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Night-Lighting
- Thread starter FCP42
- Start date
There is so much you're not telling us that we just can't answer this.
What kind of shot is it ? Is in the city where you have street lamps ? Is it in the woods where the only light is coming from the moon ?
Lighting a night scene is usually a pain in the ass on low budget filmmaking. Day-for-night is easy to pull is you shoot at the right moment of the day and in suitable weather. Check Video Copilot.
What kind of shot is it ? Is in the city where you have street lamps ? Is it in the woods where the only light is coming from the moon ?
Lighting a night scene is usually a pain in the ass on low budget filmmaking. Day-for-night is easy to pull is you shoot at the right moment of the day and in suitable weather. Check Video Copilot.
When we filmed From the Core in the woods at night I only used 1 light and that was a Neewer 160 Dimmable LED Light. It runs on AAs or the same battery as my Sony Nex FS100 camera. I also used a Rokinon 35mm T1.5 Cinelens. Without knowing what lens and camera you are shooting on it is really hard to tell you how to light your scenes. I posted my trailer to the film earlier and you can see the night shots in it to get an idea of how they look and see if it is a route you want to go.
What kind of shots, do you want? Action shots, close ups. etc? I don't know if this helps but I am doing tests, where we are using halogen lights, and sticking them under and around street lamps. We are going to gel them orange to match the street lamps and thereby making it look like the street lamps are the source of light.
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INT. NIGHT is a lot easier to light than EXT. NIGHT.
I've done both, and both have their challenges. I personally prefer shooting night-for-night as I find it's always much more believable.
What, if any, lights do you have available to you..? It's going to be very difficult if you don't have some sort of lighting.
I've done both, and both have their challenges. I personally prefer shooting night-for-night as I find it's always much more believable.
What, if any, lights do you have available to you..? It's going to be very difficult if you don't have some sort of lighting.
You need a lot of power in your lights to shoot night-for-night. Whether you have enough, I'm not too sure to be honest. You might be able to get away with it for INT, but it depends how much you need to light. If you have one relatively small window you might get away with it. Seven windows and you might struggle. A good way to do day for night INT is to selectively black and/or ND gel windows and set the camera to tungsten White Balance. You'd then use the ilghts you have to complement the slight ambience coming from outside. Use ND1.2, doubled up if necessary, on the windows.
Your EXT stuff is going to be relatively difficult. Shoot some day-for-night tests and see how you go.
Your EXT stuff is going to be relatively difficult. Shoot some day-for-night tests and see how you go.