Day for night shootings

[MovieStuff]

Previously, Matt wrote:

"Anyway, I need lots of light to get a decent exposure over this large area, but I don't want it to look fake. If you only light a small area, you get that really obviously lit fake look. Roger, have you ever lit DFN in a similar situation? I mean, there is no justification of the light, since there are no streetlights, etc., and I can't afford (not do I have power for) a 12K HMI or something to simulate moonlight."

Matt, you should really check out "Goin' South" which was DP'd by the late great Nestor Almendros, who was a great fan of minimalist lighting. He did some really, really, lovely day for night shots in that movie.

I would not use multiple lights strung through the trees as that will give you "Ponderosa Shadows" and look more fake than day for night. As you mentioned, there is no justification for the lighting. However, that doesn't mean you can't use mirrors or shiney boards to suppliment your fill light so that people can see the eyes of the actors. Tungesten lights won't have the balls to compete with the illumination of the sun, especially if you've underexposed a couple of stops to get the dense blacks that are desirable in DFN.

I have never "lit" a DFN other than using reflectors for fill as mentioned. I have shot night for day a couple of times where we needed extended time on an outdoor set and didn't want the light to change. We use a cluster of HMI's with some tough spun for the key light and then used reflectors for the fill, just as we would if we had been shooting in the sun. We had to resist the temptation to move the key light as we shot. Ultimately, the end result looked very realistic and cut in with the rest of the daylight shots seemlessly.

In that respect, I guess you have to remember that your "moonlight" will change as the day progresses. I would get all the master takes done as quick as possible and then get in tight with reflectors to finish up. It may look like night, but the same rules for daylight shooting still apply. As mentioned above, I would do a test. Perhaps grab a roll of tungsten slide film and have a go.

Roger

[jocko]

I am starting a feature in 16mm around oct..and am in the same boat..2 night ext shoots in wooded area...my DP is going to use a set-up he has used before..bouncing a 2K fresnel off of a 3ft white balloon suspended between trees and use a cookie to break up the light so I don't get that flat look..and use snoots on some peppers to light faces to get them hard lit pools of light.cause there is no flat lighting in a forest..I'm not too worried cause of the neg stock..just hate the thought of whose gonna carry the generator!(me)

Neil
JOCKO FILMS

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[Alex]

Couple more ideas...the wider the area you need to cover at night, the more it makes sense to shoot 16mm.

The super-8 way to do your shoot, if you insist on seeing wide vistas in your shot...

Is to shoot during magic hour.

So which is more efficient?

3 - 5 days of short magic hour shoots, or 1 or 2 nights of heavily lit Super-8 scenes, or perhaps 1 night with 16mm and less is more style of lighting.

Final compromise, shoot the wide shots in 16mm, (this also helps alleviate the issue of a loud camera, wide shots are pretty easy to over dub, and the camera may be farther away anyway) and shoot your close-ups and mediums in Super-8mm.

Final Final idea, shoot the wides during magic hour, the close-ups and medium shots at night, all in Super-8.

-Alex



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[Matt Pacini]

Well, first of all "make sure the sky is not brighter than your actors" basically means aim an 18K HMI light at your actors!
The sky is always going to be the brightest thing in the frame.
So, I'm not going to show the sky, since it's a bad idea, and I'm in dense forest, with little sunlight.
As far as magic hour goes, I'm going to be doing probably 9-12 hour shoots to get what I need, so that is not an option.
I tried that once, and it was totally ridiculous.
That only makes sense if you're shooting what's going to end up being a minute or so of finished footage, because it lasts for such a short period of time, and there is no such thing anyways, when you're shooting in dense forest, because there is no direct sunlight, which you need for magic hour.
Anyway, Roger, I don't mind it looking a little "studio night" looking, for instance like Planet of the Apes looked like, which was shot on a stage, with a zillion overhead HMI's on a grid (see the latest American Cinematographer magazine).
They also had an interesting thing in the photo, that I think I'm going to use:
A lightball on a boom, so a PA can move it around for fill light wherever you need it, while moving the actors &/or camera!
I keep reading (& hearing here) just to underexpose 2 stops or so, but SOMETHING has got to be lit somewhat normally, or everything is just going to look like mud. The audience will not know what to look at.
I just watched Papillon. Great movie, well shot too. (I've been watching a buch of films to figure out how they shot night scenes).
I've noticed in every movie I've seen so far, the night scenes all have tons of light, with no justification whatsoever.
The one thing that I've consitently noticed though, is that they will have no fill light, only key, to create lots of shadows, and the key is way off to the side.
I don't think anyone is going to question it, if it's done right, but I'm the paranoid sort, so I'm nervous!
I probably will not do DFN, just because I've seen some big budget movies that did it, and I spotted it a mile away!
Since these guys are better DP's than I, I don't want to risk it!
Matt Pacini

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[Alex]

I did not mention the 2 f-stop underexpose, however, it must be more for outdoorsy, not in the woods type of shots.

Magic hour shooting might work (notice how I mentioned you might need up to five days of these because they are so short)

In lieu of many extra set-ups, some productions use steadi-cam and do longer continuous shots.

If you have a "steadi-cam" style chase sequence in your script, magic hour could work due to the extended length of the take you would be shooting with the steadi-cam.

-Alex



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[This message has been edited by Alex (edited August 31, 2001).]

