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Does my new DP have a good way of doing night shooting?

H

harmonica44

He says he would rather shoot at night rather than doing the whole day for night thing, and night looks a lot better and is more convincing. However I plan on doing some chase and fight sequences, in areas of the woods, where not much light, other than the moonlight, is going to be around. He says it would be much better to use the lights I have, and just use a 1.4 lens for it. My previous DP tried using the 1.4 at night for action, but couldn't keep it in focus, saying there was not enough DOP.

So my new DP would have to keep refocusing during the fights and chases. This would have to be done by a second person while my DP operates the steadicam. He said he would have no problem with that and that the motion blur will mask a lot of the noticeable constant refocusing, to the audience. Should I do it all at night?

I also want to do some night scenes in the city, that are continuous, with the woods scenes, just outside the city. I want shots of buildings with the lights inside turned on, as if it were night. Same with the lights of the street, and the lights on the cars, on the streets. So I am thinking I would have to shoot those at night for sure, and either shoot the woods scenes during the day and make it look like night, or during night. So should I do day for night for the woods, and make it match the look of the continuous night scenes in the city, or would it match better if I did it all at night, and just keep constantly refocusing during the fights?
 
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Doing any kind of day-for-night shoots always looks fake, unless you have people working on this that have a lot of experience with creating it. A good day-for-night effect won't happen by just shooting during the day and then working on it in post.

Let's take your woods example; you can't see very far into the woods if there is only moonlight during the night. The lighting of daytime would create shadows that are very different from those of the night. If all you do is color grade the footage, especially fast paced action footage, you wont be able to properly create the illusion that it's night time AND see your actors properly. You might be able to create a dawn feeling, but not midnight.

It is always best to just properly shoot at night. I understand that money is the issue here, but getting at least one light with a generator could be enough. Maybe even bring a mirror to bounce back the light onto another object.

If you still insist on shooting day-for-night in the woods. Shoot the entire scene during sunrise. It would be best to shoot at the edge of the woods if you can, so you can get as much of the early light of day. This way, you'll get very soft shadows and it would be much closer for color grading - you might just get away with this illusion. You wont have much time to shoot the scene though, so make sure you're prepared.
 
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Test it. Shooting at night does look better, but only when you have some light.

Pulling focus isn't that hard. Granted, at 1.4 it'll be a little tough but if he's experienced then he can probably do it.

Indie filmmaking is all about compromise. You have a scene involving a chase that takes place on a dark forest and you want to shoot a lot of handheld for it. Either change the location, change the time of day or change the way you shoot it (use tripod shots only) and it becomes a really easy scene to shoot. Only one compromise is needed to make this not a headache. Or go back and rewrite it so it's not a crazy chase scene.

I follow my own advice too. I, and most everyone on here have all made compromises to get a shoot done. Some actually end up working out better. Plus, if you never admit it to the audience, nobody will know it wasn't the original intention.

Even mainstream $50mil movies have to make compromises. There was a car chase scene in Mr & Mrs Smith that they couldn't afford. So they rewrote it, shot it differently and then that scene they shot was destroyed at the lab. Their insurance had a $50k deductible, which a shooting day to replace it would have been about $60-70k so they couldn't replace it. They used the only 11 frames salvageable and rotoscoped it into a cheap plate and the only reason I or anyone else knows it wasn't the plan the whole time is because they talked about it on the commentary.

So yeah, compromise might not be fun, but it's part of the game.
 
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focus in low light is harder. No doubt. If your trying to rack focus, hand held, high action then your going to likely fail. Id re envision the fight scene to be a few wide silhouette shots mixed with many Close ups. All the shots would be static shots from a tripod. If you want some movement then do a dolly shot where you parallel the action, keeping the same distance from the subjects (no rack focus required) EDIT: I think that would look really good, with the bare trunks of trees in the foreground moving by at a fast speed.. while the action stays centered!

Another approach might be to do it like that scene from phantom menace.. where the only light is coming from the sabers, and we only get glimpses of the action but its pretty cool.. for your scene one of the actors could be holding a flashlight, using it light a club, that would give some motivation for odd lighting..

