Are sure you wanna tackle your first feature with only 2 shorts under your belt? You seem like you might have realistic expectations, but again, it wont be any good. I'm not trying to be a dick or discouraging, but so much of what you plan will turn out to be a disaster on set, half of the ppl wont show when you want (or quite before its over), and regardless of how successful your 2 shorts were, its unreasonable to think you have the skills to pull of a feature thats not just god awful.

I also mention this because you say that you love the story and scipt. If you think it has real possibilities, why waste it on inexperience.

I watched Quentin Tarantino on Charlie Rose say his #1 piece of advice to someone who wants to make a movie is to make a movie. Don't let anything get in your way, go shoot.

I completely agree! But that first thing you shoot shouldn't be that film you think is going to break you out, or is even going to be watchable. At the very least, shoot 2 more shorts (something similar to your feature if you can) and spend the next year planning your shoot for your feature. By then you'll have more experience (and will have night shoots down) and will be EXTREMELY prepared for that first day on set.

Something to consider :)
 
hey cheesesailor! is it lame that after reading tons of posts from you guys I actually correspond with you? lol....

ok I know the film will not be a hit..probably it will suck...BUT....it's not the story of my life..really...I love the story so far...we re still working out a few loose ends to make it concrete and make it feasible (for a no-budget thing) but I love doing this...I am so excited about the whole project that frustration and hardship is not something that puts me down...christ I am sure that even with 10 features under my belt and 1 million $ budget would still prove useless ...I dont believe that any filmmaker will ever pull a film with no effort (and by effort I mean sweat, swearing and no sleep) ;-)

my priorities are:

1)make the film, I WILL LIVE TO SEE THE WRAP-UP PARTY ....hehehe
2)be prepared
3)be prepared for being prepared
4)after being prepared make sure that preparations are prepared
5) HAVE FUN!

listen...I am not a feature-film-manic...I dont plan to do this no matter what...if things start falling apart I will improvise,take another option (coz I m building options for EVERYTHING people-locations-equipment-weather)....I have enough free time to build this but sure I havent done this before so I dont know what might come up

the good thing is that there are tons of people supporting...I have pros doing my sound,makeup,costume, art direction...my best friend and partner is co-writing the script and helping with directing, we have 2-3 guys doing production related work,PR and stuff, I have 2 VERY valuable sources inside greek police force who guarranteed technical advisors, cars, men, equipment, props and gear, we have sources in car dealers who ll provide us with cars...and all this was not a know factor when we started...it came up along the way...and having so much more than most people who try to make a film did not make me feel invincible, it actually made me go back to my script and spend double time to make it worth their effort...

when we started we d thought of friends-actors...yeah sure Bill can play and i m sure John will not laugh and .....

but NO...I ll get real actors (well students from actor schools) and do the audition and do the rehearsals and do as much as possible...

anyway I m talking too much....hehe....

I just wanted to say that i dont feel stubborn about it (by not going the short film route for a year or so)...I just dont see why not go ahead (and I dont know if I mentioned it but we ve got material to do 2-3 shorts during preproduction of the feature)...anyway...I sincerely hope the movie is not awful...LOL....

ps. my first short is awful...i think it is...you know why? because when we made it I have never read a single thing about filmmaking, cameras,sound, light...we just got a lame canon and started shooting...the script sucked...my friend starred....we had no location sound..everything was post-edited.....going back to it and thinking that i was holding a camera not knowing what white balance is makes me wanna cry ;-) but STILL i love it...it's my first shortie and well my parents loved it LOOOOOOOOOOOOL
 
khmuse said:
Lighting for a "night" look is often much more difficult that a "day" look.
Click to expand...
khmuse is an experienced and talented filmmaker, so I find it odd that he made this statement. I believe shooting night exteriors and interiors are vastly easier than shooting daylight scenes.

1. Contrast ratios are controllable. Daylight exteriors have contrast ratios up to 5000:1 and often require large, cumbersome silks, reflectors, and HMIs to control the extreme contrast ratios created by the sun.

