Night Scene

[andythefilmer]

I am going to be crewing for a short film being shot, and I need to know the best way to light this scene. It is going to be a night scene, in front of a house with a long driveway and big lawn. There will be several cars part of the scene, on the lawn and driveway. We have a very limited lighting selection... A large 1500w cyc light, a 650w fresnel, and a 1000w tungsten, as well as home depot clamp lights and an on-camera light. The plan is to put the 1000w on a c-stand up high, to emulate the moon light. We will probably adjust everything else for different scenes, but I am unsure of placement, as far as what it would ultimately look like. Of course, this shouldn't look like the lights are just there to light the shot.

Any thoughts? Thanks

 

[slondon]

Don't worry too much about realism especially in the sense of every source motivated. Make the artists just well lit enough to tell the story and use most of the lights to give light and dark visual texture to the scene. Play them off the grass and the house, but shine them through trees and bushes so you get interesting shadows and dappled light patterns. The brancholoris idea. Turn on the lights in the house and the outside lights. They'll look great. Use headlights if you need to, you can sell them. Your audience will buy the lighting as from a street lamp, house lights, architectural lighting, etc., and won't think about it.

You can't get a light high enough on a C-stand to look like moonlight except for medium shots and close ups. If you insist on doing that gel the lamp half blue, use diffusion or bounce and white balance for tungsten.