Got tips for shooting day-for-night?

[MajicMan]

I'm planning a few day-for-night shoots. I'm doing as much research and experimentation as possible before commiting my cast and crew to those particular shoots.

Does anyone have helpful tips on how to shoot day-for-night (on DV -by the way)?

Thanks.

[AJ]

Best tip is to make sure you have a good effects guy. The most difficult part of DFN is the post production, especially replacing the sky and adding a suitable dark starscape or clouds.

In my opinion, the most important thing is not to try and do this eefect entirely in-camera. Plan to do the actual darkening and colour balancing of the footage in post. Shoot a few tests to hone your technique before starting production.

There are quite a few websites containing info on this technique:

www.cineshare.com/columns/techniques/dayfornight.htm
www.videomaker.com/scripts/article.cfm?id=10368
www.cinematography.net/Pages%20DW/DayForNight-AdditionalShootingInformation.htm
static.highbeam.com/v/videomaker/july012001/shootingdayfornightvideoproductiontechniques/

[ExcelsiorKings]

Hi,

I shot a fair bit of DFN on ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS, pics found at www.excelsiorkingspictures.com (on the first gallery of pics there's a headlamps from far away shot on the bottom right DFN), and DV (and HD) actually is the EASIEST format to do DFN - all you have to do is whack the black levels up (no noise problems unlike film wherre you'd get underexposure grain), but NEVER go down on the aperture, always keep the iris wide to get low depth of field, the same you would have if you really were shooting real night sequences. if you've got skies plonk in ND grads or even colour grads if they are part of your overall design pallette for the film.

On ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS I actually shot the DFN stuff, most dealing with cars and headlamps, through nets behind the lens and with the aperture wide it allowed for giant halated headlamps that clipped, and as AJ says, when you then take them to be graded the lights stay white and burned out as they would doat night while everything else goes into black. Remember also the DFN shot on our site ISN'T even graded yet!

There's another DFN shot on our site I shot for a major stunt sequence for ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS, and that's on our second screen grabs gallery, top second to far right, and it's a car with the moonlight reflected on the road next to it- we actually shot this at 12.30 pm midday! The "moonlight" you see is actually the sun. Again, we haven't even graded yet and already it looks convincing.

DV and HD have really proved that you nolonger have to colourcode your footage blue to an audience to signpost night time, now you can keep whatever pallete you want and make it convincing.

[Pippo]

Hmm, I have to look into this. I'm planning a short called "A Shot in the Night Part 2" that partially takes place at night. Last summer we were out shooting Part 1 in the middle of the night, which was rather uncomfortable so this DFN technique would be really helpful.

[rubyfilmz]

get lots of light ,the more the better, here is a test short I shot at night with only one light(light was $8.00 from homedepot, and had one of the guys fromthe crew hold it)www.rubyfilmz.com/media/heldup_test_4.wmv

[jstxanothrxstory]

Some camera come with a light thing. Mine has it, I forgot what it's called. You adjust to +6 and you get some good enough tequicnes. Or try filters.

[image river]

I realize this was posted some time ago, but I wanted to make sure someone replied with how to actually shoot Day for Night.

Step 1. Use the sun as a backlight. ( do not shoot at mid-day )
Step 2. Do not show the sky
Step 3. Underexpose the your Key by 2 stops (do this or expose normally and use a Day for Night filter, which basically takes away 2 stops and turns everything blue)

Backlighting with the sun will create a blistering rim on your subject. When you underexpose your key, you will still have a bright backlight which will emulate moonlight. Of course turning everything blue will further sell this effect.

Matt

[xcult]

Hey, rubyfilmz
what kind of light was that you got?

I was thinking about doing DFN, cuz the whole movie is at night, and with no budget I was just pondering my options. But I really like that light. What camera did you use with that?