Wesley Scoggins March 12, 2010

Indy Mogul

Wesley's Weekly HOW TO: Day-to-Night Basics

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Tags lighting, wesley's weekly, dark, darkness, low-light, day-for-night, night shooting, horror movie, nuit amercaine

 
Sorry for the delay, last few weeks have been really busy for me, but I am back with an all new tutorial! This week I want to do a run-down of all of the various ways to replicate a Day-For-Night effect, how to make the effect look as realistic as possible, and how to get the most out of your camera in low-light situations. 
 
First I want to outline the content of the article, and everything i'm going to cover on how to best obtain the proper effect and "look" you want. 
 
OVERVIEW-HISTORY
1. IN-CAMERA/FILTERS
2. IN-POST/SOFTWARE
3. PICKING THE RIGHT TIME (AND PLACE) TO FILM
4. USE A LIGHT SENSITIVE CAMERA
5. DO IT WITH LIGHTING 
 
After that, i'm going to discuss how to combine them to make the most realistic day-for-night possible, provide some examples of these in action, provide some additional resources for accomplishing this, first up though, lets explain exactly what we're going to accomplish here...
 
OVERVIEW
 
 
 
The technique was used in the past to overcome technical or economic obstacles that would keep the filmmakers from shooting at night. As most any of us who've tried it can attest, trying to light for a night scene can be a real pain, especially while trying to make it look "cinematic", and not like you've just thrown a half dozen work lights on your actors. The truth is trying to shoot at night is HARD, and can be a major technical hurdle, but thankfully thanks to a few major advancements in developing faster filmstock quality over the years, it's become much easier, and the technique has become less common over the years. 
 
BUT in the low-budget realm, the technique survives, especially with digital cinema, where consumer level rigs have suffered for YEARS with unacceptable levels of noise when utilized in low-light situations, and the only option for shooting something with less than acceptable lighting conditions was to turn on the nightvision mode, and just having to deal with a monochromatic green and black image. 
 
So oftentimes, the only realistic option for most of us that can't rent a few 10Kw spotlights to fill up an area with light, is to FAKE IT. Today I want to cover the basics for making it looks like you're filming at night on a budget, and getting the most out of what you have without having to rent specialized equipment. 
 
 
1. IN-CAMERA AND FILTERS 
 
1. I have found that more and more cameras are coming with an "Manual White Balance" function, this is usually utilized to get a proper white balance in your image by holding up a white card, zooming in on it, and clicking the manual white balance, allowing your camera to know what "white" is in the frame under the lighting circumstances you're dealing with at any time. This is VERY useful for getting a more accurate image, but right now we don't want that at all, we want a purposefully INACCURATE image, that will help make it look like a stylized "dusk". 
 
 
THIS is your solution. Tell your camera that ORANGE is white, and you will get a blue image, that is already half way to looking like the typical "night" scene in a movie. Just copy and save this orange, print it out on a piece of paper, and zoom in and white balance for it. (Try to experiment with this, it can be really interesting to see what kind of burnt in look you can get just by messing with your cameras built in white balance. For instance white balancing for pink can give you a really techno-green "Matrix"-look.) If your camera doesn't have a manual white balance feature, look for the auto-white balance, and while shooting outdoors set the white balance to "Incandescent" or "Tungsten" identified by a little light-bulb symbol. That will also help give your outdoor footage a bluish tint. 
 
2. Hopefully your camera also has an manual setting for exposure, (If you can't find a manual setting, look for the AE setting), either one of these will allow you to reduce the sensitivity of your camera, and by turning it down allow you to darken your image without having to reduce your lighting intensity. 
 
3. Get some filters for your camera! If your camera doesn't have these functions internally, you can invest in some lens filters to do it analog. Go either online, or a local photography shop, you'll need to get a 80A or #15 or another blue filter, a Neutral Density filter, and (most likely if you can't find ones that'll fit your camera on its own) an adapter that'll step-up from the filter threading on your camera to the lens size.
 
4. Increasing the shutter speed of your camera (if at all possible, many consumer models can't while some like the Canon HV series have some manual shutter settings), can reduce the amount of time the sensor is exposed and help darken footage as well. 
 
 
2. IN-POST/ SOFTWARE
 
The basics of doing it in software generally amount to, darken the footage, mess with the contrast, and adding a blue tint, but in application it's a bit more complex than that. So as there are a ton of tutorials on how to do this in post already, instead of trying to improve on the better known work of others, I thought I would showcase some of the best tutorials I can find for all of major editing/effects suites. 
 
After Effects/Premiere/Elements: 
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/Day_to_Night/video-tutorial.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odIzLEiOX5k

http://www.projuice.org/dayfornight.html

 

Sony Vegas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EemV5yBqeyU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoIe7us8kNc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ2UoukwzqA

 

Final Cut Express/Pro:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqloaniw0U

http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1032156

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/finalcutstudio/

 

As you can see, most of the big editing platforms either already have this effect included as a plug-in, OR share very similar interfaces to accomplish it, so even though you can't follow the same except instructions, the basics still crossover from platform to platform, so just use your head, and mess around with the effects until you're happy with the results.

