Kitchen at night

[Brandon Rice]

Also, keep this in mind too... The shot I posted

Was not like Jack's shots. This shot was meant to be moonlit. None of the practical lights inside the house are on. I just wanted one ambient, dim light source to light the scene, to keep it mysterious. That is why you see no light specifically backlighting the subject... because I went with one ambient light source (moon) for this shot.

 

[Kholi]

I have The Others and I've never watched the BTS. I'll have to find it!

When dealing with digital, there're a lot of low-light noise issues. So would lighting the crap out of it and exposing for a specific in-camera look yield less noise overall in a "night time" scenario? Esp. DVX/HVX.

I think that's one thing that people do to avoid noise in the final product: shoot flat and then correct to tastes.

I agree that the footage looks a lot more organic than correcting in post, most of the time.

This is the kind of thing that FinalTouch is going to help for Apple/Mac users. A lot more post options and correction tools.

 

[Brandon Rice]

Here are is a little scene I did for another project... And this is to show what you can make it look like in post (crushing blacks)

BEFORE

AFTER

 

[Jack Daniel Stanley]

I have The Others and I've never watched the BTS. I'll have to find it!

When dealing with digital, there're a lot of low-light noise issues. So would lighting the crap out of it and exposing for a specific in-camera look yield less noise overall in a "night time" scenario? Esp. DVX/HVX.

YES!

for any video though

I think that's one thing that people do to avoid noise in the final product: shoot flat and then correct to tastes.

Opposite actually. First off, noise due to underexposure is not part of shooting flat. But if you watch the DP and Director Commentary on Novemember DP Nancy Schreiber talks a lot about how fragile DV footage is and if you start to push it much in post it falls apart. I could really see this moving to HD DVCpro on this last shoot. Color correction was so much easier. I pushde my DV hard in a lot of ways and it looks great on the internet, and ok on an SD TV, but beyond that you can tell.

But the best way for no noise is expose properly with lots of light. You can always bring it down in post, and this is why you want some portion of the image to be bright without blowing out too, so if you want to make things darker in post you don't just flatten the whole image. You CANNOT add BRIGHTNESS in post without adding noise.

So proper exposure is just essential period to low noise. Whatever you do in camera short of adding gane will probably be less noisy than how you push it in post because the chips are recording what you are showing it, vs. adding saturation.

Which is another thing, you can always desaturate without adding noise in post, you cannot saturate without adding noise.

 

[Brandon Rice]

I always try to overlight my scenes... as shown in the before/after image above. It does decrease noise in the image a lot, and lets you have freedom to go where you want to go.

 

[Kholi]

You know what? I believe I've read that it was bad to light the shiz out of DV, but my Boss says the same thing. The key to getting a good digital image to blast your scene with light and adjust in camera.

Your post may not say to blast it, but it's close to what he's saying.

Side note: I've noticed that the older generation with film background subscribe to get-it-in-camera. I'm noticing how much I really like the organic look of in-camera work, even when it's processed/tweaked afterward.

 

[Brandon Rice]

Oh yeah. You should see HOW BRIGHT it is on the sets I shoot... And HOT lol. Sucks for us who have to be in there... also... opening your camera up too much will decrease resolution... I believe f2.8 is the most you want to open up without losing some res. I try to never open up past f2.8. This can also go the opposite way. In the screengrab from Smuggler's I posted... in that scene I shot it dim in camera... big mistake... As we shot the scene I thought, I should open up (I was at f13) and get more light in, so I have more to work with in post... DUH! So... sadly.. in that scene I had to compensate in post on the earlier shots... and it didn't turn out as good as the later shots... live and learn...

 

[khmuse]

Wow, Hold on!

You are getting me all wrong, very wrong!
Iam not trying to get a darkness look, iam not trying to suggest nightime -it IS night- iam not doing day for night, and i dont care if the whole kitchen is lit!!!

Who is dishwasing or working in a almost totaly dark kitchen? :huh:



khmuse wrote:

"Getting a "night" look involves a number of things to really "sell" the shot"

ANSWER: iam not trying to sell anything, when i shot this, it WAS night.


The overall illumination level of the room off the kitchen, its just too bright and the wrong color"

ANSWER: i was deeply worried that it was too dark, and too boring, i dont like the lighting, but its not to bright... its 2006, we have lights in our houses!


"and will "sell" the concept that the practical is the main source of illumination. "

ANSWER: actully, i dont want to suggest that... the may be other lights as well.


