Night- first short

H

hatsoff2halford

Well-known member
Hey everyone,

I have one of my first shorts coming up. Two of the scenes are at night, one is outside a hotel and the other is in the desert. The lights I have are: worklights with barn doors, and a softbox with a 500w light in it. Since this is kind of a short to practice with, I can't afford a DP or more lights.

I am going to go watch movies with night scenes to help me understand how they do it, but i'm still clueless as how to make it not look light a bright light is being shined on the actors? It's only going to be 3 actors.

Thanks in advance,

-Logan
 
technically that's how it's done, but what look are you going for...to quote a DP "it takes a lot of light to make a scene look dark."

for the hotel set up your lights to match your "source" light be the hotel foyer/lobby or the parking lot lights.
for the desert try to shoot right after sunset or before sunrise, during the magic hour. that way you will have light to light your scene and then light your actors accordingly...gel the lights blue as needed.
 
I agree with novelt, magic hour is your best friend for night exteriors. In another thread, novelt also said you can do a white balance against a red card to give you that blue night look. Experiment with what color red though. I'll be trying this later this month myself.
 
>make it not look light a bright light is being shined on the actors?

The more you can move the lights from behind the camera to the front of the camera, the more it will help you. In other words, the more you side-light, top-light, or even if you can back-light, the more "nightish" it will look.

For a first attempt, I'd put the work lights up as high and as far back as possible to provide rim lighting and texture to the ground. I'd use the soft box on a dimmer for frontal fill - enough to see the eyes, but not enough to look "lit". Good luck and have fun Logan.
 
You might want to get some ctb gels since tungsten lights cast a red hue. It will cut your light output a lot but it will look more realistic.

-Kevin
 
Shoot during "magic hour" which is really a magic 15 minutes.

Though you can use most of that time.

Being a DP this is a very complicated subject. Shooting day for night is the best choice here since you do not have enough light to do what you want unless your are only going to do close ups.

Orson Wells said.

A writer needs a pen

A movie maker needs and army

and this is OOOO so true
 
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