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Open Restaurant Night Shoot
Hi all. I have a hard job coming up.
Shoot in an open air night time restaurant. Lots of warm practical lights agains an open air night background.
Will fo this at 800 native iso on the BMCC. With a 50mm 1.8 canon lens on a dolly and truck. Some close ups of faces and a wider establishing shot a wider lens as well.
We have a lot of warm film light available such as ARRI etc.
How will this mix with the blue light from the night sky? any tips and sugestions.
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4 Replies
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Shooting at night in a scenario such as this you will find it too be far less of a problem than you expect it to be.
The night sky will essentially be black due to your exposure limitations and as you will be so surrounded by tungsten sources the color temp of the night sky should be overwhelmed by the additional lighting. Especially if you have other lights to control key and fill, this should not be a problem. Just try to block your actors in the tungsten light rather than the ambient light of the night sky.
Blending color temperatures is not really a problem if you have the ability to overpower one of them which it sounds like you certainly do. I would just try to make sure that you have a reliable monitor on set.
Co-President at fourB Productions, Inc.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
2008 Mac Pro 2.6 Ghz 8 Core, 10GB RAM
AJA IoXT, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, Blackmagic Mini Monitor
Adobe Production Premium CC, Avid Media Composer 7, Final Cut Pro Studio 3 -
Thank you for the good tips.
Would it make sence to wait for full moon?
Is the night sky being black (as you explain) a bad thing?
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The night sky being black is a good thing. Waiting for a full moon will give you more ambient night light which is the opposite of what you actually want. You want to be able to light your scene with as little limitations as possible. The less ambience, the more control you have. Not that some ambience is a bad thing though. Indeed, ambient light in your background will give you depth and you may even want to experiment with adding nighttime fill light to your background at a more natural color temperature. Remember that all lighting, in terms of bright and dark, highlight and shadow, is relative. You may want to fill in your background by lighting it with a cool soft source and then compensate the brightness in the restaurant by increasing the intensity of your tungsten sources. In this way, the background will be bright enough to see as being a background, but still dark relative to the rest of your frame, i.e. The restaurant and your characters.
Co-President at fourB Productions, Inc.
Blackmagic Cinema Camera, RED Scarlet-X, Panasonic HPX170, Canon 7D
2011 Macbook Pro 17″, 2.3 Ghz Quad Core, 16GB RAM
2008 Mac Pro 2.6 Ghz 8 Core, 10GB RAM
AJA IoXT, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, Blackmagic Mini Monitor
Adobe Production Premium CC, Avid Media Composer 7, Final Cut Pro Studio 3 -
You’re not getting any light from the night sky.
Chris
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