The thing is, i dont like the lighting, i am asking about how you people feel about this screengrabs and to get suggestions etc... But i think iam misunderstood:

Its a normal household kitchen, -yes, we have lights- at night/evening, a man is dishwashing and discovers something mysterieus -hence the Poll quistion-
I want moonlight shown trow the window, altough i dont think normal humans could see moonlight with the houselights on (what do you think? because i do want moonlight AND indoor lighting)

Thanks for all the help, and i do find the suggestions very helpfull, but not all for this shoot

OK, let me try this in a different direction. While it may have been night when you shot this, it may have even been a Tuesday night for all I know, these grabs in themselves don't "scream" night to me. Despite not believing that you need to "sell" a look because it is night for night, you really should think about how a viewer is going to perceive the look. Does it support the story or does it distract from it.

If you had established that it was night by showing the man walk into a dark kitchen, then flip the lights on, this would really help. Obviously, this would be done with moving footage, not still grabs. The lack of the window showing as night outside isn't helping these grabs at all. For all I know, you just put up a bunch of Duvateen and shot this in the middle of the afternoon.

You mentioned not being able to place a light source outside due to the fact that the weather was uncooperative. I suggested day for night as this would likely solve your problem of not having an external light source. You would need to ND (or something) down the window enough to work in relationship to your interior illumination level. This is a balancing act. Given enough interior tungsten illumination, you could easily not have to use any ND, but the problem might be that your talent would melt before you got to a level that would work in relationship to a window illuminated by a daylight alone.

I agree, the lighting in "the other room" is boring, and its not helping to sell that its night. You want it brighter, that would be fine, but make it appear to be coming from a practical source, so that it looks (on camera) like its a well illuminated room at night.

For me, in general, a brightly lite space, without shadows is almost always boring. Lighting for film should be used to enhance the story and will many times take liberties. Just because it is a particular time of day and just because its lite up like a modern home doesn't mean that it is going to convey that to a viewer of a film.

You may want to embrace the idea that shadows are good things, not something to be avoided. Flat lighting, over lite or not, color corrected in post or not, is still flat lighting for the most part.

Look at Brandon's grab of the man with the chandelier shadow on the wall. This is a pretty good example of how a shot should look in a moonlight illuminated room. About the only things that would have made this better for me would be a cookie in front of the hard source so that there was a hint of a window frame and perhaps either some foliage or curtain line (movement of the foliage can really help, but won't show up in a static grab) to "sell" that it was moonlight coming through a window. Even if this were actually illuminated by moonlight coming through a window (and obviously it is not), these changes would still be a small improvement as it would "sell" the scene even more.

Just my thoughts on the subject and sorry if my first post was some how "upsetting". That was not my intention.

 

[Brandon Rice]

Ah yes. I wanted to add a little something in the light... but alas, this was our hard day, and we were 3 hours behind schedule... I did however use that method in the short I did before Smuggler's... as you can see here, I used it in a morning scenario. It's still the same method, just applied to an early morning look.

Look on the right side of frame.

Here's another shot from that movie. A night shot where the boys are going to bed... But, as you see... it's quite lit, it's supposed to be lit from ceiling practicals... but you still see it looks like night...

 

[Jerryv]

That are a lot of replies
Thanks to you all!

I have read them carefully, and i will read them again when needed for a shoot, there is some great stuff in this topic :thumbup:

I also like the screengrabs that are posted, it helps bring the text to live!

I now understand what i must do, altough i dont have a clearly light-setup, but i shall work on that. I think iam not shining the light from the livingroom to the kitchen, but hang the light on the kitchen ceiling (problem is how, i cannot buy new stuff for a while, to much money..) so that is going to be a problem.

I also shine a 1000watt light with subtile blue filter truw the kitchen window (so we see moonlight AND kitchen light, is that strange???)

I also keeps the light above the oven.

I think the light at the ceiling must be bright (in order to get a good exposure) so i am hoping this wont destroy the "look". (?)

Another quistion, If i lower the MASTER PED to say -15, the image gets darker (shadows) so how must i handle the Iris?
Because it looks darker, must i first get a good Iris level with MASTER PED on 0, and then enter -15, or is it the other way around?

Secondly, Is there a 'no go' area with the Iris, i read that i should not go below F2.8, but what about closing the lens?
If i want a darker look, i normaly just lower the exposure (or i exposed the scene for a bright lamp, so that the lamp is exposed correctly, and the room itself gets real dark) But is that a good methode? Does it effect quility?

 

[asylumproductions]

Here is an example of a shot that we gave some mood by crushing the hell out of the blacks and adding a tint of blue for a colder feeling. When reality the shot was flooded w/ light through an open door with a 600W Tota. Gotta have the light, and try shooting with a high shutter speed for a nightime feel, and see how much light you need!