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Lighting at night/outside
- Thread starter JayBird
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This is a million dollar question and best answered by looking at how the pros do it. It's obvious there is light in the picture.
I've been rather observant outside at night quite a bit.
It always looks like a phony light or nearby man made light to me in film.
It just depends upon your scene and setting.
- City street outside a restaurant?
- Suburban street or yard with streetlights?
- Campfire light?
- Country road with a house nearby?
- Forest or field under moonlight?
What's your sitch?
It always looks like a phony light or nearby man made light to me in film.
It just depends upon your scene and setting.
- City street outside a restaurant?
- Suburban street or yard with streetlights?
- Campfire light?
- Country road with a house nearby?
- Forest or field under moonlight?
What's your sitch?
Yeah, generally it looks like it's replicating a practical light source, whether it's the moon, a street light, etc...
What those guys said. There's almost always light coming from someplace. Even if it just a glow on the horizon from the nearest instance of civilization.
That aside, there are lots of really greatly lit films where the night scenes use an "obvious" light. PTU by Johnnie To is one of my favorite examples of that.
That aside, there are lots of really greatly lit films where the night scenes use an "obvious" light. PTU by Johnnie To is one of my favorite examples of that.
A street is no problem. We have porch lights and streetlights to emulate. For a forest, think about what a human eye can see in near darkness as far as highlights and detail and amp it up for an audience who is following along. Remember, what they are hearing directly correlates with what they think they are seeing.
I talked to the makers of WITCHES' NIGHT and commented on their fantastic outdoor lighting. On a lot of Hollywood movies a crane is used to hang 20,000 watts (or so) of light from high above. Can't really do that on an indie, so the WITCHES crew rented a Cherry Picker lift and shined a 2K light (some blue gel on it) on the area for ambient light. They filled in other areas with smaller lights that were motivated by supposed porchlights, windows and other sources. I thought the Cherry Picker idea was gold!
Here are some very simple setups I've done....with just one light:
Single 1K light off to the upper left. Blue gel sheet over the light. Fog catches the light.
Existing flourescent light on top side of the building.
One 500 watt light with blue gel.
One 1K light with blue gel.
Same 1K light, but shifted behind for shadow.
Here are some very simple setups I've done....with just one light:
Single 1K light off to the upper left. Blue gel sheet over the light. Fog catches the light.
Existing flourescent light on top side of the building.
One 500 watt light with blue gel.
One 1K light with blue gel.
Same 1K light, but shifted behind for shadow.
One 1K light off to the side, with blue gel.
Same 1K light setup, but with charge going off.
Either a 500 watt or 1K with blue gel, pulled back.
Same scene, but I turn on a 1K light, up close, to simulate an explosion.
This behind the scenes shot reveals this backyard scene, in the upcoming shots:
Same 1K light setup, but with charge going off.
Either a 500 watt or 1K with blue gel, pulled back.
Same scene, but I turn on a 1K light, up close, to simulate an explosion.
This behind the scenes shot reveals this backyard scene, in the upcoming shots:
Two 1K lights on top of the ship. One 1K porch light about 30' to the left. One 500 watt with blue gel, behind the camera to the right, pointed at the scene. Add to that, 3 or 4 flashlights.
Separated by a glass barrier:
All that light really illuminates the blood, after being shot by aliens:
This might be useful to some of you, but for nightvision FX, I shot daytime shots (actors in black) and used the negative image for night.
Separated by a glass barrier:
All that light really illuminates the blood, after being shot by aliens:
This might be useful to some of you, but for nightvision FX, I shot daytime shots (actors in black) and used the negative image for night.
Wow, something for everybody to learn from, here! Most of all me! Great examples, Scoopicman!
Thanks for digging this thread up; I wasn't sure if anybody saw those!
Lighting has long been one of my weak areas and I'm trying to step that up. I just shot a tricky project, A SOLDIER'S SON, where most of it takes place in a dark house. I didn't use any blue gel, this time. The trick was lighting all the windows/backgrounds. Funny, the amount of light to make a dark house was far more than to make a house with lights on. I placed three 1Ks (with barndoors), a 500 watt worklight and two clamp lights outside of windows (one inside with a plant in front of it). Another clamp light with a dimmer was used for fill, where needed. Add to some scenes a flashlight or open refrigerator light and it really added up to a look that I like.
I have the original HVX200, which is a light hog.
Shawn hears a noise and gets up. 1K light outside bedroom window, plus ambient light (from front door windows) in hallway.
1K light outside front door. 75 watt clamplight (inside back room on left). 1K light (outside back room window on right). Flashlight shining on glass wall.
1K light outside sliding glass door with vertical blinds. 500 watt worklight outside kitchen window.
Same setup, plus a 1K on other side of front door and windows (to the right). Flashlight on intruder.
Another intruder grabs Sheila. Same setup, as above, but with 1k outside the arch window and flashlight shined on them.
This is great! And the stills look great, too! What did you say the name of the project was? Is there a trailer available somewhere?
