How to light a moonlit night exterior?

J

JordanWright

Active member
I'm going to be shooting a short action scene in a wooded area next to a campfire in the middle of nowhere.

The scene takes place at night and we are going for a Smokey moonlit night kind of look, emulating moonlight as the main source of light. We also have a campfire which is the only other light in the scene. I'm looking for the orange campfire to contrast the blue moonlight.

This scene is for a fantasy film so there is a good amount of creative freedom with how stylistic I can get with it.

The scene involves 2 performers in close proximity with a lot of movement.

I will be shooting on an FS7 rated at ISO 2000 at 25fps.

We have not decided what lights we will be using yet but we have access to a variety.

We currently have a lighting crew of 2 or 3 people but can get more if nessercary.

I don't have any experience lighting night scenes so I am wondering what is the best way to do it and what are the best types of light to use, any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
 
Hey Jordan, while my experience with such is limited, I'll share what I've learned.

Amateurish night scenes are the ones that fall off into darkness. It shows they don't have the resources to blast light everywhere. Night isn't just a puddle of moonlight in the dark. Light your background too.

3/4 back is going to be your friend for moonlight.

Do you have any screenshots of looks you've seen similar to what you'd like to achieve?
 
Capture.jpg Here is a screengrab of what the director sent me. This is what we are looking for the quality of the moonlight.

Thanks for the advice It is something I had not previously considered.
 
No problem. So from that screengrab, the most prominent feature is the haze. That will actually help to spread the light. It also obscures the distant background which helps you not have to light it deep deep into the woods. The light also appears to be coming from beyond frame right and also back into the background. The haze also gives a nice backdrop to shiloette the foreground trees.

You said it's going to be stylized. Depending on what you want, I've seen moonlight that's hard and I've seen moonlight that's soft. So that's up to you, but the haze will help soften things.

I'd recommend taking your largest, most powerful light and backing it up and back as far as is practical. That way you aren't dealing with such harsh falloff - the inverse square law means as your light gets farther away, the 'steps' of difference in output are over a longer distance. The moon, or sun for that matter, is very far away. Also, the further the light is, the more uniformly lit everything will be - no scalloping visible in frame.

Are you going to have an opportunity to do a pre-light?
 
JordanWright said:
I'm going to be shooting a short action scene in a wooded area next to a campfire in the middle of nowhere.

The scene takes place at night and we are going for a Smokey moonlit night kind of look, emulating moonlight as the main source of light. We also have a campfire which is the only other light in the scene. I'm looking for the orange campfire to contrast the blue moonlight.

This scene is for a fantasy film so there is a good amount of creative freedom with how stylistic I can get with it.

The scene involves 2 performers in close proximity with a lot of movement.

I will be shooting on an FS7 rated at ISO 2000 at 25fps.

We have not decided what lights we will be using yet but we have access to a variety.

We currently have a lighting crew of 2 or 3 people but can get more if nessercary.

I don't have any experience lighting night scenes so I am wondering what is the best way to do it and what are the best types of light to use, any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
Click to expand...


Not to be a Negative Nancy, but you have a few strikes against you which will need to be thought through.

For starters.... You are shooting an action scene at night in a wooded area in the middle of nowhere.

You are going to need to build a campfire, as well as be responsible for safety.

You are going to need to fog an area, most likely repeatably, as well as getting the smokey effect to match take by take.

You are going to need to sort through the lighting instruments you have available, and make a decision on which will work best for your needs.

Once you have figured out your lighting needs, you can then determine the power needed to run the lights for the needed time, and secure a portable generator or the like to power said lights.


Not sure if this helps or not.

Dave
 
Not knowing the context of that screengrab, it looks more like a foggy morning than an actual night shot, underexposed to make it seem more night-like. If that's really the look you're going for, given the limited resources you have, shooting at the right time of day will probably be your best bet.
 
just throwing this out there, for some reason there's some obsession amongst dps with lighting from the back, but 3/4 from the front will give you shadows in the frame just as easily, and if the key is softened you may not need any fill (You'll likely need fill if you light from the back).

agree though that not lighting the background is the biggest amateur giveway noone ever talks about.
 
Budget for the lighting?

This link my help, even if everything discussed is beyond your budget.

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=70842


I'm thinking your budget is more Honda generator, ARRI M18 bounced into an 8x8 ultra bounce, real campfire supplanted by some LED flicker bulbs, some sort of soft tungsten fill-light / ambient light so that the fire-light on the actors doesn't create too harsh of shadows on the faces and is not too up-lit from below. And then a hazer machine w/ an electric fan and someone operating it. You'll need to get the genny far enough away from the scene so as not to foul the audio. That's a challenge in itself.

Even that ^^ setup is going to cost some $ and require some skill / crew to make work at all.

You can rent a hazer if you have a lighting rental business anywhere near you:

https://www.4wall.com/rentals/4831899/reel-efx-df-50-diffusion-hazer


LED flicker bulb-


 
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