Turning day into night…

[Anonymous]

I am shooting a short film that is supposed to take place mostly at night, but since of crazy schedules of myself and my talent, I can only shoot during the day.
I was experimenting shooting on an overcast day and playing with brightness/contrast, color balance, ect with Preimire 6.0 (sorry, it’s ancient, I know)… All I get is video that looks like an under-exposed day shot. The biggest giveaway is that car headlights are dim(mainly road-side shots). I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this that could give me a hand.
By the way, I’m shooting with a VX2100.
Thanks!
-Chris

[Endeavor]

Maybe get the talent some caffeine and wake them up at 3 am? This seems like a very difficult task to pull off. Of course, ideally, you want to shoot at night. Not sure personally what you would do to make a day shot look like night.

[Anonymous]

One night I was able to shoot — and it was half-way decent — but I needed to get some aux. lights in to brighten the shot sometimes as to avoid getting a grainy, dark picture. Alas, I do not own a portable generator and there are no outlets on a roadside next to a cemetery. And that’s assuming I could find a time that everyone had free to shoot.
(and yes, I supplied dark coffee that evening! 😀 )

[Endeavor]

Sounds like a fun project! What is it about?

[Anonymous]

I had a feeling the line about the cemetery would spark some interest.
It’s based on a story that my mother-in-law told me about one of her friends. The Cliff Notes version is a little like this:
A guy is driving along a deserted highway late one night and sees a woman on the side of the road. He stops and picks her up to give her a ride home, and they start to really click. He invites her for something to eat at a 24 hour diner, and she accepts.
The diner is a little chilly, and he offers her his jacket. They have a really nice evening together and he finally drops her off after giving her his phone number. They say good night and a few days pass and he doesn’t hear from her, so he decides to stop by her house to see if she’s home. After all, she still has his jacket, which he uses as an excuse to visit her.
He knocks on the door and her mother answers. He asks for the woman and the mother starts to get angry. He explains what happened and the mother goes white.
She tells him that her daughter has been dead for five years.
He doesn’t believe it, so the mother drives him to the cemetery to see her grave, and his jacket is draped over the headstone…
My mother-in-law’s good friend was the mother in that story. A lot of crazy things like that occured in the small town where she grew up, and I plan on making short films about those, also.
Pretty creepy, huh?

[Anonymous]

Great story!
Do get it right!

[TomScratch]

Hi,
From Wikipedia, this is how hollywood does it:
“Day for night” is the name of a technique in cinematography in which a crew films in a high contrast situation, typically at early morning or late afternoon, with a blue filter, causing the film to appear to have been shot in moonlight.
You could go filter route or gels. The hoods that come with the 2100 and the wide attachment for 2100 should make it easy to attach gels. May be challenging to get the usual great images with this cam using gels however.
So you’ll be in the cemetery at dawn or dusk. Watch out for zombies; that’s when they’re coming and going.
REGARDS … TOM 8)

[Anonymous]

Thanks, svhs.
Tom, thanks, I’ll give the gels a shot. I was hoping I could do it in post, but I was unable to balance the color to my liking.
…and I’m a big zombie movie buff, and I am aware of my potentially dangerous situation… which is why I always carry a machete in my car for those shoots! 😀

[Anonymous]

There are ways to do this, but the quality will depend on the shoots lighting. If the Subjects can be lit separately from the background, you may be able to get enough lumens difference to be able to luma key the background out. This will be really challenging, but easier in late afternoon. If you manage to get enough lighting contrast to key out the background, duplicate the clip. Now adjust the dups background look the way you want it- ignore the subject. Now Luma Key the two clips together.
What you get is the original subject with the new “adjusted” background. The other option is to shot the exact same camera angle at night and use that for the Luma Key backgound. It may have too much of a surreal look, just an idea.
I did something like this a few years ago with Chroma Key. The difference is that the subject was against blue sky.
Shooting the whole scene at night has it’s own technical challenges, also.

Good luck with your project!

