Lighting at Night

[Mirman10]

Hello everyone, I've been having been having troubles getting this type of clear but dark look at the same time. I am thinking of doing some back alley scenes which I would need to create my own lighting. I want it to be dark outside but clear lighting on the people. If I'm not making much sense which I think I'm not I have this video which is the type of lighting I would LOVE to have in my short. Watch from 2:20 to 2:37 to see what I'm talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cah6f_bGUbc

\What I'm asking is if you guys could give me tips and tricks i could use to recreate some of these shots? I'm just looking for a little bit darker outside then in the video. I have been looking at some items I may buy for lighting I'm looking at around a $50 dollar budget for my lighting. Here are the two items I am looking for, they are the 2nd and 3rd items on the list.

http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/...atchallpartial&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&s=true

Thanks for the read and hopefully you have some info that could help me because I have little to no experience with lighting.

 

[rayw]

I'm going to take a wild guess and say many of the "night" scenes were shot in the evening or near-dawn light (rather than the dead of night) and then darkened in the editing program.

 

[PaulGriffith]

"Practical" lights, IMO, are the way to go for outdoor night shoots. That means you have a light that makes sense in the scene and you see it on camera. For example, headlights.

We did a night shoot for "the exchange" (seen on our website in my sig) that was set around two cars facing each other at night. We used their headlights, two street lights nearby and an exterior light on a building that was already there. You saw them in the shots so it makes sense for people to be lit.

Also, you can boost a practical light. A single light bulb On the side of a building isn't enough light, but a couple 250w work lights hitting the talent at the same angle as the practical light makes sense to your eye. Again, we did it in ours supplementing headlights. We even used a LED flashlight for some close ups because it matched one of the car's blue headlights. We would have used better lights, but it was for a 36 hour film fest and didn't have time on set.

Finally, boost natural lights. Put a really bright light with a bit of blue gel as high and far away from the actors as you can, and you have moonlight. If it's too clean/washed, cut a small branch off a tree and position it so the light shines through that.

Hope that helps!

 

[knightly]

The posterframe of the vid you linked shows a key light frame left and high with broad diffusion, a fill light frame right and back a bit and enough little out of focus lights in the background to show a separation between the subject and the background without actually lighting the bulk of the background.