re-creating moonlight

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Weston

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Hello,

I've been having trouble re-creating the look of moonlight. I know its possible to just film during the day and then tint it in post, but i need to actually film it at night because i'm using some lanterns that need to retain thier original color. I need to have the look of moonlight streaming in windows from the outside. Is there any arrangement of lights or some sort of method you know of that can enable me to do this?

thanks

-Weston
 
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You could have an HMI coming in through the window. On the past film I shot, we had HMI's with 1/2 CTB for moonlight. We also had a leko coming through a window so, naturally, we had full and a 1/2 CTB on that. It turned out really well.
 
moonlight is very blue, I'd have to go out and get my book to be exact but I think it is about 6500k. So gelling an hmi is very viable. If you have to use a tungsten use as strong as ctb as you can.
 
that's what you'll have to do since you need lanterns in the shot that have to have correct color.

after hero-fest is done i could show you a clip where we lit for moonlight, but we didn't have to worry about any other lights in the shot — it was strictly a moonlit scene. we cc'd in post to make it blue, and it came out as intended.
 
Thanks for the responses....

I ordered some Dark blue gels that i'll try in front of various lights....

i'll let you know how it goes..

thanks again..

-Weston
 
Try to put the light as far as possible to get parallel rays. Moon (and Sun) is practically at infinity.

We are so used to the non-parallel sunrays in movies that I noticed in a video game that it had a non-rectangularly shaped light patch from a large window cast on the floor. Why, they could make it perfect in a game if not in real movies? Maybe it looks MORE real unreal, like in TV??? Funny.
 
Dark Blue? Yikes.
Did you buy CTB, or just dark "party gels?"
You will loose a lot of stops by putting those gels in front of the light.

Experiment with 1/2 CTB and color balance for tungsten. You can also use plug-ins in post to acheive some great looks.

Jeff:kali:
 
I also find that 1/2 CTB works best for me. I think it more closely matches the look of actual moonlight (and you don't lose as much light in the process).
 
Another thing, though, is that if you want your "moonlight" to be significantly brighter, you can gel the any interior motivated lights you have and balance to them. That is, strap 1/2 or full CTO to the already tungsten lights on your set (you'll only lose 2/3 stop from Full CTO vs. 2 stops by Full CTB) and then balance to these gelled tungstens. Once you've set this balance, turn up the "moon" source, which now, even though it is an uncorrected tungsten, will appear as a bright blue source relative to your new warm wight balance. If this doesn't make sense, let me know.
Peace,

-Harry
 
That's actually a great tip. I may just have to do some tests with that technique. Thanks!
 
Awesome. I'm glad that made sense to you guys. If it doesn't to anyone else, just lemme know and I'll explain more. By the way Horse...not to call you out or anything, but it's Harry. I've just got tired of being called Henry for the last 17 years, that's all. Nuttin' personal :)
Peace,

-Harry
 
dudeguy37 said:
Another thing, though, is that if you want your "moonlight" to be significantly brighter, you can gel the any interior motivated lights you have and balance to them. That is, strap 1/2 or full CTO to the already tungsten lights on your set (you'll only lose 2/3 stop from Full CTO vs. 2 stops by Full CTB) and then balance to these gelled tungstens. Once you've set this balance, turn up the "moon" source, which now, even though it is an uncorrected tungsten, will appear as a bright blue source relative to your new warm wight balance. If this doesn't make sense, let me know.
Peace,

-Harry
Click to expand...

I confess I do not totally understand

How can two tungsten's (which I assume are 3200K) be (2) different color's?

Shouldn't we use Daylight balanced bulb's for our moon ?

Or is this what is meant ?
 
dudeguy37 said:
By the way Horse...not to call you out or anything, but it's Harry. I've just got tired of being called Henry for the last 17 years, that's all. Nuttin' personal :)
Peace,

-Harry
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, Harry!:( I'm such an asshat.

I was drinking a little bit.

John- If you CTO your key and white balance off of that, your 3200k lights without gels on them will look blue in comparison (and without losing all the light that CTB eats up).
 
Hahahaha....I think the word "asshat" makes up for anything! I admit it, I just laughed out loud in front of the computer...oops.
Anyway, John, I think Horse explained the phenomenon, but for a more step by step approach, here goes:
1-You light your scene with ungelled tungstens inside the room.
2-Gel each of these lights with full CTO (or whatever strength you want, but here I'm gonna assume you want moonlight full blue compared to interior lights.) This gel, based on the mired system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mired) will make your floor tungstens appear to be roughly 2080 K.
3-Balance your camera to a white sheet illuminated only by these lights. While we can't set exact Kelvin temps on our trusty Panasonics, the internal circuitry will see the light and make the WB damn close to 2080K.
4-Strike on the ungelled tungsten you're using for moonlight (maybe a large fresnel backed away from the window or a VNS Parcan) and while this light will still be 3200K, the mired difference (the only color temp scale that can really be used quantitativley) between 2080K with 3200K and 3200K with 5600K are identical, thus we will have a blue source relative to the floor tungstens.

So, I realize now after typing that that it prolly won't help unless you understand the Mired scale, so maybe read the Wikipedia article on it. Anyway, I hope everyone at least understands to a point now.
Peace,

-Harry
 
I totally understand now thank you ! I have a grasp on CTo/CTb already but I think it was this part that I needed to wrap my head around it:

...the mired difference (the only color temp scale that can really be used quantitativley) between 2080K with 3200K and 3200K with 5600K are identical, thus we will have a blue source relative to the floor tungstens.
Click to expand...

I suppose if I used 5600K it was super blue ?

Anyway's thanks for the tips !
 
Glad it makes sense now John.
On another note though, I don't think you were supposed to know about "super blue." Last I checked that was in the "ASC's Super-Duper Double Secret File that John Hudson's Not Supposed to Know About...File." You might want to just keep an eye out for baseball bat wielding cinemtaographers. They're a dangerous breed. ;-)
Peace,

-Harry
 
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