[Anonymous]

I’ve heard that urban legend – good luck with the shoot.

Some things to consider

Underexpose by 2 stops (this means using manual settings) – you can also use ND filters for this or even a polarizing filter, but your f-stop/iris setting must be on manual.

Avoid shooting the sky. Think high shots looking down.

If you’re doing car interiors, consider gelling the opposite windows from where you’re shooting.

[Anonymous]

This film sound awesome. If you post it on the internet, please send me an URL to the video. You can email me at castostarlight@gmail.com

About turning day to night. I have to shoot with a crappy DV cam so I’m forced to do it post-production. I have adobe premier pro, but I think it’s pretty much the same. Just crank up the contrast and add a blue tint in the RGB settings. The only disadvantage is you’ll lose the green of the grass. Well, c’est la vie. I hope our collective advice helps. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Some great tips, thanks a lot, guys! Because of work and all that, I haven’t had time to shoot any more, but I’ll make sure to send you guys a link if I ever get it finished!
-Chris

[gerardoiluminacion]

I hope that this is not to late to post to…

Have you considered, to shoot your landscapes, and aspects in general at night, or dusk.

Then, with your talent frame them with close ups, this way you can blow the exposure with lights in their faces and under expose, naturaly the day light… this will mean to use some HMI-s or blue gels,

wait for a cast day, so you do not have to worry about shadows casted in the rong direction!

Good luck

[RossTokosch]

I did this exact thing before for a shoot.

Yes, gels are the way to go, or atleast that is what we did. Put up either a 1/2 or 3/4 CTB on the light using c47s to clamp them to the barn doors. Since day light is a high color temperature it is blue, moonlight is also blue, so totally darkening the room and throwing CTBs in there isn’t necessary, just have the tungsten light work with the day light. Also, to make the effect more believable, turn on a low wattage light in the room. Just a regular light with a regular light bulb, 25 watts or less and downlamp it if you want to. The warm orange from that light will play off the light from outside and from the CTB, also making a neat effect. It will take some playing around to get the look perfect in your eyes but it will happen. Adjusting your Fstop makes a lot of difference. Hope that helps.

[immacabre]

BryantProductions Wrote:

I had a feeling the line about the cemetery would spark some interest.
It’s based on a story that my mother-in-law told me about one of her friends. The Cliff Notes version is a little like this:
A guy is driving along a deserted highway late one night and sees a woman on the side of the road. He stops and picks her up to give her a ride home, and they start to really click. He invites her for something to eat at a 24 hour diner, and she accepts.
The diner is a little chilly, and he offers her his jacket. They have a really nice evening together and he finally drops her off after giving her his phone number. They say good night and a few days pass and he doesn’t hear from her, so he decides to stop by her house to see if she’s home. After all, she still has his jacket, which he uses as an excuse to visit her.
He knocks on the door and her mother answers. He asks for the woman and the mother starts to get angry. He explains what happened and the mother goes white.
She tells him that her daughter has been dead for five years.
He doesn’t believe it, so the mother drives him to the cemetery to see her grave, and his jacket is draped over the headstone…
My mother-in-law’s good friend was the mother in that story. A lot of crazy things like that occured in the small town where she grew up, and I plan on making short films about those, also.
Pretty creepy, huh?

eric tells that story on that 70s show.. one of the halloween episodes.

for the night during day you could try to white balance on something darker.. that might work ive done the oppisite with that making dark look bright so, maybe it could work the opposite way.. another idea is you could do it in black and white..

[avamprod]

when shooting day for night don’t forget you can use lens filters to get the look as well. If you take a blue filter, I think it is an 80a filter, in addition to a neutral density filter you might be able to get away with it. also look back in the videomaker past issues to find the article that dealt with this specific question. 😀

[avamprod]

Also another thing to remember to make sure of is to not shoot the sky if you use the filters. The filters can only compensate for so much light. Try to nagle the camera downward if at all posible or against a background that limits the amount of the sky you will have in the camera’s view.

[Author]

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