Mentioning that the HVC200 sucks light makes me think about the FS100, which has almost unprecedented low-light sensitivity. Man, just think how much easier (and cheaper) this will be once we get our hands on more cameras like that! I hear that the sensitivity at 0db is 800 ISO! And with these new cameras the gain looks just great, too, all the way up to +18 and beyond. The ease and cheapness of grain-removal plugins makes this even less of an issue. There's these incredible tests (Phillip Bloom does one) where ambient light explodes like daylight even when the subject is virtually unlit. Light a match, and the subject explodes and overexposes. It's crazy, man.
The future won't ever get rid of our need to light a scene in service of the story, but our degree of control is amazing, these days.
Mentioning that the HVC200 sucks light makes me think about the FS100, which has almost unprecedented low-light sensitivity. Man, just think how much easier (and cheaper) this will be once we get our hands on more cameras like that! I hear that the sensitivity at 0db is 800 ISO! And with these new cameras the gain looks just great, too, all the way up to +18 and beyond. The ease and cheapness of grain-removal plugins makes this even less of an issue. There's these incredible tests (Phillip Bloom does one) where ambient light explodes like daylight even when the subject is virtually unlit. Light a match, and the subject explodes and overexposes. It's crazy, man.
The future won't ever get rid of our need to light a scene in service of the story, but our degree of control is amazing, these days.
Scoopicman you are friggin' AWESOME.
Superamazing - Caveat to super sensitive cameras is controlling it in situations that the sensitivity is not needed... which for most products or producers is like 80 percent of what they shoot.
Broad daylight is terrible with the FS100... that's from experience.
Superamazing - Caveat to super sensitive cameras is controlling it in situations that the sensitivity is not needed... which for most products or producers is like 80 percent of what they shoot.
Broad daylight is terrible with the FS100... that's from experience.
Wow - thanks, Kholi! 
The above 5 interior images (and pic below) are from a 10 minute short called, A SOLDIER'S SON. I will post a link to it, very soon.
Like I said, my lighting usually sucks, though a pretty good recent example was the short 48 Hour Film that I posted a couple months back, DISCHORD. thread HERE.
The other shots are from my indie features. First shot in the fog is from EXILE. Some night shots in THE TRAILER
The second pic of the soldier guy hiding against the wall was from THE AWAKENING. However, most of this DVX100 shot movie shows how you shouldn't light!!! I had just bought a bunch of Britek lights with softboxes and I went crazy with the softboxes. Many scenes were overlit and devoid of shadow. Someone said, "look at all the white walls" and that really helped me see my problem.
The rest of the pics were from TERRARIUM. Most of those shots are in THE TRAILER.
As a lot of you are probably realizing, the trick is utilizing shadows. Even if you have just one light (best in some cases), it's usually just a matter of moving it or the camera until you find the "shadow sweet spot!"
The above 5 interior images (and pic below) are from a 10 minute short called, A SOLDIER'S SON. I will post a link to it, very soon.
Like I said, my lighting usually sucks, though a pretty good recent example was the short 48 Hour Film that I posted a couple months back, DISCHORD. thread HERE.
The other shots are from my indie features. First shot in the fog is from EXILE. Some night shots in THE TRAILER
The second pic of the soldier guy hiding against the wall was from THE AWAKENING. However, most of this DVX100 shot movie shows how you shouldn't light!!! I had just bought a bunch of Britek lights with softboxes and I went crazy with the softboxes. Many scenes were overlit and devoid of shadow. Someone said, "look at all the white walls" and that really helped me see my problem.
The rest of the pics were from TERRARIUM. Most of those shots are in THE TRAILER.
As a lot of you are probably realizing, the trick is utilizing shadows. Even if you have just one light (best in some cases), it's usually just a matter of moving it or the camera until you find the "shadow sweet spot!"
Wow - thanks, Kholi!
As a lot of you are probably realizing, the trick is utilizing shadows. Even if you have just one light (best in some cases), it's usually just a matter of moving it or the camera until you find the "shadow sweet spot!"
Heck yeah on that. Lighting is about getting exposure then carving out an image. Sometimes you only need a little bit to make it sing. I love using a 3000 Watt kit to get the job done on small shoots!
And Lite Panels are some of my favorte little tools to add some rims and kicks, eyelights.
Get it done, man! And, again, awesome info you share here!
Ah, you've used it, huh? What were your overall impressions?
INdeed. Got an engineering model about 90 percent complete a month or so before it came out. Even then it was pretty darned stellar. Very clean in lowlight situations, but extremely hard to control in daylight!!!
You'd need a good mattebox and set of NDS to make this thing workout properly outdoors.
Indoors, it's nice to be able to use less light, but pointing it at anything too bright surely means clipping.
Like most digital, underexpose and adjust in post for bes tresults if you can't light and control it on your budget, but this thing needs a bit more underexposing!
Still, nice little camera and definitely a killer image.
I used a set of Cooke Panchros and an Arri CMB-5 w/Tiffen NDs on the camera.
Whew, nice glass, man. How'd you get a hold of all this great equipment?