[Jambu]

Now i see that in this topic no one (me first) mentioned the importance of using a spotmeter (or even a still camera after calibrating it on your S8 camera) to shoot a DFN! I think you absolutely can't just underexpose of some stops basing on the internal light meter of your camera if you want obtain good results, i think you have to underexpose shadows to obtain real deep shadows and then go back to see if actors with such an underexpose are still acceptable... that leads us again to Zone System...

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[MovieStuff]

Well, I think it's a given that correct exposure is determined first and then underexposure is based on desired results. The formulas discussed here are only general. At least a couple of people, including myself, have said that tests are needed. This would be true, even if you used a spot meter or the Zone System. No negligence that I can see, here.

Roger

[Matt Pacini]

You have to really visualize things, because sometimes what sounds logical, just doesn't work well when filming, or at least, not exactly like you would expect.
Yes, I'm aware that moonlight is exactly like sunlight, but dimmer (I've done that long exposure thing, and yes, it looks just like it's shot in the day!).
But if you just stop down, you're audience is going to be squinting, trying to figure out what these movements going on in almost total darkness are!
Your eyes can adjust to dimmer light. Film does not. I've seen movies that have night scenes that are just really dark DFN, and they are very hard to follow what's going on, and it gets frustrating and boring very quickly, which is why nobody does that any more at all in modern films (I'm talking NOT about shooting DFN, but that super dark, can't see anything look!).

Roger, I agree with almost everything you said, but the part about the grad filters.
I considered using them, but decided not to, for two reasons:
1. As I said, where I am filming there is no direct sunlight, so there will only be slight glimpses of the sky through the trees, if at all (I'm trying to avoid it).
2. Even if there were, my actors would end up with their heads in the filtered area, unless I kept them in the bottom of the frame, which would be difficult to maintain through all my shots, and look bizarre composed that way anyway.
I don't mind using the lit night technique, because it obviously is good enough for audiences, since I don't see anyone yelling "that is SO fake" during Jurassic Park, Planet of the Apes, or the other thousand movies that have super brightly lit night exteriors.
In fact Jurassic is a good example of what you can get away with, it's lit up like a carnival, but nobody ever thinks it's not night.
I think probably the biggest factor in selling the effect (from what I can see I can see in these films), is having your entire area you're filming lit, but create lots of shadows by side and backlighting.
In other words, if I'm filming in a 50ft area, and I have it lit, but you can see the areas around & behind are not lit, it would ruin the effect, which is a big problem for me, since I don't have the budget to rig a huge area, or rent a nice big HMI to be my moon.
Oh well.
I should have some skeleton of a website up by the time this project is over, & if anyone is interested, I'll put up frame grabs of all this stuff, & tests I shoot, so people can see how it works, and what to avoid (if I make mistakes!).
Thanks,

Matt Pacini


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[mattias]

jambu:
> Am i right? Some other rules i forgot?

yes, keep all practicals out of the frame, since they will look way too dim. i know this from experience, and it really can look *really* fake if you're not careful. a visible light source should read quite a few stops over to look normal, so even car headlights are hard to get bright enough. (silly me, tried burning torches once)

matt pacini:
> SOMETHING has got to be lit somewhat normally

good point, and that's exactly why you need the sun as a quarter backlight. the two methods for getting the correct exposure in dfn that people will tell you are "underexpose two stops" and "expose for the sun". i tried both and it gives about the same result since they mean basically the same thing. on a very sunny day, there's often a three stop difference between sun and shade however, so the two stop rule would then work better to avoid having totally black shadow areas. but when you're in the woods the sun won't be as strong, and the sun rule might work better.

/matt

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[MovieStuff]

Matt wrote:

"Well, first of all "make sure the sky is not brighter than your actors" basically means aim an 18K HMI light at your actors!"

Not at all. Cokin makes a terrific line of cheap grad filters to darken the sky above the horizon line but are clear below. They are specifically made to do what you want to do; make the sky darker.

Also, there is a difference between night that looks natural and night that looks stylized. If you have a master shot that is obviously in a wide area with no logical source for light, then DFN using a grad filter can actually look more natural than something "lit".

In fact, there is no difference between moonlight and sunlight. They are the same thing, since the moon is nothing more than reflected sunlight. If you go out in the wilderness and do really long time exposures stills by moon light, the shots will look exactly like you shot them in the sunlight.

However, it should be noted again that DFN really only works in direct sunlight, with no overcast or cloud cover of the sun. You must have the high contrast of the shadows to delineate your actors otherwise everything will just go murky and flat. Yes there will be hard shadows, just as there would be if you shot by moonlight with ASA 10,000 film, but that is the difference between a "natural" moonlight look using real sunlight (which is evident, even at night) and a "stylized" moonlight look using artifical light.

Also, by establishing a wide DFN master shot up front, the audience knows what (and "how") to look for when you cut in closer to the actors, even though they may look darker than normal if lit with artifical lights. Plus, the use of a ladder in the establishing shot to get up high will raise the horizon line to the top of the frame, minimizing the effect of the sky, even without the use of a grad filter.

Ultimately, DFN can work, but like all special effects, must be planned out in advance; even better it should be storyboarded to avoid any problems with angles that might give away the illusion. And it is, after all, only an illusion; just as lighting with no logical source is an illusion. Whether the audience will accept one or the other as "real" or "fake" is totally dependent on how you lead up to it and how the master shot is established in context with the rest of the movie.

Roger


[This message has been edited by MovieStuff (edited August 30, 2001).]