Make midday sunlight look like sunrise/sunset?

[David Roth weiss]

[Paddy Beirne] “is there a way of making midday natural sunlight consistantly look like sunrise/sunset using final cut pro 6 and apple colour 1? “

The answer is, probably not in a way that would be good enough for professionals, but possibly good enough for a school project. Maybe…

You can color the light and control the overall luminance to create a sunrise/sunset look, but there is no way you will be able to make it consistent. Without a budget for tools to diffuse and control the sunlight you are never going to truly sell the look you want. That’s done by “flying” large pieces of diffusion material high over the people in the scenes to kill the hard overhead light of the midday sun, which gives away the cheat by creating hard edges and shadows that move throughout the day.

However, you can try to use the technique of “day for night” that was used in Hollywood movies for years. That was done by:

1) stopping down the iris several stops, and underexposing the entire scene
2) avoiding the sky in all shots
3 filtering the scenes with a deep blue filter, which was meant to make the sun look like moonlight.

You can do the same thing with an orange filter. In combination with underexposure, it can appear to me very early or very late, but everything, and I repeat, everything, will be orange

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[David Roth weiss]

[Dave LaRonde] “David makes great suggestions to try, but if you really need to have it look like the beginning and the end of the day, shooting at midday isn’t going to cut it. The shadows will be a dead giveaway. “

Yep, exactly!!!

On the other hand, A fellow by the name of Spielberg shot the movie Jaws under every conceivable lighting and weather condition possible, with entire scenes comprised of mismatched shots all intercut together including sunny, rainy, foggy, partly cloudy, no clouds, etc., and it’s all overlooked by 99% of the audience, noticeable only to pros and students of the film.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.