OT:Day for night

michael adams laid this down on his screen :

Day for night never fooled me, shadows are all wrong and light does not appear to come from the likely numerous artificial lights normally in a scene. I suppose they used Cumbria at night, so they could get the proper atmosphere of a night shot at night, with the usual artificial station lighting - plus film lighting.

Obviously I haven't been paying enough attention as the only shadows I've ever noticed in film or TV are the very long shadows you get in things like Lewis or Morse where they need to film in the centre of Oxford at around 5.a.m in Summer when there's nobody else around

Carnforth is actually in Lancashire. Sorry my mistake. It was the hotel the crew stayed in that was in Cumbria.

michael adams

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I was surprised how much "artificial moonlight" was used in night-time shots - which *were* shot at night-time. I saw them filming a couple of episodes of Lewis, and for one shot of Lewis and a witness/suspect returning to her car next to the Radcliffe Camera, they used an enormous hydraulic platform, with couple of dustbin-sized HMI (discharge, rather then filament) lights to supply "moonlight".

It's not actually that common. And near impossible to make totally convincing outdoors.

And I can't think of a good reason to bother.

Discharge lighting has been used for a very long time on location stuff. The higher efficiency allows either local power or a smaller genny.

You can often use available light in daytime, by bouncing it to where it's wanted. But moonlight is simply too dull for this sort of trick.

The other problem being you can't guarantee full moonlight on the night you want to shoot.

They're all pretty impressive given they were taken under poor lighting conditions and you weren't using a flash. Did you have privileged access ?

Did they take a long time to prepare ? As the third photo down " Josette Simon and Kevin chat before filming of their scene begins." looks almost as if it's daylight. There's a lot of location filming takes place around where I live in West London with their catering vans and people hanging around all over the place, but no stars that I've ever recognised.

This day for night business isn't actually quite as straightforward as I made out. It was actually this that Lasselly was banging on about in the interview as to how he'd worked out some new tricks. What he also explained which I didn't realise was that most film cameramen used their own improvised filters to soften the image especially when doing close ups. Basically the camera needs to lie otherwise people would find the image too harsh.

What you do get from the "extras" on a lot of DVD's and sets (This was a Woodfall Set) is the infinite pains they go to, over all sorts of things along with a lot of improvisation. Which to me although I wouldn't exactly class myself as a philistine, go straight over the top of my head. Or maybe they don't. Like football or boxing referees maybe you're only supposed to notice them when they mess up.

michael adams

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So what type of *indoor* night time filming do you have in mind exactly ?

Ones where people are staggering around in the dark bumping into each other, without any visible source of light ?

According to Wiki - I looked it up after Lassally mentioned it in this interview, as I didn't really know what he was referring to

Because both film stocks and digital image sensors lack the sensitivity of the human eye in low light conditions, night scenes recorded in natural light, with or without moonlight, may be underexposed to the point where little or nothing is visible. [1] This problem can be avoided by using daylight to substitute for darkness. When shooting day for night, the scene is typically underexposed in-camera or darkened during post-production, with a blue tint added. Additional effects are often used to heighten the impression of night.

michael adams

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Err, rather easy to blank off windows?

No s*it, Sherlock?

Going to be a problem to turn full midday sun into night, I'd say.

No fear of that given I was never a lighting director.

Night shoots are normally done at night. With lamps as required. There may be special circumstances where day for night might be better, but as I said it's not the norm.

Just think about it for a minute. If shooting in a street, you'd need some rather bright street lamps. Lighting inside houses. Lights on passing vehicles. On a nice dull day you might get away with it. But even a feature film has a budget to work to, and can't hang around for such things.

And it's a closer match to the colour temperature of real daylight. Tungsten would have to have 1/2 or 1/4 blue in front to match daylight and I think that loses you a stop or two.

Yes, though it's surprising how few do use reflectors. Just a plain white reflector is nice and soft has plenty of level and automaticaly tracks changes in the natural light.

And the moon moves and may even set before the end of the night. 2 x

I often notice when sunlight is being simulated through windows, for example, that the shadows visibly diverge. ;-)

I guess the OP has never seen

Indeed. So why mention *outdoors* at all then ? When obviously its only ever needed out of doors in the first place,

So is that a good reason to bother, or not ? Just now you were saying you couldn't think of any good reason to do it.

Well you don't film at middday then. Problem solved.

The luvvies will probably all be having a nap after their dinner in any case, given they all start at 5.am or whenever it is.

If you're already doing a job you don't need to "muscle in" on that job do you ?

In the history of film there are probably at least one or two lighting directors who started off as sound men, just like you. Although obviously this would take hours of research and nobody would care or be that impressed if I came up with any.

The film in question was "Tom Jones" which was set in the 18th century and the scenes in question took place in fields, woods and a garden.

Not all film scenes take place in busy modern streets

There is apparently a subsidiary technique called dusk to night filmed during the limited period after street lights come on . Other than that, as to house lights and vehicles many night scenes will supposedly feature the dead of night after everyone has gone to bed and there are no cars about. Which admitedly would require streets to be temporarily closed off. Street lights could possibly simulated with special attachments.

In any case I didn't say they used it for *all" night scenes did I ? Up until a few hours ago I never realised they used it for *any* films at all.

michael adams

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Yup. A lot of lighting is about giving consistency for shooting regardless of weather.

Luvvies don't have dinner midday, pet.

My mistake. Lunch.

michael adams

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