Night Shooting / DFN

[Jordan]

Hi, I'm new to the community ... any help will be greatly appreciated...

I'm going to be shooting a short next month, and all of it takes place at night ... this includes establishing shots of cars on highways, interiors with windows, and an extended scene in a hospital parking lot (which will probably already be lit with flourescents).

Should I attempt to shoot day-for-night, or are there lighting techniques I can use to make it look good?

Thanks!

 

[Barry_S]

To me, shooting day-for-night is a last resort. It doesn't look all that wonderful on film and it looks even worse on video. I think you're better off shooting at night and experimenting with some different looks. I highly recommend you run some lighting tests before the actual shoot. Night lighting can be a little more stylized because people expect a stranger quality of light. So you can experiment a bit with mixing light sources. For the parking lot scene, I'd recommend using a flourescent fixture as a key and let the (overhead I presume) lights act as rim/fill. A lot of parking lot fixtures use high pressure sodium or metal halide lamps, so you may not find flo's suitable. A couple of fresnels with an assortment of gels would also be an alternative, and it always pays to have a china ball on hand for closeups or medium close-ups.