Hi, I'm currently trying to research techniques used when shooting day for night.

I'm shooting my first full-length feature next summer and as a bid to save costs I might shoot day for night.

However, I've never used this technique before and want to find out more about it; specifically:

- are filters required whilst shooting?

- what process does the film have to go through in post to give
the impression of night?

- will it significantly reduce the cost of shooting if I film the night
scenes during the day?

Any help or other comments / feedback on this technique would be much appreciated.

Adam

A quote from Alex:

The best way to shoot night scenes, that I have found, is to do it right before it gets completely dark outside. Right when the sun sets. At them times, even my little Panasonic DV52 with just 1 1/4" CCD does quite well. I can have the exposure at only +3dB to +6dB (no grain is noticable at that setting) and everything will look pretty good, you can even see the clouds in the sky, and it looks like night

And a thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8419

Adam,

Here is a link: http://www.2-pop.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=cinematographer&Number=608414&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=93&fpart=1

You also might want to pick up the magazine American Cinematographer that contains an article about "28 Days Later" and the cinematographer's idea of shots of day for night.

Cheers!

Derrick

Cheers for you help guys!

I'll look at both those - I'm in the UK so might be difficult to get hold of the magazine Derrick - but I'll scout around some shops and see waht I can find.

"28 Days Later" rocked, but I was surprised at the lack of a 'Danny Boyle' feel to it! Just didn't really seem like his!


Adam

The way it's usually done is with blue lighting or a blue filter.

Go to Videomakers web site ....

they have an article on shooting day for night.

Thanks for the advice Frank


Ron, what's the url of the videomakers website?

Better yet: a link to the exact article

Sorry about the link you have to be a member of club vid to access the article if you are a subscriber your password is in the table of contents. Then just search thru the many helpful tips under lighting.

what i did for my scene of day for night was simply white balance on something yellow, then make the iris very dark. it looked VERY sexy, though the sky was still quite light, however it lookd like moonlight, which is what we wanted.

Now that sounds cool.

I am going to have to try that on a scene in a graveyard that I am working on.

Thanks for all your help everyone - I'll let you all know the results!

Any results yet?

I heard you are to stop down 1 1/2 to 2 stops to get a good night effect shot I would wait and change the contrast and color tint in post.
What was the name of that show on 3 years ago ..Movie Magic ? Had ILM on there alot.Great show it was .Maybe came on AMC or FX.Sure do miss it.
m2cw

Tony

Is that the show were they show you how they make the effects you see in the movies?

I wonder if you can find that show on tape or dvd I would like to see it.

Hi Rob

No results as yet - the shoot wont be until late summer 2004 and I'm still trying to raise the funds.

I was really looking to find out if it's an easier way of filming, (with an interesting visual look), to see if it would be cheaper than actually filming at night.

I'll post more info about the project if you're interested - is there a relevant thread / board for that kind of discussion?

Cheers

AJ

If you gave us some hints as to what kind of location and what kind of action/set your have in mind, maybe it would trigger some ideas. Also, I suppose you mean "office hours" when you say "day", so advise on what you can do late evenings and early mornings are no good?

We will be shooting both externally and internally - however it's the external shoots that I was primarily thinking of.

Not sure of the period of the shoot, (will probably be around two months), but we are set to shoot at any time of the day - so very early morning or very early evening would be fine.

As for the action being filmed there will be tracking, panning and zooming shots of people walking, talking and running. There will also be a handful of establishing and mood shots.

Cheers
AJ

Park? Garden? City centre? Mountain? Forest? Open field? Building site?
(I'm not experienced in all this, but I'm wringing my brain to see if something comes out.)
Sunlight will produce shadows, but so will the moon.
Late evenimng and early moning will produce long shadows, something the moon at midnight will not.
Cloudy days will be easy to darken (in post) but will not have shadows and may become muddy (lacking highlights). Can you supply highlights artificially? Then a cloudy day might be your solution. There should be no shortage of clouds in the UK.
If you can control the intensity of the sunlight (in a forest, under a party-tent or whatever) then mid-day in bright weather might be the thing.
Also if you shoot close-ups and half-shots in the day, you could probably intercut them with real nightshots (without action but with sound) and produce even more convincing results.

All these suggestions are excellent for shooting day for night.

One thought though, if you have a matte box, get a graduated ND filter for the wider shots. If you can position the denser part of the filter onto the sky, it will darken it substantially, while leaving the subjects which are closer to the bottom of the frame still in the light. These filters are not cheap, but they can make the outdoor shots look amazing, and make the sky read like dusk in wide shots.

Throw in a polarizer and a yellow filter. For a different punch for dusk.