Scene File Request: Day for Night

[George David]

I would like to film during mid-day to simulate moonlight. So far, I've been testing using Stephen's panamatch, white balance using a yellow card to get a bluish tint. Expose to the highlights, close down the iris about 2 stops. Then have a character carry a bright flashlight.

Anybody else have suggestions or a preset you designed specifically for this type of scene?

[George David]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I also tested Tim Dashwood's film noir, raise the colors a little bit with very good results. But I want to hear your input if you have done the Day for Night scenes. Thanks.

[Tim Dashwood]

Hi George,

My usual method for day for night photography is to underexpose by about 2 stops, and set the WB to 3200K preset. This will give a blue-cast.

Try to shoot between 10AM and 3PM in the summer months, and position your actors to be side lit by the sun.

Obviously, try to avoid the sky, but if you have to show the sky try using a polarizer to bring the level down (rotate in the matte box until the sky is as dark as possible) or use a ND grad filter.

You can assist with the effect in post production, but if you shoot it properly in camera it won't be necessary.

You can see in the attached image that a little post work will be required for the reflections in the windows and the other building in the upper right corner. This was shot at around 10AM in October.

[Nima Taheri]

Tim:

did you use a certain scene file for that night shot?

[George David]

Spectacular. Thanks, Tim.

[John Vincent]

Originally Posted by Nima Taheri

Tim: did you use a certain scene file for that night shot?

Tim - shooting a horror film this fall, with many moments at night. Obviously, this camera is not so hot in low-light situations, so I will be forced to shoot day-for-night.

I also wonder if there are any specific settings/scene files you'd recomend for this, or any other tips you could share. Otherwise, I'll be in the poor house trying to light all the scenes I have to shoot at night :)

Would you be willing to post any other day-4-night footage you've shot? That j-peg looks great.

Thanks again Tim-

john
evilgeniusentertainment.com

[Tim Dashwood]

Originally Posted by John Vincent

Obviously, this camera is not so hot in low-light situations, so I will be forced to shoot day-for-night.

You have been greatly mis-informed. You must have been reading another forum!

In fact, the HD100 performs very well at night and in low-light in general. I've shot many night-for-night scenes, and on a very low budget with minimal resources. You should take a 100W bulb outside at night, crank up your gamma setting, leave the gain on 0, and see what you can pull off. You will be amazed.

Originally Posted by John Vincent

I also wonder if there are any specific settings/scene files you'd recomend for this, or any other tips you could share. Otherwise, I'll be in the poor house trying to light all the scenes I have to shoot at night :)

The great thing about day for night is that if you are nervous you can go half-way with the underexposure, and then take it down even more in post.
The tricky thing is to avoid the sky in the BG.
I only do day-for-night when absolutely necessary. (stealing a location or trying to show off a huge area that would be too big to light on budget.)

Originally Posted by John Vincent

Would you be willing to post any other day-4-night footage you've shot? That j-peg looks great.

I don't have a whole lot of day-for-night shot with the HD100. I do have some stuff from some other films shot on film that I'll upload.

[Stephan Ahonen]

Here are a few different things you can do:

1) Crush the blacks to deepen the shadows. Set black stretch and master black to negative values. Try a few different gamma curves as well to see if you can squish things down a little more.
3) Use the matrix to dial out non-blue colors. Set R and G matrix to negative values.
3) Tint it blue. Either white balance on a warm-colored card or (my preference) use the R and B paint to dial in the exact shade of blue you want. Note that there is a distinction between this and step two. If you're familiar with a vectorscope at all, painting will move the entire vectorscope plot around, putting a blue cast on the image, but reds, for example, will still stay basically red. Matrix will actually scale down the reds while leaving the blues the same color. This more accurately simulates blue lighting.
4) Actually overexposing the highlights a bit can sell the fact that the rest of the scene is dark. Iris a bit higher than you normally would, using the settings in step one to keep things dark.
5) Judicious use of knee to crush the highlights, which sells how much brighter they are than the rest of the scene.

[David Scattergood]

You should take a 100W bulb outside at night, crank up your gamma setting, leave the gain on 0.

I've been thinking about getting an attachment lamp for the HD100 - are these usually fine for general use? And would cranking up the gamma (with the Gain at 0) work on the other formats?
I had to whack the gain up when I doing a spot of filming in a restaurant at night recently - grainy as hell unfortunately, though still usable.

I've been recommended getting a Kodak 18% grey card (to get 100% accurate exposures), though I'm not entirely sure how these work?

[John Vincent]

Originally Posted by Tim Dashwood

You have been greatly mis-informed. You must have been reading another forum! In fact, the HD100 performs very well at night and in low-light in general. I've shot many night-for-night scenes, and on a very low budget with minimal resources. You should take a 100W bulb outside at night, crank up your gamma setting, leave the gain on 0, and see what you can pull off. You will be amazed.

I've read that the nature of these new, HDV cams precludes them from having the same abilty to shoot in low light situations as their DV counterparts. As an example, the HVX is perhaps a stop to a stop and a half slower than the DVX. The JVC100 certainly is not as light sensitive as a Canon XL-1. A necessary limitation of 1/3" chip set packed with many more sensors I suppose.

To light even a relatively small exterior area will require virtually the same sort of lighting as 16mm film, at least as far as my testing has shown...

That said, I have not done the gamma cranking trick yet - but I sure will!
(Lord do I hope this works).

Thank you for the tip Tim - I'll report back tommorow to report my results. Thanks Stephen for your tips as well - it's going to be a busy night!
john
evilgeniusentertainment.com