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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

What is the best way to brighten up a dark shoot

:iamwithstupid: Re-shoot, unless this is the "look" you are going for. Sorry, but I have to agree with Brent on this one. :nopity:
 
Stefan Ringel, I PM'd you. If you would like to post me a short raw file I could give my suggestions to you a go, see if anything is possible.
 
Sorry. I miss the "PM Thing".
And yes, Re-shoot would be great. But its to expensive. In fact... i don't care that much about the look. I'm a big arthouse fan... and i saw many Films shoot on DV-Cameras at night. Sooo. yes, its noise and its bad. But i also got many good shoots. And when the actors are outsight... at night... than it is night... it is dark. Its not a Hollywood Studio Shoot. Its okay. I can live with that.
 
Stefan Ringel said:
And when the actors are outsight... at night... than it is night... it is dark. Its not a Hollywood Studio Shoot. Its okay. I can live with that.
Click to expand...

OK, but it sounds like you are settling for mediocre work. Shooting outside at night, even with NO budget doesn't have to be dark. Use a flashlight, car headlights, parking lot lights, whatever.

A lot of great films lose their impact because they look so bad.
 
As i said before: (again)

And no... we did not shoot in absolute dark. We had one 2,5 kW, two 575 HMI, many 250 W, 2 Kinoflows, etc...
We turned the ähm... whats the english word "diaphragm" (german: Blende) down... because
of Depth of field. ... blah.

Please... don't tell me to re-shoot it.. or whatever. I know its dark. I have to deal with it. I don't need people that say: use a flashlight or car headlights. thx.
 
1.denoise with neat plugin in after effects
2.use the same denoised movie two times one on top of the other
3. use blend mode "add" for the top layer
4. adjust to brighten up the lights and leave the dark dark ( good luck )
5. mailto videoconsulting@mac.com and you get an upload ftp for the raw file
6. paralell testing with you

all the best fom her
 
Stefan Ringel said:
.
We turned the ähm... whats the english word "diaphragm" (german: Blende) down... because
of Depth of field. ... blah... I don't need people that say: use a flashlight or car headlights.
Click to expand...

I think people here are trying to help you learn.

If you or your cameraman thought it was a good idea to seriously underexpose a scene to get more depth of field, then you are at a very early stage in your filmmaking development.

I'm sure some of the techniques people are sharing with you will at least give you something on the screen but will it make you a better filmmaker?

I believe it is important for aspiring image makers to have some personal standards. There has to be a point where an image is unusable, no matter how painful it may be to admit. The images in your first post cross that line for me.
 
Ohhh..We don't underexpose a scene to get more depth of field. We could not shoot with "open lense" because the "depth of field" would be so extreme... its the opposite. There was "to much depth of field"... and that was the problem. We have to to shoot with "open lense" to get enough light. But if the actor moves the head.... he/she was out of focus. even if she/he moves only 1 cm.
 
I just want to let you know that I'm on a journey... 4, 5 days. back on Thursday or Friday...

(and... I have no problem to "kill" a shot if its unusable. One of the things, i think everyone learns.. YOu also have to kill not only bad shoots... also good shoots... if they don't fit into the final film. But thats not the subject. Some scenes are dark. Thats it. I'm not a professional. I'm a student. I want some tips for brighten up a scene. or some denoise technics. I don't need people that tell me that I have to use more "light" or whatever...) but as brandon said... "it's pretty obvious where the constructive criticisms begin and end on this thread".

thanks for all the tips!
 
I too would highly recommend neatvideo - great plugin.

And I think people are trying to constructive... even if it doesn't come across like it. We've all had underexposed footage that we thought we'd fix in post, and then realized that isn't the best idea.

In the future, I would recommend using a wider angle lens to widen your depth of field and then punch in digitally in post to get the framing that you want (Just make sure that you are really sharp!). Another option would be to adjust your shutter angle. especially if there isn't a lot of movement in the scene this would be less noticeable then underexposure.

Oh, and I'd also recommend sneaking in a back light if at all possible - it will really help with the separation

At any rate, good luck!

Edit: Also, when we were doing low budget night stuff, we basically created a frame that we could light, and then built the action around that - halving the distance doubles the light. Definitely not ideal, but you have to make compromises in independent film either on set, or later in post.
 
Its the DP. Kill the Dp, they don't know how to expose to save their lives.
With that much lighting, the dp should have easily gotten an amazing image.
I shoot stuff with a much worse camera, and no lighting, and still get great shots.
They should at least have done some pretesting if they knew so little (about DPing) and would be getting behind a Red.

Neat Video is pretty much the only thing that could save it.

Remember, kill em. They are playing you for a fool. And they've gone and wasted your shoot.
Good luck.
 
Try keeping it real people.

Try keeping it real people.

Alex Mack said:
Its the DP. Kill the Dp, they don't know how to expose to save their lives.
Click to expand...

:nono:

Did it occur to you that the original poster of this thread might be the DP?

The question was how to brighten this shot, not how to insult people on this forum.

Think before you type people.
 
Stefan Ringel said:
Ohhh..We don't underexpose a scene to get more depth of field. We could not shoot with "open lense" because the "depth of field" would be so extreme... its the opposite.
Click to expand...

No, it's not.

Depth Of Field is the area of the image that is IN focus. So, "more depth of field" means stepping down the aperture (blende). Shooting with open lense means "less depth of field".

So, you did exactly as he described: you underexposed the image to have more depth of field.
 
you are right. i mixed that up. yes. we need "more depth of field"... and that was the big problem.
 
One more noise reduction solution to consider is the TOPAZ ENHANCE plug-in package.
It's a very powerful yet affordable set of tools for Adobe After Effects.

check out a comparison video of the denoise feature of TOPAZ compared to all other noise reduction solutions including NEAT.

check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSzdM62LHnI

I hope this helps...
 
Alex Mack said:
Its the DP. Kill the Dp, they don't know how to expose to save their lives.
With that much lighting, the dp should have easily gotten an amazing image.
I shoot stuff with a much worse camera, and no lighting, and still get great shots.
They should at least have done some pretesting if they knew so little (about DPing) and would be getting behind a Red.

Neat Video is pretty much the only thing that could save it.

Remember, kill em. They are playing you for a fool. And they've gone and wasted your shoot.
Good luck.
Click to expand...

Too lazy to move the lights for the close-up?

:devil:

Stefan Ringel said:
very short, very dark. And NO... not all shoots
are that dark. We (my team and I) are not a bunch of idiots :)
Click to expand...

Well closing down aperture in badly lit situations don't sound like a very smart MO to me.

We gotta live with limitations, very shallow DOF is better than a muddy underexposed digital image IMO.

A deep focus composite sounds like a nice solution, many films use it very cleverly...

The DP should've turned to the director and said: Don't do it, it's gonna look like crap, tell the actor to hold still damn it!
 
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