The key to night shots is lighting the background!
 
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Speaking as someone who has a wide rang of experience as a 1st AC pulling focus, doing it at T/1.4 on anything linger than about 50mm is tough, depending on the action happening in frame. That's where we earn our living. With all respect to Paul, pulling focus at T/1.4 is far from 'not that hard', let alone on anything longer than 50mm, especially with Canon EF lenses. It ain't easy, but that's what seperates the men from the boys, and there's a great feeling when you nail a shot at t/1.4 on a 100mm lens.

You do have to have a good 1st AC, or a DP who's pulling his own focus and can do it well enough. It depends on the lighting you have, and the way you want the scene blocked.

I'd suggest blocking it differently, or even as it's a chase/fight scene go for a stylistic in-and-out-of focus look.

Also, remember that night scenes are not about lack of light. I lit a night scene on a stage a couple weeks ago - we only had access to tungsten lights, and we ended up using ~20k of light. We shot on the Red Epic with Red Pro Primes at T/2.8.
Just got the footage back, had it graded and it looks great.

You're fooling the audience, you're not shooting reality.
 
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You need to trust your DP. If you have picked a good DP, let him do his thing. He knows what he is doing.

What focal length do you want to shoot? F1.4 is not always the F1.4 everyone fears.

F1.4 on a 14mm or 18mm is much easier to pull than F1.4 on a 50mm or say 85mm!
 
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I'm going to second testing the setup... if it works, then stop worrying about it and move on to the next show stopping problem. The reality is that most of the questions you ask have the same answer... test it... shoot a test of what you're trying to do... take a day and shoot all of the tests in one go that you have questions about, document extensively so that when you hit set, you've got lists and diagrams for everyone... your DP should be insisting on this! It's his job to be able to present a finished plan to the lighting grips so he doesn't have to spend time on set explaining it. He should be able to check his measurements and get a feel for the lens he's using if it's not one he owns.

shoot a test... hollywood does it (for nearly every production), why shouldn't we?
 
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I would like to test it but unfortunately these lenses cannot be rented where I live, and have to be purchased, so I need to know if something works before I buy it usually. Same with the types of mics being the right choices, etc.

As far as focal length goes, when it comes to fights there is those certain focal lengths that make objects look like they appear closer. I want to use those, since it will make people look like they are being punched more and what not. Just so long as the focal lengths are good for those, and don't look like weird focal lengths, it should be good.

Here's a fight scene from my first short film:

http://youtu.be/N03tBj9Ip_Y

The part where the guy grabs the woman by the hair and throws her into the wall... She is out of focus at the start of the throw, but when she hits the wall a second later, she is in focus. I would at least like to do shots like that. I realize that she is changing her distance in the fight, but storyboarding a fight where the actors cannot change their distance seems like a recipe for a somewhat poorly shot fight scene maybe. Of course this was not shot with a 1.4 under that low of light. I would like shoot it somewhat like this, but with more camera movement, such as panning and sliding more, if that's do-able.
 
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knightly said:
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... test it...
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Click to expand...

+1
While testing: try to add smoke to the scene as if it is misty in the woods.
It can help hiding the background a bit.

And look for a compromise if needed.
(Like mentioned earlier in this thread.)
Maybe the chase and fight don't take place in the night because the hunted hides succesfully untill it gets lighter again?
Or the chase does, but the fight doesn't.
(This could add some tension :P)

Maybe it has to be recorded during magic hour. This will take a few days, but can be a way to get it right.
 
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I saw a youtube example long ago, of day for night that actually looked like real night though, and not that 9 PM night, everyone is so use to doing. Basically what the filmmakers did is mask the sky, and brought it down to almost total black, whilst leaving enough light on everything else, to be seen. So it seems like it could be do-able according to that example as long as you bring down the sky, separately.

I don't like to shoot only during dawn though. A fight scene like this will take at least two days to shoot and one hour a day, is going to seriously inconvenience the schedule, and have more risks of difference weather.
 
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Oh, the dreaded 'I saw this in x movie, why the hell can't we do it in this movie'.

