ive been asking a similar question myself lately. I think shooting darkness is easy enough, its when you want to shoot something thats dark but also lit. eg. someone sat at a desk say where the only light is from a desk lamp... how do you have it so there is enough light but it still looks like that one lamp is the only source.
On the bright side (no pun intended) you have a good camera and i think it will probably handle low light alot better than the lesser DV models.
I myself would be interested to hear any advice anyone else has aswell [img]smile.gif[/img]
re candle light, go down your local DIY Store and buy some paper chinese laterns, put these over your practicals and you can enhance the effect of the room being lit by candles.
Tip two, REFLECTORS. you can maximise the light you haev got my making some home made reflectors, cheapest easiest way, big piece of cardboard and some silver foil,
to get flash , good thick white material strectched over a frame
or some gold foil on cardboard.
I am about to film a new movie which will have a lot of indoor low light night scenes and one or two outdoor night scenes. I will be shooting the whole thing with two Canon GL-1 DV cameras and maybe a hi8 camera for contrast. How to do proper lighting on a low budget is a major concern for me.
The outside scenes I am not so worried about because there is a large halogen light on the building and we plan on shooting during the next full moon for added light so I think that should turn out all right.
My main dilemma is the inside scenes. There will be indirect lighting from other rooms of the house as will as candle light, but that is not always enough. The group I am working with right now is considering using shop lights and desk lamps with blue Party light bulbs (low light 40W) to use as fill. Has anyone ever done this before and how did it work?
I am also open to any suggestions anyone might have on how to shoot this.
Thanks.
Here is another very very very important thing to remember.
It doesn't have to be natural looking at all to still be "natural".
This is what I mean. Have you seen the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever"? Where he is crawling through the pipe?? And there is light all over and no one questions it. Or, why when the criminal is in the heating ducts is there light coming in from all sorts of angles. There are countless examples. People will buy just about anything when it comes to night shooting as long as it is not Day-For-Night.
Good Luck
I've observed that many many digital cameras create higher contrast than actually exists in the scene in an effort to emulate the look of film.
Study your digital camera and see if there are any menu "overides" that will reduce the contrast ratios for when you are actually shooting. This will actually make lighting easier.
When you are actually editing is the proper time to "finalize" your scene's contrast ratios rather than the camera deciding that for you when you shoot.
Fine tuning your camera may mean you need less lights to overide the increased contrast many digital cameras create.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Something thats funny is to watch Die Hard, when he jumps into the air duct he grabs for his lighter and when he switches it on instead of thier being a little flicker of light theres a great big increase of light, like flicking the lighter on somehow switched a spot light on inside the vent. [img]graemlins/thinking.gif[/img]This is what I mean. Have you seen the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever"? Where he is crawling through the pipe??
Nigel is absolutley right.
My favourite is Evil Dead II, there is an external shot of the cabin at one point and you can clearly see it is surrounded by towers and tripods decked with lights. No one cares cos they are wrapped up in the story, and at least they can see something.
Alas most of my film has been shot day for night and I plan to try and adjust it in post......
probably a big mistake.
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