I've been busting my brains trying to figure out how to do night shots for my production coming up and I'm having problems reaching a solution. Most of the night shots need to be real dark night shots with torches around the actors, so I can use lights on them without people wondering where the light came from. But I cannot come across a gas powered generator. I can use a drive shaft generator and we have a tractor for that but the locations we're shooting at will be hard to get a tractor out to. We have around 200 feet of extension cords but that is not enough to reach the locations. I might have to look for new locations or try to find a way to get the tractor out where we need it. Then I realized that I could shoot these night scenes during the day with a filter. I've never done that, so what are all the requirements and steps to do that? Will it look like late-night or just evening?

The trick to day-for-night is to shoot on a day when the sky is completely overcast. You want to avoid any stark shadows or contrasts within the scene. Try to avoid showing the sky, or else it will look like twilight, instead of night.

The trouble is... if you want torches in the scene, they may end up being too dark once you've filtered it, and look weird. Do some experiments.

The other most important thing is that you must get it looking dark BEFORE post. If you darken it in post, it will never look as good as if you stop down during shooting. You can fine-tune it, and color correct in post, but you need to go in having dark footage already.

What equipment do I need to do it?

Nothing but your camera

That's the beauty of day-for-night. Just stop down on the camera. If you have any optical filters you can employ them, but they won't make a big difference.

If you CAN, get some lights in there to give a rim to things, and make them stand out a bit more.

This was filmed day-for-night in an alley (so the direct sun wasn't a problem, no harsh shadows.) We had a red rimlight from above and behind, and a faint fill in front. These lights were bright enough compared to the diffuse sunlight in the alley that even when we stopped down we had enough light coming from them. The rain was from a simple PVC pipe setup, but I don't think you're looking for that

"The trick to day-for-night is to shoot on a day when the sky is completely overcast. You want to avoid any stark shadows or contrasts within the scene. Try to avoid showing the sky, or else it will look like twilight, instead of night."

I disagree... on a clear night, there actually are distinct shadows, same as on a clear day. Obviously if it's overcast then the light will have a more diffused quality, but the directionality (from the moon as a source) is no different at night.

Not showing large areas of sky is a good idea, but note that many older films still did this. There are worse things than obvious day-for-night - such as bad acting, bad editing, and poor writing

It'd be tricky, and maybe more trouble than it's worth, but maybe if the shots were stationary, you could put torches in during post, either via 3D animation or keying. I know you wouldn't normally want to do this, but if you absolutely need those torches...

Trust me. You do not want direct sunlight. It looks dreadful. It always stands out so obviously. You never see sharp shadows in nighttime scenes, and you rarely see them in real life at night. They hurt you the most when they appear in the background, and you get sharp contrasts between shadowed areas, and lit areas.

Of course there are worse things than bad day-for-night, but bad day-for-night ruins the film nonetheless. I can't understand disregarding an easily solved problem by saying there are worse things that could happen.

I kind of doubt 3d torches would work. Even for a special effects master, it would be pretty hard, and you'd need light-sources in set to cast their light anyway.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: titaniumdoughnut,

You're right, 3D torches would be too difficult. So Drew, could you just make the torches bright enough to where the filter doesn't take anything away from them?

If you end up having to shoot this stuff at night and still need a way to light, I've used a series of gas lanterns and gels to make some pretty good results.

"Trust me. You do not want direct sunlight. It looks dreadful. It always stands out so obviously. You never see sharp shadows in nighttime scenes, and you rarely see them in real life at night. They hurt you the most when they appear in the background, and you get sharp contrasts between shadowed areas, and lit areas."

Well, your screenshot has a fairly directional light source. If you had simply shot in an alley without that light to 'kick' the side and rain it would have looked lame, because there would be 'dynamic range' between the brightest and darkest areas. Night shots obviously hew more towards overall darkness, but you still need some bright spots to emphasize the fact that it *is* at night, instead of just underexposed daylight stuff.

Night lighting isn't directional? Tell me that next time you walk under a streetlight...

On the contrary, night lighting is *much* more directional and obviously sourced than in the daytime - part of this is because people frequently don't do any artificial lighting in the day, but at night it's the rule rather than the exception. You can simply break it down into whatever sources were used.

If we're in an area that has artificial light, then yes, night lighting is very dynamic and low-key. However, you can't easily fake that artificial light with daylight.

The light from a street-lamp is very harsh, and very limited. It affects a small area. Light comes from a variety of places when you're dealing with artificial night lighting. Daylight is even, and unidirectional.

Now, Drew is talking about having torches as practicals, which is a great idea because, as you said, without SOMETHING to give it a kick, there's no contrast at all. While it would look like real night, it'd ugly.

The light from a direct sun would be very hard to use as a convincing result of torches. They really do need to emit their own light, unless there's a way to bring in some more advanced lighting equipment.

I totally agree that you need something creating light in the scene, but the sun is not a good something. We're way too good at recognizing sunlight. I've never seen a convincing day-for-night shot done with direct sunlight. It may be the DP/photographer in me, recognizing things lots of people overlook, but I think that's only part of it.

Now, worst case you HAVE to shoot with a sunny sky, this is what I'd do: frame the shots close, and try to avoid showing much background and absolutely NO sky. Wide-shots run the risk of revealing how even and sharp the light is. Keep the characters positioned so that the sunny side of their faces is the same side that would be illuminated by the torches.

Somehow I missed the part where he mentioned using torches as practicals. Those are pretty flickery and soft. I recommend shooting at night...

I'm worried the torches wouldn't be bright enough to give a good image at night. What are you shooting on, Drew? if they're real torches, and you've got a high-end digital (3 chip) or *gasp* film camera with a good film speed you might be able to pull it off without light.

Otherwise... you've got to fake that extra light somehow. Basically, the diffuse sunlight coming through the clouds would serve as a fill, with the torches being your primary light-source.

I have a GL2. I've decided to go with the day for night, as it will make the schedule much easier, and I won't have to worry about the generator problem. The torches were primarily for set dressing and to explain why there is light. But the torches are only needed for the set at one setting where all those shots are during the day, the other torch shots were just for extra props, so they are not needed at all. Also, almost all of the day for night shots will be done in forests, so I'm thinking that will make it a lot easier to do, as we won't need a completely overcast day, due to the trees blocking the light, am I correct? I was actually heading out to the forest to do some test footage and then decided to check up on here. I think I will be doing a couple night shots. They consist of a campfire and I will be doing those close to a power source so I'll just need extension cords for the lights. The rest of the night shots are indoor shots, so they shouldn't be too hard to pull off.

Yeah, the trees should block the light fairly well. Just watch out for really obvious dappled spots showing through. Good luck!

After my tests, I noticed the forest wasn't as dense as I had hoped. When it's a normal, bright day, there are lots of spots where there are lighted areas, how do I correct that?

I'm afraid that's going to be very difficult to work with. Those spots will look very very ugly if they show up. You may need to wait for a grey day, or film very early in the morning, when the sun isn't in the same angle.