Shooting day for night on a beach

J

Jester2138

Well-known member
I'm planning to shoot a script I wrote on the beach near Fort Morgan, Alabama. It takes place entirely at night - some exterior, some interior - and will involve a few visual effects shots (a small fire on the beach and possibly sky-replacement to enhance stars).

I am planning on using my Nikon D90 and prime lenses, since I used it on two other films and liked the results.

However, asides from stringing long extension cables out onto the beach for lighting, could I possibly shoot day-for-night with good results? I've never done that before, so I thought I'd ask the experts here first :happy:
 
The couple tricks I use:

-Underexpose about 2 stops
-If there is no moonlight in the shot use silks and overheads to cut out shadows
-Use a high(er) end camera where I can get the DIT to really push the toe and knee to create a flat image
-Sometimes remove the 85filter (not always recommended)
-Do test shots and send it to the compositor/fx/Colorist to make sure they are happy.
 
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Here is a low rez sample of footage created using the same techniques.

This was shot at Noon over an overcast sky.
 

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In this shot we had to reverse our location and now had the sun behind the actors. Both scenes were filmed on a beach.
 

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Hey thanks, those were some nice shots. Some great tips too. I'm considering changing my location since the beach site I have in mind is hours away - and getting actors there will be an issue - so I'm looking at closer non-beach locations (my script will work with any isolated place). For instance, one place I have in mind is a house in a forest. How might this affect shooting day-for-night? I would think it would make sky replacement difficult if not impossible - since all the trees would present issues with masking. Again, thanks for your time.
 
The problem with shooting at wooded areas is the high levels of contrast you get. With the sun streaming down from the leaves and branches you can easily have a 7-9 stop difference between light and dark areas.This ruins the D4N effect.

Also sky replacement becomes an issue with all the detail that need to be worked over. We you techniques that use luminance differences along with tracking software to do complex roto jobs like leaves and branches but that even requires a lot of man hours.

In woods you have a few option and requirements:

-Smart blocking to stay away from complex roto jobs
-Silks and overheads to reduce contrast
-Good weather

But always test test test...

Ps: Would the story happen mostly indoors or 50/50? You can always make a Matte for night on the exterior shot and then move indoors.
 
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It's maybe 85% outdoors and 15% indoors. It's looking like the forest is going to end up being my location simply because of availability. So I'm almost certainly going to have to shoot actual night at night
Drogar-Shock%28DBG%29.gif
haha 'cause like you said I can't really do day for night under a canopy of trees.

I'll just get some long extension cords for lights and maybe even a smoke machine :happy:

Thanks again for your help and advice!
 
Shooting early morning and evening would severely limit your shooting time.

If you are going to shoot at night I would highly recommend you watch:

Lord of the rings, fellowship of the ring

The scene where the hobbits are trying to flee the ring wraiths at night through the forest to reach buckleberry ferry. Very good reference for night lighting.
 
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