2. Night exteriors can often be accomplished by utilizing ambient building and utility lighting, supplemented with small, soft sources (e.g., KinoFlos) for close-up work. Try to choose locations with lots of existing lighting already built in to the location. In the master, you may be able to get away with the ambient light level--for the close-up, you can move your KinoFlo in close enough to give you decent exposure on your actors' faces.

3. Many night exteriors are nicely facilitated with a large (backlighting) source coming from the rear of the scene (e.g., a large Tungsten or HMI unit) that washes the entire area seen in the master. HMIs are nice for this effect since you cen let them go blue (uncorrected) which adds to the night ambience (key your actors with 3200K light, and white balance to 3200K). Observe how night exteriors are lit in just about any Hollywood feature--you'll see a large source coming from the rear of the set, with the actual lamp head "hidden" behind a strategically placed telephone pole or something (or even just out of frame).

4. Lighting for night exteriors are "static." You're not "chasing the sun" with silks and reflectors all day as the sun moves across the sky. This also eliminates matching problems as the light changes during the day.

5. Adding "accent" lighting to trees, shrubbery, etc., can be economically accomplished using cheap open-faced lights (nook lights, Tota lights, or plain old Home Depot lights). Actually, for those of you who haven't used cheap PARs, they're great for lighting up trees and stuff, and they're super cheap to rent compared to Fresnels. Plus, PARs come in a huge array of sizes and Wattages.
 
NBCshooter said:
khmuse is an experienced and talented filmmaker, so I find it odd that he made this statement. I believe shooting night exteriors and interiors are vastly easier than shooting daylight scenes.
Click to expand...

Hey NBC,

Thanks for the comment, so in order to live up to that introduction, I guess I need to be a bit more verbose.

The task of "lighting" for night is often a lighting task, while "lighting" for day can be more of a grip task (big butterflies, lots of bounce) unless you have really big instruments to bring to the task (big HMIs, etc).

Too often nighttime shots (more so for exteriors) tend to look noisy and a bit too gritty for my taste unless a lot of attention is paid to getting the lighting "just right". Now, if you have a great low light camera, then it is certainly easier to use available sources (hey, this sounds like another discussion that you might have had a bit of involvement in), but if you have to light just about everything, then it can be a pretty big task.

If you are talking about shooting exteriors in the middle of the day, with the sun directly overhead, then yeah these too can be a lot of work as you will likely want a ton of diffusion. If you shoot your exteriors either early in the day or late in the afternoon, you can get pretty lucky and if you block the scene right then just shoot with what is there (maybe a bit of bounce for fill) and you can expect to get some nice shots.

I guess that everyone has situations that they fill comfortable with and others that they are less so, so this question is likely to get different answers depending upon the equipment, location and expectations of the outcome.

Hope that clarifies my comment a bit.

PS And what I have seen of NBC's work, he certainly knows how to light for a night time look!
 
VersuS, if you feel comfortable that more than likely the film will suck, and you still just wanna do it, then GO FOR IT! :)

I just wanted to make sure you understood what the rest of us have foudn out, your first 10 movies suck :)
 
ok, question....I read a lot of things about lighting (I ve ordered a book called Lighting for Film & TV that is due for this week)...and I ve seen things like key light and stuff....and how you want to play with shadows....use gels...reflectors..all this.....

one question that puzzles me is this.....can you pull off a film with 2 lights instead of 3? coz I ve read an article that talked about having 3 lights...actually its the one that has to do with background light that puzzles me...is it necessary to have that one?
 
