Hey,
I have a film which will be shot at night, I'm using a GL2, and I was wondering if anyones tried out door lighting. I'm wondering if I'd need a generator or if I can get battery powered lights. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

shoot it in the dark, its only logical that the actors/characters cant see in the dark, so why should the audience?

Give us your setting, your weather conditions, etc. etc .etc. with these we can come up with which light sources you can exagerate with lighting, and then make some suggestions

i'd go with just shooting t he filmo when its almost getting dark. i have no idea how other cameras work, but my ****ty VHS camera has a shutter spead thing and if I change it, it makes the picture darker sometimes, so Its possible to shoot day for night. or is it night for day? who the **** knows. Iliuje I said I know nothing about cameras, but just mess around and you'll figure something out.

if you read my above post real loud, with choking noises and gurggles, and have the smell of whiskey near you. You'll be in the moment of Kyle. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Ok - lighting at night is very difficult, but it pays off. Shooting with existing light at night (as HDK is suggesting) will result in extremely grainy, muddy, and crappy images that are less true to what we actually see at night.

You should really try to shoot near a house, or other power sources w/Edison outlets, because renting a generator can be extremely costly. (Up to approx $150 daily for a Silent Honda 5500w generator).

You can use battery powered lights to give the subjects a nice edge to their faces and shoulders so that they stand out, but that's really the only thing they're useful for, and you have to make sure that they are intense (at least 1-2 million candlewatts - like those portable halogen lights you can get at walmart).

You should try to get your hands on a 2k fresnel - preferably through rental assuming you have a very low budget. Ideally, a 5 kilowatt or 10 kilowatt light is necessary to emulate moonlight decently on the digital format, but if you place the 2 kilowatt fresnel closer to the subject it will work out great as the main (key) light.

Depending on the type of look you're aiming for, you may or may not want to use an extra soft, less instense light to fill in shadows in the actors faces. If you're going for a noir-look, just get rid of the fill light so there is more contrast and shadows.

The last, and if not, the most important tip I can give you is to light the background! Too many amateur film makers shoot crappy night footage because for one: they don't know how to properly light the subjects, and two: they don't know how to light the backgrounds properly. Or both. To light the background, just place some lights (250watt or 500watt open faces) to make "spools" of light in the background so that people will buy the illusion that it's night. It works surprisingly well as a low-budget technique. There's nothing worse than a character who is lit at night who is against a completely dark background - it just looks unnatural.

Hope this helps, I'm sure others will add some useful information that I forgot.

At night, what you want to do is simulate moonlight. David Mullen ASC (cinematographer) once told me that There are some things you can't really do with no money and no experience, and one of those is light a large area at night.

You can plug a 1200watt HMI PAR into a standard 20 amp circuit, but thats only really enough to light a small scene, not a huge one. If you add smoke through the shot, it may hide the fact that you haven't got a backlight.

Let's say you have a scene like this:



You could achieve this quite easily. In the background behind Mr Depp, you could use a 1k tungsten with a 1/2 or 1/4 blue gel to create the moonlight effect. On the side, you could put a 1k or 2k soft key light with diffusion.

Not sure about the background and such, but use lots of fog.

By no means am I a cinematographer (I direct/compose), I am only passing on to you what I have learned from research and reading around. I'm a young student :P

As far as I Know it's not a cheap to get good night shots. Personally I think if you can't do a decent job at lighting it up at night (because of budget reasons or whatever) then don't do it, because it'll spoil your film. You could shoot at magic hour, but it's really on 15 minutes and probably not worth it.

-Chris

quote:

Ok - lighting at night is very difficult, but it pays off. Shooting with existing light at night (as HDK is suggesting) will result in extremely grainy, muddy, and crappy images that are less true to what we actually see at night.

ya, get it grainy muddy and crappy; the crappier the better

why even make a movie if people can't see it?

You know what you should do? Take a lot of candles and light them up. And then, right in the most pivotal part of the scene, knock them over into a large, dry wooden structure (preferably a house) that has been cleared for demolition and properly soaked in nitroglycerin. Then, when the house explodes, you'll have a good 15 or 20 nanoseconds in which to get your shot in. I guarantee you, the light will be perfect but remember, if your scene is longer than 15 or 20 nanoseconds, this really isn't worth it.
But besides all that, I asked the film teacher at my school what he thought about night shooting and he said that it's really hard to do on a low budget unless your uber talented with lighting. However, he said that the "Day to Night" filter setting works well for this purpose.
P.S. I'm not repsonsible for any fire damage oor 3rd degree burns suffered from while taking my own advice.

quote:

why even make a movie if people can't see it?

because nobody else would

Hmm, That Jonnhy depp picture looks perfect. I want the dreamy look of hte night. Like collateral, but we will be shooting at a beach.

so yea, lighting at night, if there's isn't a light source to fake like car headlights or house/street lights is expensive and insane.

a 2k won't do it, you need like a 6k or 10k, diffusion to make it soft like moonlight, some other accent lights that match the color temperature, and a generator truck, not a small one. a huge one. 50 Amps. more.

anyway, uhm, yes just get a car in the shot, or a house in the distance with a door open. then you can put small lights everywhere and cheat them like they're coming from the car/house/streetlight.

Oh yeah, Secret Window had incredible light.

actually a 2k can be sufficient for a key light at night. I've have had success numerous times with it, the only problem is you can't shoot anything wider than a medium shot. A 5k is much more desireable in my experience, but the rental costs were too much to keep it for more than 1 or two days.

I've also had a lot success using car headlights. I've produced excellent pictures by reflecting car-brights on foam core, but since you are shooting at a beach, this may not be practical. Rent a generator, it'll be expensive, but worth the quality of light that you'll get.

Here is a screen test we did for the outside location lighting...

One is from the Canon GL2 which all principal shooting will be on and the other the ZR75.

The bottom one looks really good! I'd tint them both blue in post if I were you (example below) The bottom one is good cause it's a close-up and you can't see the light hitting anything besides the actors. In the top one it looks more like artificial light to me.

Meh, the experiences I've had tinting in post haven't worked out well, I would recammend at least testing it with a blue gel or something if you want that, it would be worth it to see how it looks, leaving things for post can mean you don't have time to go back and change things, and you have to assume it will look the way you want when you tint it in post. I've just had bad experiences with people who use the classic "we'll fix it in post" line, cause it almost always ends up looking like ****.

note: this is my first lighting post when I haven't talked about how much lighting sucks (which it does )

Honestly, I dont really like the second picture. Its a little too grainy and not very high-def. I like the tone-definition of the first picture much better...its just needs something to give it a little emotion.

HDK, this is a big day for you! Congrats Yes, I agree, getting the blue BEFORE post will always be better. One way would be to white balance to something yellowish.

My problem with the second picture is that it's far enough out for it to be obvious where the light is. In the second picture it looks much more even.

in the one short ive shot about one third of the shooting was outside in the dark. we shot a guy basically walking around a house and the only lights we used were whatever he happened to walk through and the light on the camera. it turned out great and i was told it was the best part of the short because of the dark, creepy feel it had. but everything was either a medium shot or a close up.