Shooting Day for Night
Shooting "day-for-night," of course, means recording night scenes in daylight. It's done all the time because casts and crews tend to be less grumpy in the afternoon than at midnight and because lighting a large night exterior takes a truck full of lights, a honking-big generator and more bucks than you have for your whole show. In the halcyon days of black and white movies, day-for-night was easy because a red filter on the lens pumped up the contrast and recorded blue skies as jet black. Under-expose half a stop and you were in business. It's a bit trickier in color, but still simple enough so that you can create very convincing night effects.
But do you want to? Camcorders have ample sensitivity for shooting at night on urban streets and the real-world lights visible in the shots deliver an atmosphere you can't duplicate without them. So, if you have enough ambient light to shoot night-for-night (and you want the authentically grainy look of increased video gain) you may want to cajole your cast and crew into staying up late. Otherwise, re…
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