Question about lighting this night scene.

I

ironpony

Carbonite Member
I was doing some tests on a downtown street at night there is this one section of the streets with all sorts of pinks and greens from signs that looks great, that I want to use. However it is still not bright enough to be picked up on camera and still have a deep enough focus to get all the characters in I want, walking along the side walk and all. So I would have to use my own lights, but if I use lights bright enough to light the shots, then they will dominate all the pinks and greens. The movie light will look brighter than all the natural light coming from the signs, and would therefore look kind of strange. Cause normally it's the light from the signs that make all the light.

How do real movies do this? When someone walks across the street at night, it's the lights from the cars, and the street lights, that illuminate the person. There is not a big light outside the camera that makes all the other lights in the movie darker. Does the movie crew take out the lights of the signs of the buildings and replace them with much brighter lights, same with the car lights, and street lamps? Or how do they get those lights to look brighter than the actual brighter movie lights? I haven't found many websites that go into this. I'm not the DP and would get someone to do this for me, but some DPs have been telling me they are not sure how to solve this one, but I need to know what I am looking at in my budget and cover all variables. Thanks.
 
Hardly any night scenes are lit solely from head lights and street lamps (at least not any good ones that I can recall).
My approach would be to bounce a good light off of a large ultra or muslin from above to create a nice ambient light, or simply to shoot when there's still some daylight available.
The street lamps, window lights and car lights would serve as key.
 
Okay thanks, but I still don't get how bouncing light off won't overpower all the natural lights. I hate doing day for night, cause it causes other problems in post, and it still looks worse than real night. Plus if I did day for night, not all those lights and signs would be turned on yet, and I would have to use VFX to make them look turned on in post. I would have to hire someone who can do that, and would be more money than lighting at night.
 
ironpony said:
I was doing some tests on a downtown street at night there is this one section of the streets with all sorts of pinks and greens from signs that looks great, that I want to use. However it is still not bright enough to be picked up on camera and still have a deep enough focus to get all the characters in I want, walking along the side walk and all. So I would have to use my own lights, but if I use lights bright enough to light the shots, then they will dominate all the pinks and greens. The movie light will look brighter than all the natural light coming from the signs, and would therefore look kind of strange. Cause normally it's the light from the signs that make all the light.

How do real movies do this? When someone walks across the street at night, it's the lights from the cars, and the street lights, that illuminate the person. There is not a big light outside the camera that makes all the other lights in the movie darker. Does the movie crew take out the lights of the signs of the buildings and replace them with much brighter lights, same with the car lights, and street lamps? Or how do they get those lights to look brighter than the actual brighter movie lights? I haven't found many websites that go into this. I'm not the DP and would get someone to do this for me, but some DPs have been telling me they are not sure how to solve this one, but I need to know what I am looking at in my budget and cover all variables. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Real(tm) fillm productions will often replace 'street' lighting, or at least supplement the existing lighting, with 'huge' lights. In the film "In Time"(2011) a number of the night shots were in an area of Los Angeles that does have industrial 'sodium' lighting, but not all that much. Roger Deakins indicated that additional lighting had to be brought in to 'support' the look of industrial sodium lights, but give enough light for a proper exposure.


For the nolo budget filmmaker... either pass on the shot, use an extremely high ISO... or perhaps some sort of After Effects windowing, using a long exposure 'still' shot, composited with the live action shot. One would have to be 'careful' about placement of the moving elements of the shot, relative to the 'plate', that is the static shot.

I have with AE created 'neon sign' looks, and although I did not composite that with live action, it would be 'pretty' simple at that point to do.
 
A lot depends on what kind of camera and lens set up you have and at what sensitivity level and f-stop setting you want to work. I am with Tolin... I would come up with a large soft source for portraiture (There are a lot of ways to set that up) and then augment the available lights the best I can. Yellow/orange street lights can be simulated with gelled lights and you can buy the blue type street light bulbs and put some in your own fixture to augment that. I would see if I could come up with a gel combo to match (As best as possible) the green and pink sign lighting and put that on my own lights to augment them. If the lit signs are in the shot you may have to knock them down a bit with either some ND gel or netting and then use the proper gel combo on bigger lights to light the area that the signs would be shining on.
 
I am using the T3i most likely.. I would like enough of an f stop to get a group of people in focus without having to constantly rack during conversation and movement, so f8 at least, I guess. I would have to get permission from the building owners to do this though. Put a light above their sign, and shine it down. Especially for wider shots. What if I get no permission to use lights? I could light by shining the lights outside of cars, pointing at the actors, but not sure if I'd get into trouble for that either, since it could interfere with traffic or something.
 
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Well, depth of field calculation is kind of a math test word problem where you gotta show your work, and is a factor of sensor size, lens focal length, f-stop and focal plan to subject distance. As a rule of thumb, I keep this mantra in my head, "Wider , Smaller, Further".
This is for lens focal length, lens aperture opening and camera to subject distance. So, all things being equal, going with a wider lens, stopping down to a higher f-stop setting or moving back a little bit from your subject will increase your depth of field. (Now that is down and dirty comment on DOF... like everything, it is more nuanced than that). Now, going for an f8 in the scenario you described I don't think is realistic. I have not shot with a T3i, but I have a T2i. For the scenario that you describe, I don't think that there would be that many issues shooting a scene, and making it look good, would be really that big of a deal. I would look to shoot it at a about f4ish at ISO 800 with a 20mm, a 24mm and a 35mm lenses. To pull an f4 at an ISO 800 you are going to need to be keying at 25 footcandles of light. That is a lot of light, or very little light, depending on your perspective. You will probably be spending most of you time very much south of f4 and I really recommend that you test the available light very carefully and see where the bottom end is.

Also, yes, if you are shooting on an other persons property, then you need their permission. If you plan to publicly exhibit the footage, like on the internet, then you should get a signed release from the owner of the property.
 
If I read this post correctly your main concern is keeping the colored pops of light hitting your talent while augmenting the natural streetlight and keeping the natural feel.

If that's the case think about your angles. the color light usually coming from neon signs would come from a low sidy angle. The main lights that humans are use to experiencing at night is sodium vapor warm orange street lights, and those come from the top down. My recommendation would be to take a Unit like a 2k tungsten gel it with some straw, and put it through a frame of grid, way up high creating a nice soft orange roll off from a high angle on your talent, then the neon colored spikes that you like so much would be coming from a side angle creating a color rim light on your talent. The light wouldn't over power anything because its not coming from the same direction.

Then again I have not seen this location and dont know what kind of gear you will have that's just a suggestion!

good luck to you,

Graham
 
Don't know how the pros would handle this, but uncage the guerillas...

Two ideas come to mind.

1. Establish the pink lights as dominant, as they're much more flattering on faces than green. Then gel a light pink, such as inside a China ball. Use the China ball right near the camera with a grip holding the ball in pretty much the same place relative to camera as the people walk.

2. Do your establishing shots to play up the color palette, and then just use regular lights to get your exposure, altering the colors in post.
 
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