DEpends on the instruments, the look and your ability. I personally don't believe in three point lighting. I think theres at least seven points, eight if you consider fill and kicker seperate points, you should condsider in every scene you light.
1. The base light value, or ambient light. Almost every place you go in real life has some ambient lighting, rarely do go into a place that is pitch black, though there are times.
2. Key Light, what is the focus of the frame, I want the brightest light where I want the audience to look, secondly how do I want to project this light.
3. Fill or kicker lights, a different angle from the Key to establish the ration between light and shadow.
4. Eye light, we depend so much on what we see in someones eyes, properly lit eyes can propel your mood quicker then any other point of your light.
5. Back Lighting, should be used to add depth to your frame and make it more believeable to your audience. Too much ruins the effect IMO
6. Clothes lighting. Clothing reflects light differently then skin, so evaluate it differently and light it accordingly. I see it all the time where an actress face is beautifully lit, but you can hardly tell because the white blouse she is wearing is blowing the frame out.
7. Set light, to me it is easier to break up walls with lights then set dressing. it is more controllable by scene and reduces the possibility of something in the set over riding the action I want the audience to see.

Can you do this with two lights? Yeah, if they're really big, you have a ton of grip to flag, silk, screen, bounce, etc. Would I try, no it'd take too loong to grip it. There maybe a case where your working with ambient light through a window and you only need a key and fill, the you've acomplished all the aboove with only two lights.

Since lighting is art, you'll find many dessenting opions to this. Find the look that works for you and use the instruments you need to light the way you like it.
 
VersuS said:
one question that puzzles me is this.....can you pull off a film with 2 lights instead of 3?
Click to expand...
Depends on the film. The obvious answer is "of course not", unless it's a very unusual look and you're really, really, really talented, and if you're that talented then the only reason to try to do a whole film with just two lights would be on a dare, or as an ego trip. If you're tring to a conventional dramatic narrative style of film, it would be extraordinarily difficult to pull that off with just two lights.

I rarely attempt any sort of shoot without at least a half-dozen fixtures in the truck (a couple of flo's, a couple of fresnels and a couple of open-face) and for an actual movie it's skating pretty thin to use just a 5-ton truck. We did Siren on a paper-thin equipment list, but we still had at least a dozen light heads at all times, and when you count the mini-pars that Pat used extensively, that added another dozen small par heads in the kit.

Now, keep in mind that a "light" doesn't necessarily mean something that you have to plug in. You can use a white card as a "light", and cross-light an interview subject with one main key and bounce that key back onto them for a rim light -- that's an example of using one head to get two light sources. And when outdoors we'll frequently shoot with no plugged-in fixtures, but will still have three or four "lights" active -- a couple of silver shiny reflector boards, maybe a silk, maybe a white bounce.

If someone really wanted to "show off", they could probably accomplish some decent lighting setups with just a couple of fixtures. But for the most part you'll probably end up working five times as hard, and still not get what you could have if you'd had a couple more instruments in the kit.
 
You can light a whole movie with one light if you want to. You can also use lights that are bought at hardware stores, and made in your garage. All your lights don't have to be Mole-Richardsons. Don't underestimate the power of the china ball and different wattage bulbs.

GG-
Don't believe in 3 point lighting? Whatever gets you through the night. If you were to tell your 8 point lighting theory to a real Gaffer he/or she would just look at you strange. That is why we have flags and c-stands. Besides, your missing the point. The reason that 3 point lighting is the norm is because it works, it is simple, and it makes one think about lighting, and why we put the lamps where we do. But you are correct is saying do what works for yourself.
 
On a side note, lighting a shot with one light will make it look like Wilson's portrait. If this is the look you are after, than its a go.
 
Well I learned to consider the eight points from John Altons book, Painting with light a long time ago, and he's considered one of the masters. Almost every gaffer I know considers the points if not consciencely then sub consciencly. Probably the most overloked these days is the eye lights, when you see a movie where its done properly you go wow. But every gaffer I know considers the set and how it should be lit, clothing that distracts from the focus of the shot or has to be lit differently then skin. If you only want to look at a key, fill and backlight and call it good, then you have ignored too much of the frame. And as you say if that whats work for you do it.
 
So if one wanted to shoot at Night and in the woods... Whats the best way to power them lights, keep the sound down and do it for little money?
 
I have a little generator that pumps out 1000 watts. Its not quiet, but its not loud either so as long as you use extention cords its usually ok. I dont recall how much it was. 500?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top