Night for Day on digital?

O

OldCorpse

Rockin the Boat
I'm interested in getting the effect of Night for Day using a DVX100 or HVX200. Now, when I say Night for Day, I'm looking for something pretty specific. It's the "bad" night for day as you see sometimes on film - i.e. I'm after that spooky sky and buildings effect that you get from dodgy night for day effects on film, not an actually successful shooting of night for day where you fool the audience that it's really been shot at night.

I more or less understand how you do it on film, so is there anything special involved when using a dvx or hvx? How close can I get to that film effect using these cameras? TIA!
 
Do you mean "Day for Night"?


To make Day look like night, shoot on a cloudy day, you want low contrast ratios.
Then crush your blacks, boost the mids and highs.
Desaturate, and add a little blue.

voila!

- Greg
 
Oops, yes, I mean Day for Night.

And I most likely will not have the option of "cloudy day" - I'll be shooting a Southern Cali location in July.
 
Thanks for the link, Bando Productions. I looked over the tutorials page and boy, there's quite a bit of material... should take me a few months :)

In principle, however, is this eminently doable, or is it such a look hard to reproduce on video? First, I'd like to know how close one can come, before sinking a lot of time into learning how (what if the result ain't worth it?).
 
OldCorpse said:
Thanks for the link, Bando Productions. I looked over the tutorials page and boy, there's quite a bit of material... should take me a few months :)

In principle, however, is this eminently doable, or is it such a look hard to reproduce on video? First, I'd like to know how close one can come, before sinking a lot of time into learning how (what if the result ain't worth it?).
Click to expand...

It is doable I think and it dpends how good you want it to look. Cast Away's night scenes were all day for night.....Yes Andrew Krammer is a God!

Here is a little something I did few months ago for practice...Day for night Shot on DVX100b used AE and this is well just a still frame but you get the picture...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDI5tdzxS3A
 
Wow, triplej96, that link's neat. I was looking for a slightly brighter, bluer sky, but it seems a cinch to alter that slightly... so, it looks doable... great - and thanks!

I was also slightly worried how much post would have to be done to get the right look, but I guess that's a bridge I'll cross when I get to it. In the end, maybe it's almost more a question of post than the actual settings while shooting. Good to know either way.
 
OldCorpse said:
Wow, triplej96, that link's neat. I was looking for a slightly brighter, bluer sky, but it seems a cinch to alter that slightly... so, it looks doable... great - and thanks!

I was also slightly worried how much post would have to be done to get the right look, but I guess that's a bridge I'll cross when I get to it. In the end, maybe it's almost more a question of post than the actual settings while shooting. Good to know either way.
Click to expand...


Thanks its not perfect but I did it in about 3 hours. Yep it would be a cinch to make the sky brigther and bluer. One thing I made sure to do when I shot that as you can see is blow out the sky it made it easier to work with in post for me on that shot. Sky and cloud replacement is certainly possible with AE as well.

Here is anohter vid I did sky replacement along with some matte painting elements. my site link. I just started builing my site and it is offline but I uploaded this video there.
http://www.joshjohnsonfilms.com/

Hoped it helped or gave some encouragement. I never touched AE until this past February. Never had a class on it but have read quite a few books on it and watech almost all of Krammers tutorials.

Josh
 
Yeah, ha, ha, that's pretty awesome! I still feel childish delight at how much one can do on what just a few years ago would have required a huuuuge budget :)

I feel like I can go into my back yard and shoot Indiana Jones and just fill in all the exotic stuff with some AE magic :)

So thanks, that was definitely encouraging.

P.S. Encouraged by your samples, I'm thinking of getting the new K20D :)
 
OldCorpse said:
Yeah, ha, ha, that's pretty awesome! I still feel childish delight at how much one can do on what just a few years ago would have required a huuuuge budget :)

I feel like I can go into my back yard and shoot Indiana Jones and just fill in all the exotic stuff with some AE magic :)

So thanks, that was definitely encouraging.

P.S. Encouraged by your samples, I'm thinking of getting the new K20D :)
Click to expand...


Ha, I'm making you spend some money huh lol. I love my Pentax K10D amazing camera. I hear ya though I'm amazed at some of things I've done with my workstation at home and just things I see online. Like you said indies can look big budget. I'm teaching my self Cinema 4D too so I can hopefully create some really cool things :). It is worth learning AE! Talking about spending money I just ordered a 35mm adapter last week....... :)

Josh
 
Let me see if I understand what you're looking for. Are you looking for the kind of things you used to see in old westerns where the shadows cast were obviously by the sun and everything is really brighter than it should be? To me, this is the "bad" or cheesy Day for Night, but I just want to be sure this is what you mean.
 
Sure thing, triplej96, I'll do that.

Blaine, that is exactly what I'm talking about! That cheesy effect. I for some reason just love it for the idea I have. Briefly, I'm looking to shoot a horror movie, and there are some night scenes around an isolated church. I thought the mood would be great shooting this day for night in that old cheesy way - I find that look pretty spooky, in that audiences can tell something's wrong, but they can't always tell why (of course, film types know instantly). So, I was looking for that "wrong" atmosphere you get - perfect for my horror idea :)
 
In that case, you don't need an overcast or cloudy day -- because you WANT the shadows, since you're going for the 'bad' day for night look.

I think usually they tried real hard not to let the sky be seen at all when they did D-F-N, but showing the sky might also give it that 'bad' effect.

Good luck!
 
There was a really bad movie made by a DVXUser that did this type of Day for Night. It was basically shot in "Broad Daylight" then he used a blue filter to make it look like night. He may or may not have lowered the light levels, I can't quite remember and can't bring myself to watch the film again to find out...:lipsrseal

If pressed, maybe I could...:zombie_smiley:
 
Well, I guess I should clarify it a bit. I'm not looking for it to be laughable. The idea is basically that shooting day for night results - to me - in a kind of an unsettling mood. So, it can't be so exaggerated that it causes giggles, and it can't be so smooth that you don't even notice and it just seems like regular night footage. I guess something in between. I'm going for the mood here... of course, I'm not sure I'm making myself clear... maybe this is not a common reaction to the effect I'm talking about.
 
I see what you're saying. I find the "old time" day for night somewhat laughable so you probably want to tone it down a bit. But then, again, that might just be me...
 
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