Do you really want a list of reasons why you can't do it like they do in this or that movie? Apart from no budget and inexperience?

Do you really want to have to do that much heavy vfx on two days worth of shots, when you could just shoot it at night in the first place?
I also would disagree that the scene will take at least two days to shoot, but I don't know how long or intense the scene is.
 
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Yeah, don't rely on VFX unless you completely understand the process and are 110% sure you can pull it off because you're crazy experienced OR you've shot tests and done that exact technique before. You were complaining about masks and rotoscoping recently in another thread, weren't you?
 
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I was thinking the fight itself will take two days too shoot, since the one I did before did, and this one is of similar length. But the parts before and after the fight, will take longer for sure.

Yeah I was complaining about how to draw around them more manually. But yes I would like to avoid post work I am not experienced in. My DP is not experienced in it either at all, of course, which is why he is more comfortable shooting at night. I've seen tests shots of his and he does an excellent job, but the night scenes, in the woods, with a lot less light, are the ones we have been practicing on. With my 18-55mm lens, we can see an actors face, but have trouble picking up on dark clothing.

The villains in the fight are hitmen so having them dress in white will come off an unconvincing to the audience, since we are accustomed to seeing them dress in black, or darker clothes that do not stand out. But dark clothes do not show up well and all they are is noise, with no details, in the material of the clothes. So I need to work on making it bright enough for that.

The 1.4 lens would probably be help, but no one has one for me to test, and I would have to purchase it, and be sure it's what we want. I don't want to do one of those fights though that goes in and out of focus though, cause I think that will distract the viewers, a lot more than engross them. So if we can avoid that that will be nice.

One of you said to shoot it on a tripod, static shots. I assume those are shots that do not move. Even if that will help keep it in focus, I have been tried shooting shots like that in my previous fight scene, and actors just keep going out of frame. Even telling them to stay in frame, they then become too careful, and the fight comes off as fake, as a result.
 
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Here's the thing: It's night.

How often do you see things perfectly at night? If they're hitmen, then they're going to be sneaking up as well, one would assume, so having them barely seen would be great. It's a night scene, you only need to see outlines. You're lucky you can see faces, you certianly don't need to see complete clothing.

That's how we fake night scenes: backlight to get an outline, and completely underexpose the front/face area.
 
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I don't really understand what you're asking at this point. You seem convinced that nobodies suggestions will work for one reason or another, so it seems like you're looking for a magic solution that will make everything work according to script, vision, location, time of day, equipment etc.

There's no other solution than what's been presented. You been given a LOT of good advice. So either go with the decision to trust your DP that he can do it according to your vision (which you don't seem to think is possible) or pick something to compromise. Like I said before, change any one factor and it becomes really, really easy to shoot. Or come up with a lot of money to make it work exactly according to vision, but budget is usually the one thing none of us can compromise. So yeah, there ya go!
 
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And I thank you all for the great advice! I don't think I will do static shots, at least not all static shots, since during a fight it makes it too easy for characters to go out of frame. But there are a lot where I can keep the camera still for sure, and still make it good.

My DP is an older guy and he took his schooling in the 90s, so he doesn't know much about modern post FX. So we'll do actual night then, which will save time in post. One thing came to mind though while we were practicing. For the shots, where the fighters are on the ground and the camera is on the ground with them, pointed up at their faces, as they are strangling each other... These shots with the camera pointed up from the ground will have to be done with a 10mm lens or something wide, otherwise it will be too close.

They don't make lenses at 1.4 that are that wide enough for the shot, so I will have to come up with a way around that and do some tests, possibly with mirrors if they reflect well enough at night. I'll see. As far as only seeing outlines on the characters, it's not just the hitmen, it's the good guys too, and you can't see them either, so that would make it difficult to tell them apart.
 
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PaulGriffith said:
I don't really understand what you're asking at this point. You seem convinced that nobodies suggestions will work for one reason or another, so it seems like you're looking for a magic solution that will make everything work according to script, vision, location, time of day, equipment etc.

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Click to expand...

He needs a Bioport 3.1!
This way you can download what you imagine into a computer... ;)
 
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