night

..shooting day for night is a valid production technique, but more often, what is done is shooting at night, or in the dark, and using the right amount of color balanced light to light what you want to light... and only what you want to light..

ive shot day for night before with great results... its a great technique to use indie when away from windows because you don not have to deal with sky or streetlight and sound and such. but in general id suggest just having the shot dark and then painting it with light as you see fit.
 
but it is easier to darken a scene than lighten it up... and if you shoot at very low sunlight (as I mentioned) it is gonna be cool
 
I'm just being a pain just because I can always tell when a scene was shot day for night and it really gets on my nerves. The contrast is always wrong and it's always too blue. True scenes shot at night are not blue, they are dark with lights bouncing from reflective surfaces. Day for night is almost always gelled blue when shot or color corrected in post to be way too blue. The blue is supposed to make you think it was shot at night. When has night ever looked that blue to your eyes when you were outside? Never to mine. Dark grey maybe . . . never blue.

Although, I have to admit that a blue light coming in a window tends to oftentimes sell a shot as moonlight, but even that is typically taken too far. I think I'm just too picky for my own good. Harumph.
 
Okay now . . . for the science behind what we're trying to achieve using Day for Night:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purkinje_effect

"The Purkinje effect (sometimes called dark adaptation) is the tendency for the peak sensitivity of the human eye to shift toward the blue end of the spectrum at low illumination levels.

"This effect introduces a difference in colour contrast under different levels of illumination. For instance, notice the bright red of geranium flowers against the dull green of their leaves in bright sunlight, and then view the same scene at dusk. The contrast will be reversed, with the petals appearing a dull red against paler green leaves.

"The physiological reason for this effect is that the colour-sensitive cones in the retina are most sensitive to yellow light, whereas the rods, which are more light-sensitive but do not distinguish colours (and thus are more important at dusk), respond best to green-blue light. For this reason, we become virtually colour-blind under low levels of illumination, for instance moonlight.

"In visual astronomy, it can affect visual estimates of variable stars when using comparison stars of different colours, especially if one of the stars is red.
The effect was discovered by Johannes Evangelista Purkinje (born December 17, 1787 in Libochowitz (Libochovice), Bohemia – died July 28, 1869). Purkinje was a real polymath who would often meditate at dawn, in long walks in the blossomed Bohemian fields. Purkinje saw his favourite flowers (that were red) on a sunny afternoon. But at dawn they certainly looked bluish-red only. He figured that our eyes have not one but two systems adapted to see colours, one for bright overall light intensity, and the other for dusk and dawn."

If you want to accurately simulate nighttime using Day for Night, my recommendation is to desaturate the hell out of your footage and shift it ever-so-slightly toward blue. That is, if you MUST shoot Day for Night.

nathan
 
that is a good tip.
I agree with you that WE can tell when a scene was shot day for night. just look the shadows.
but the man of the average cannot see any difference!!!
 
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