For the Windows Movie Maker Mogulers that haven't moved over to Live Movie Maker yet, you'll have to dig up some customized plug-ins for it. Check out this thread at the Windows Movie Makers User forums for some advice on how to make custom plug-ins. 

 

3. PICKING THE RIGHT TIME (AND PLACE) TO FILM

We've mentioned in the past how different times of day and places can affect the quality of the image that you get, but picking the right place AND time for your footage is very important in trying to replicate a Day-For-Night effect. 

1. Avoid getting the sky directly in your footage, otherwise if it's blown out, you may have to do some sky-replacement work, and that's just an entire different level of complexity that you'll have to deal with, and that means more time you'll have to spend working on it. Try to minimize the amount of sky in the shots by filming in front of object, or filming at angles aiming down on the subject. If you can't avoid getting lots of sky in the shot, try to reduce the "blown-out" effect by filming AWAY from the sun, generally the further away you film from the sun the better. 

2. Whenever possible shoot on overcast or foggy days, the softer and less intense the light, the softer your highlights will be in your footage. Since sunny days mean harsh highlights, reducing them means the less like a sunny day your footage looks, and the more realistic your day-for-night will look. 

3. Film as close to dawn and dusk as possible. It is starting to get dark and the intensity of the sun is reduced, but there is generally still enough light for your camera to work with without generating unacceptable degrees of noise. 

4. FILM IN THE SHADE! Look for wooded areas like parks to shoot in. Urban environments are also quite effective, with tall buildings being able to block quite a bit of light if you angle it right. Otherwise, alleys or just filming on the side of a building that is currently facing away from the sun will also help a great deal.

5. Try to combine as many of the above tricks as possible, they aren't exclusive, and combining them can go a long way. 

 

4. USE A LIGHT SENSITIVE CAMERA

Say what you will about the current crop of video-enabled DSLR cameras, but one thing that almost all of them have going for them as a big pro is their AMAZING sensitivity in low-light situations. In circumstances where most consumer video cameras will break down with unacceptable levels of noise, most of the vDSLR's will still be providing an acceptable image. Thanks to their big sensors with them (under most circumstances) you don't have to "fake" Day-for-Night at all! Under most circumstances you can just go ahead and film at night without having to worry about to many additional lights or messing with it too much in post. 

The big issue here though is COST, but DSLR's are becoming more and more competitive with dedicated video cameras every year, so if you are on the market for a new video-camera, and you need one that can do well in low-light, consider looking at a new video-enabled DSLR. 

The most affordable one AT THE MOMENT (this changes monthly, so this will probably have changed a few months from now when you might be reading this), that can do full 1080P is the Canon T2i. If you already have some Canon Lenses, you can get the body only for a few hundred dollars cheaper than that. For 720P you can look at the Nikon D5000 and the Pentax K-x which are both quite affordable as well. 

Otherwise, Canon 7D's and 5DMK.II's are quite popular right now, and are pretty easy to find in rental packages, so check out local camera rental houses and see if you can take one for a test drive. 

 

5. DO IT WITH LIGHTING

Doing it with lighting is the hardest and most expensive, but is still a viable option if none of the rest will work for you. To do it with lighting you either REDUCE the intensity of light during the day, or INCREASE the amount of lighting during night, while these will give you start places, they will still generally require some of the above advice.

1. REDUCE lighting during the day. To reduce lighting during the day, the easiser way is conscious location choices before you start shooting, such as shooting in a wooded area like I mentioned above. Another option is to bring in "silks" or "scrims", which are basically pieces of fabric that block and softens light in an area. You can easily make your own by stretching and mounting a bed sheet on a PVC or wooden frame, and hanging or mounting it between the sun and the subject you're filming. 

2. INCREASE lighting during the night. This is generally what faking "day-for-night" is done to avoid, but sometimes it's necessary to shoot at night. Basically the same lighting rules apply, you are still lighting it the same, only you want to try to soften it to make it look "natural" and less "spotlightish", so use wax paper, diffusion filters, or cloth scrims and place them between the light source and subject. You'll need a LOT of lighting, so you're kind of limited where you can do this if you don't own a portable generator. Also consider the viability of getting a few friends to line up their cars and turn their brights on if you need to fill a larger area with light, it's not the easiest solution, but if you need to fill up a large area with light, it MIGHT work. 

These are kind of the least ideal options in trying to replicate day-for-night, and still require some tweaking in-camera or in-post to get them looking "right", but are still options to try to help you get there. 

 

Hopefully all of this advice helps you accomplish what you need to in getting your "day-for-night" to look as best as possible. If you have more questions, check out the Day-For-Night and Low-Light thread in Mogulville! 

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