Day for night footage???

[Roberto Lequeux]

Peripheral vision being better than forward vision sounds so right true, I can see that now that you point it out. Maybe an other thing to do would be to greate an ever so slight reverse vignette to have a little of that effect without bugging too much. Thank you for mentioning that Pawel. I am curious to test it out, even if only ever sooo slightly darker in the center.

I guess the only thing left to do is to replace the sky on every shot, taking the clouds away and replacing them with a bright deep blue sky with a few stars... unfortunately this would prove most annoying or expensive. It might prove especially hard for us since the clouds might be very similar to the snow...

Also, I have this vision of a practical tungsten high on a little white wooden bell tower creating hard shadows on their faces. Also, some tungsten in deep in the background coming from the house where they retreat... Something tells me we will end up shooting at night unless we get the darkest of overcast days perhaps?

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

For those interested, I've updated my website with thumbnail frames from "Manure" and "Stay Cool", my two RED features:
http://www.davidmullenasc.com/page4/page4.html

The first frame in the "Manure" selection is from the RED camera, the rest are from my Nikon on the set, but all the frames from "Stay Cool" are from the RED camera. But the frames are reduced and compressed, only 432 pixels across in size.

Holy SHIT! :thumbsup: David, Manure looks fantastic! If all but the first were from your Nikon, did you do sky replacement to them to show what you where thinking of doing in post? I mean of course you HAD to... unless you were on location in Titan, one of Saturn's Moons! It looks fantastic! Talk about strong choices... Please forgive me if I am wrong, but I really love how Tea Leoni jumps out in her white dress, as if she is ashamed and trying to break out from her life. Then Billy Bob seems to do a great job of being a fish out of water at the party. The title and subject seem so "fresh". I LOVE Tea Leoni, and I really like Billy Bob, he can be utterly fantastic. And although you hate praise, I really like your style. This movie looks like a massive winner for me... hope the script is as good as the rest of the pieces let on. When will it come out? Summer?

Tom, I hope you don't mind. I grabbed your mountain range and tweaked it a bit in PS. I only lowered the contrast and brightness, but I did it separate layers for the mountains and the sky. I pushed the mountains much more than the sky sinde I thought it would not be as monochromatic or lacking in saturation since it would be brighter. I included Tom's original for easy comparison. Sorry about the degradation Tom, I did it all in 8-bit and saved it to a heavily compressed .jpg half way though the process.

I suppose it would be hard to see in a bright room in the middle of the day, but I also thought it would be a very good comparison between a real night capture and what I think might be a closer representation to how the eye sees without making it impossible to see. The histogram looks like a tiny little lump on the very left. Finally I uploaded one with an ever so slight reverse vignette and I have to say... I am sold on that additional step! It loos more realistic to me!

 

[Robert Niessner]

Curiously, some weeks ago, I did some DFN tests.

I'll have to do it on the beach, so the best time for it here on Rio de Janeiro is between 5:30 and 6:00 PM.

Like already said I can't let anything clip and bringing the highlights down in post helps a bit too.

Here are some examples:

I took the freedom to give it a shot:

All done without masks, just curves, exposure, saturation and gradients.
Goal was to keep the actor's face in good exposure

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Holy SHIT! :thumbsup: David, Manure looks fantastic! If all but the first were from your Nikon, did you do sky replacement to them to show what you where thinking of doing in post?

All of the skies were there on set -- that's a painted backdrop. The whole movie was shot indoors on a stage.

Actually I think two of the frames are from the RED camera, the funeral being the other.

Now in the final film, we did add some birds flying across the sky in a few shots, and we added some missing sky above some sets (none in the ones I posted.)

I meant to stick that post on the "ask David Mullen" thread, not on this DFN thread.

--

One big difference between shooting by real moonlight versus DFN... the sun rises and falls everyday, in different weather, but the moon is in different phases and sometimes isn't up yet, so the light levels produced by the real moon on the landscape vary more radically. It would be hard to schedule a movie shoot around the phases of the moon if you really wanted to shoot by real moonlight, not if the only way to get sufficient exposure was to get a full moon on a clear night.

 

[Tim Sutherland]

One thing I think I should mention is that doing day for night in a low contrast situation (such as a cloudy day) can be hard to do the effect and still tell the viewer where to look. If I were to go much darker on the frames I posted on the first page it all starts to blend together. So if you were to try day for night on a cloudy day, you're really giloing to want to have some lights to do a bit of rim lighting and probably add a bit of fill to the face.

 

[Tom Lowe]

All of the skies were there on set -- that's a painted backdrop. The whole movie was shot indoors on a stage.

It was exactly these Manure shots with the false (but physically real) backgrounds that got me to thinking about ways to shoot "full moon" shots at night for cinema.

One of the things that got me thinking about this was doing some mental exercises about how someone could shoot a film adaptation of the anime-manga "Berserk." Literally like 1/3 of the story takes place at night with full-moon style skies. Here are examples from "Berserk."

It would be incredible to be able to pull off shots like these in a live-action film, IMO.

 

[Tom Lowe]

One more:

 

[Pietro Impagliazzo]

Tom, have you seen the new Underworld?

When you said full moon night shots that's the first thing I remembered.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Look at the examples I posted from "Close Encounters", "Titanic", "Peggy Sue Got Married"... there are plenty of examples of night exterior faked on a soundstage, with stars or the moon added in a wide shot.

Here's a POV shot of some DFN trees with a starry sky added, cut into a night scene in "E.T." shot on a stage:

There were also those soundstage shots of the shed in the backyard set where they added a moon in the sky.

Just recently, you had "Knowing" with some night exterior scenes on stages, that UFO landing site being the big one. "Legend" had wood scenes done on stage. There are lots of examples. The only issue is whether in the wide shots, they added stars.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Tom, have you seen the new Underworld?

When you said full moon night shots that's the first thing I remembered.

You know, funny you should mention this. On my Getty stock sales statement, I sold two clips to Lakeshore Entertainment, who were posting UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS right about the time of the sale. I figured at the time that my clips were used in this film, so I will have to check it out and see! Either way, though, I will check out the film based on your suggestion. thanks, man!

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

It would be incredible to be able to pull off shots like these in a live-action film, IMO.

that's where pixel play can step in...quick and dirty job with couple of jpegs I dug from HDD and one from the web...

more time and prepared material = more realistic...

 

[Tom Lowe]

Maybe the best thing would be all green screen, with some practical elements like the hill and tree.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Or an LED lightboard.

Or Front Projection.

In fact. A good projector might be the best all around. No green spill to deal with. Just shoot some nice medium format stills and get a medium format projector. Get your stary night for free.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Peripheral vision being better than forward vision sounds so right true, I can see that now that you point it out. Maybe an other thing to do would be to greate an ever so slight reverse vignette to have a little of that effect without bugging too much. Thank you for mentioning that Pawel. I am curious to test it out, even if only ever sooo slightly darker in the center.

I found this out yonks ago from a scientist working with sea turtles, which nest at night. Since then I used this technique to find various wildlife at night, even on moon-less nights. You take about 20-30 min for your eyes to adjust and you look for movement in peripheral vision. Also, our brain picks up the movement in peripheral vision much better than in front too. You will be amazed at what you can spot, but if you turn your head and want to see it in front, the subject is much harder to see.

We actually have some of the best night vision in animal kingdom considering the small aperture of our eyes. We just don't know how to use it.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Also great for star gazing. An astronomer taught me the "Look about 30* off center" trick. Stars are also a great time to rediscover that blind spot dead smack in the middle of our vision. Look at a star and it will dissapear.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

I am not sure I can fork up for more nights on a stage. Also the stage we are getting wouldn't fit much being about 40 x 55 x 20 feet. We could find a warehouse, if we could somehow reduce the reverb...but still, we'd have to bring in tons of snow which might be workable, keep the doors open so it doesn't melt though an upside would be being able to regulate the temp to just under freezing. Maybe we could use a green screen and fill in with dusk for night mattes? Create little hills of snow to give us separation from the green screen to limit green spill? We'd need trees... ugh... we likely won't have this option due to money... :crossfingers: It really sounds like you can only do this in a "full" stage.

Well, I am sold on the reverse vignette though, and it is a nice little effect that is super easy to apply. Maye do away with it in the CUs where the foreground is lit bright by the practicals since it wouldn't happen under those conditions.

 

[Policar]

Well, I am sold on the reverse vignette though, and it is a nice little effect that is super easy to apply. Maye do away with it in the CUs where the foreground is lit bright by the practicals since it wouldn't happen under those conditions.

Trying to adjust the depth of focus to emulate human perception and add post effects to emulate peripheral vision isn't worthwhile.

If you're trying to make some VR system, it could be cool, but current movies are so far from phenomenologically-accurate human vision that things like that would just look weird, and bright edges would draw attention to the wrong parts of the frame. And besides, some audience members may be in the front row, while some may be in the back. Spectator location contingent, a 35mm lens may look wide angle, normal, or telephoto, which confuses your whole design.

Worry about things in relative terms, medium contingent. Find functional equivalents. If you want what you shoot to look like human perception, you'd use auto-iris, deep focus, and 60fps anyway.... Movies aren't like real life, thank goodness; don't push gimmicks unless you know exactly what you're doing.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Trying to adjust the depth of focus to emulate human perception and add post effects to emulate peripheral vision isn't worthwhile.

If you're trying to make some VR system, it could be cool, but current movies are so far from phenomenologically-accurate human vision that things like that would just look weird, and bright edges would draw attention to the wrong parts of the frame. And besides, some audience members may be in the front row, while some may be in the back. Spectator location contingent, a 35mm lens may look wide angle, normal, or telephoto, which confuses your whole design.

I respectfully disagree. You actually do not want the viewer to draw their attention to the wrong part of the screen. If the viewer turns head, your idea won't work as he/she would be looking straight to the side of the screen. Kind of defeats the purpose. It is more subtle than this.

After "discovering" the infectious 2.40:1 aspect ratio, I tend to think about composition bit more than in the past. For scenes intended to be night scenes, I would offset any sudden (unexpected) action and movement away from the centre and try to get any unsuspected movement happening sort of on either side (not edges) of the frame. This is kind of tricky because you still want the viewer to focus and look straight (not turn head).

Interestingly, we are also more sensitive to movement in peripheral vision regardless of night/day thing.

For example, the way to spot a leafy sea dragon underwater is to set your mind into a familiar type of movement, but not shape or colour. You will spot the damn thing always with your peripheral vision but rarely by "looking for it". My favourite shot is a wide angle take from about 1.5m away in crystal clear water with the dragon dead centre of the frame. Most viewers won't spot it even after 30 seconds of watching the clip and the fish is 30cm long and orange in colour :rofl:

Not sure about the reverse vignette, but any sudden action or movement in a night, low contrast, dim scene I would frame ~30 degrees off the viewers focus.

 

[Policar]

Under most circumstances, the cameraman frames the most significant information on one of the 1/3 lines. Straight-on or symmetrical compositions are rarer and typically indicate something unusual; they are more common in POV shots, for instance.

The very definition of "action" requires that something move (either the frame or a figure therein, frequently both), so the "rules" of composition vary in these instances and I can't really respond to the statements you've written with respect to framing action as there are few hard rules and many guidelines with respect to the moving camera.

Furthermore, no one (except in rare cases) turns his or her head to see something on-screen; generally, one intuitively and subconsciously rotates one's eyes to follow the most significant figure movement. Only for those sitting in the first row of a theater could this potentially be a problem.

I don't think you correctly read what I wrote; I'm not discussing framing in my previous post but, rather, I'm dismissing weird digital tricks and otherwise unmotivated aperture adjustments to provide subjective cues in the general instance; I feel these devices are contrived and syntactically tacky with respect to Classical shot choice.

Yes, peripheral vision has worse spatial but better temporal resolution.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Did you see how slight the effect was on the third mountain grade? Hardly noticeable, more of a subliminal effect. I don' think it would make people look to the edges much. And if they are sitting at the front they don't care about the movie anyway. We are more focused on Blu-Rays and DVDs anyway.

I do however agree that the iris setting would be useless for anything besides POV, I obviously failed to point that out. Thank you for bringing it up...

Now, could you show me where I was "pushing" anything?

I try to disclaim that I am no DOP as often as possible short of putting it in my signature, but I already have one of those. I am sure my DP will be more than able to help me tell the my story properly, but thanks for trying to help.