Fiction Adaption: Researching Night filming

I have a few scenes where i need to film at night so i have been looking at different methods to help with this. Initially i looked at the locations i was wanting to film. I knew that the riverside has lighting at night but after seeing videos made by others from the class in low light and the issues they had, i wanted to look at how i could help improve filming quality in low lighting.



http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/09/15/best-settings-for-night-photography-how-to-shoot-in-a-range-of-situations/

Rule 1: Never go above ISO 1600 or images get noisy
Rule 2: Keep shutter speed between 1/30s and 1/50s or images get flickery lights
Rule 3: Aperture needs to be between f/1.2 and f/5.6
Rule 4: Change to picture style of camera/ take the contrast down or the image will be darker than it should be
Rule 5: Need to shoot where lots of lights are or bring artificial light.

I found that this article and video really helped me to understand a lot more about the filming and as i will be using my canon 550d. I have a 50mm f/1.8 II lens and this is perfect for low lighting and should produce the results needed for some of the filming i am going to be doing at dusk/early evening. I will test this out before filming.

Here is an example of this lens in use:

The depth of field on this lens is great and it works really well in low lighting. it also produces a really nice Bokeh effect which i have in mind for my seeing stars scene and also when jack is dying.

I also spoke to fergus about the possibility  He said that the lighting we had at the studios was for indoor use and that i would need to get simon to approve and risk assess any other equipment and that he personally wouldn't recommend it. He said that the lighting we had at the studios was for indoor use and that i would need to get simon to approve and risk assess any other equipment and that he personally wouldn't recommend it. He did however suggest the possibility of shooting day for night. I decided to research this a lot more.

This video was really useful as it helped give me a step by step sort of visual guide to how to create this effect.

• I need to film on an overcast day and not in bright sunlight in order for this to work at its best. It may even work slightly better at the end of the day due to the sun setting although i would have to be careful of running out of light at all.
• I need to not show the sky as it gives away the time of day, this could work well in my woodland setting due to the trees covering most the sky and the fact most of the shots are quick paced and close ups. 
• Change the white balance setting to tungsten 
• Access the iris controls/ shutter controls and darken 
• In post production apply a blue solid layer, reduce the opacity of this until you have a blue haze
• on main video footage, reduce the saturation to around 20-25%
• adjust black & white levels on after effects etc

I feel that doing a test shoot and working on this will seriously help me when editing so i will do this over the next few days so as to be as prepared as possible. this will also help me to discover if the location is lit well enough in the first place for filming as there are a lot of trees where i am planning my day for night scene. 

I also watched this video which discusses more about the editing process:

I found this tutorial really useful as it explains each step and as i have after effects on my laptop i will be able to refer to this when i am editing and hopefully create a realistic night look. 

overall i feel this research will really be crucial to my film.

Stay safe,

Helen