Day for Dusk?

[C Barker]

Hi there,

I need to get an establishing shot of a city I will be filming in on a forthcoming shoot and wanted to do this at either dawn or dusk but this may be very difficult to due scheduling conflicts. I am wondering if it is possibly to simply shoot during the day and alter the image in post to create an effective dusk look?

Many thanks...

 

[Mike Simpson]

Well this might also be impossible because of scheduling but if you can shoot during heavy overcast it should be pretty ideal

 

[Drew Baird]

This is going to be difficult to achieve with a city as your subject. Light direction is important (Mike is right about filming when it is overcast as mid day sun will look terrible), but even moreso is the lights that are on inside of the buildings. the amount of money you would need to pay to shoot it wrong and fix it will be equal to or greater than adding a day of second unit production. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Paul Dean]

Hi there,

I need to get an establishing shot of a city I will be filming in on a forthcoming shoot and wanted to do this at either dawn or dusk but this may be very difficult to due scheduling conflicts. I am wondering if it is possibly to simply shoot during the day and alter the image in post to create an effective dusk look?

Many thanks...

In the old westerns they would put a mirror in the ranch house window to reflect the sun. After stopping down to shoot day for night, the reflected sunlight would look like a lit interior at night in wide establishing shots. If you can find the angle and time of day that the sun reflects in the windows of the cities' skyscrapers you might be able to get a similar effect.

Paul Dean

 

[Marc Wielage]

This is going to be difficult to achieve with a city as your subject. Light direction is important (Mike is right about filming when it is overcast as mid day sun will look terrible), but even moreso is the lights that are on inside of the buildings. the amount of money you would need to pay to shoot it wrong and fix it will be equal to or greater than adding a day of second unit production. Just my 2 cents.

I agree 100% with Drew. Unless your main starring actors are visible in the shot, you can either hire a crew to shoot the footage at the right time of day, or you might even be able to buy already-shot sunset city stock footage affordably. Getting deep shadows and the right amount of glare and haze in the background is really tough if you're comparing (say) noon time vs. 5:30 or 6:00 in the late afternoon.

 

[Alexey Milokost]

If it's a generic city shot, u might consider buying a footage on stocks

 

[David Mullen ASC]

If this were a shot of the countryside, then an overcast day shot could be timed into a dusk shot, but a true dusk shot of the city would have some lights visible in the buildings.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

There's nothing that can beat a true magic hour shoot. But if you ave unlimited money for post then everything is possible :001_smile: