Day for Night
FACT: Cameras need light. They dont work in the dark. Indeed the word Photograph means to paint with light. certainly its extremely difficult to paint with 'dark'.So its' from this basis (and a host of technical reasons) that the idea of shooting 'day for night' arises. This is something a number of students have asked me about of late so i thought I'd post a few tips.
To begin with the concept is to shoot a 'night' scene in daylight and then darken the image artificially or mechanically. Traditional film techniques for Day4Night involved closing down the iris/aperture of the lens, using fast shutter speeds and/or under exposing the film negative in post. In the digital world Day4Night is more readily a post-production process of darkening down the brightness of an image in editing and colour grading. In either case there are a host of key things to remember or apply both in the shooting and in the editing of Day4Night shots.
1. Its the
impression of the dark you're after not 'actual' dark. Cinema is not about 'reality', it's about 'truth' and truth is something you construct, something you can get your viewer to accept - aliens, ghosts, exploding trains or night time when the reality may be none of these things. Good Day4Night is not about making the image so dark it looks like night but rather about implying night-time whilst still being able to see what your audience is supposed to see - facial expressions, actions, details. in this regard light and lighting is still very important. You want to make sure the highlights are where you want them, that faces can be seen that there is still contrast between light and dark.
2. Nightime Dark is more about Colour than Brightness. As the level of illumination drops so does the colour spectrum begin to retract; at night everythign is black and white. The first colours that are lost as things get darker are the RED end of the spectrum, hence night time looks bluish. Tinting your lights on set with blue gels is the first step toward good day for night. the other way to do this is white balance for indoor Tungsten light whilst shooting outdoors in daylight. This will give everything a blue cast.
3. Shadows are caused by bright light. When shooting day for night you'll want to avoid the kinds of shadows created by the sun which will break your illusion. Overcast days a great for day for night as they are a naturally cooler colour temperature and the sun wont cast shadows. if you have shadows caused by your lights try and cancel them out by using pairs of lights or framing in the camera to keep shadows out of view.
4. Avoid the sky. The hardest part of a landscape to make look like nightitme when it was shot in the day is bright blue skys, they'll remain brighter than the rest of the image woudl warrant at night. Where posisble avoid framing the sky into shot. if you have to you can used gradient exposure filters to selectively darken the sky in an image more than the rest of the frame.
To make the job of grading down, darkening and adding bluish tones to your day4night images in post there are a number of pre-built day for night filters.
River Rock Studios have a great free Day for Night plugin for FCP. There is also excellent day4night presets in the Magic Bullet Looks grading suite.
Posted at 12:00AM Nov 10, 2008
by Mike Jones in video |
