In terms of conventional filming environments that many crews will invariably shoot in, one of the hardest is shooting at night, for reasons beyond the obvious.
Besides the obvious fact that without hiring adequate lighting equipment such as our LED towers a camera is hard-pressed to capture anything, neither digital image sensors nor traditional film stocks are terribly suited to capturing footage in low light conditions.
This means that, even in conditions where the eye can adequately see an object, a camera may struggle completely or diminish the quality of the filmed footage in noise as the sensor tries desperately to interpret the low-light conditions.
This is why so many films in the past and some even to this day will opt to shoot day-for-night instead, filming a scene intended to be set at night during the daytime and relying on post-production to turn the footage into something convincingly shot at night.
Thankfully, with better cameras, better lighting and better knowledge of what makes for great night shoots, it is easier to shoot beautiful night footage, and these top tips will help you make the most of the darkness.
Stick To Manual Settings
The temptation can be, particularly given the push for time, to rely on automatic settings, particularly auto-focus, in order to ensure that the scene catches the detail you want.
However, even more so than during the day, auto-focus will struggle to keep track of the target you want, which often leads to precisely the wrong details being highlighted whilst your central subject is decidedly blurry.
As well as this, watch out for your gain settings, as whilst a higher gain will inevitably be required at night, going too far will cause desaturation in the colours.
Illuminate Subjects, Not Backgrounds
Using a lighting tower is fantastic for giving you plenty of options for brightening a scene, but the key to shooting at night is to avoid making it too obvious to the audience that the scene has been artificially lit to maintain their willing suspension of disbelief.
Generally, this means creating pools of light rather than brightening the whole scene and taking advantage of diegetic sources of light such as street lamps, headlights, candles and so on.
This will help to keep the night shoot looking realistic.
As well as this, reflectors and white cards can help prevent the additional light from looking too harsh.
Film At Twilight
Twilight is the two periods at night between sunset and dusk and between dusk and dawn, and they are often the best times to schedule a night shoot if at all possible.
The reason for this is that whilst it is recognisably nighttime, there is still some natural light, which gives you some room to manoeuvre when it comes to your lighting settings.
Never Stop Testing
Ultimately, the more time you give yourself to test your lighting settings and the more test footage you shoot, the better your final product will be, something that is doubly true at night.
Take Care Of Everyone
The best conditions for night shooting are also quite harsh on cast and crew, so make sure they feel warm, comfortable and relaxed on set, and this will bring out the best and most natural performances.