Shooting Day for Night

Shooting day for night is a technique used to create a night scene while filming in the daylight. We are going to go through a few techniques to create the illusion of darkness or moonlight in the daytime. This is one of those skills that is more difficult to learn, but once you learn it you will cherish it. With learning this, you do not need to get your actors to stay late on set since it lets you shoot in broad daylight.

The tips we are going to give you are just little things to think about when you are shooting day for night.

Number one – NEVER include a shot of the sky! Common sense right? Well the sky is completely different from day to night. During the day and during day shoots you can most certainly see the blue sky and the white clouds but you don’t want to see that at night. It is a dead give away. You want to also avoid direct sunlight. Larger shadows are a dead giveaway that you are shooting during the day and that is not going to help you when you actually want to be shooting day for night!

Number two – you are going to need to use some sort of lights. To make your shot believable when shooting day for night uses what light you use during nighttime. Whether it is a candle, or a fire, even a flashlight will help you. You are going to want to have someone in your live shot be holding the item or close to the item to help it becomes more real.

Number three – everyone knows shooting in the evening is the best time for shooting. This is where the light is perfect and there is just enough before it goes completely dark. If you have planned and you have rehearsed that is going to be your best bet because you are only going to have roughly 30 minutes to shoot your scene! If you don’t get it that day you always have the next one.

Number four – adjusting the audio is going to be a big deal. You might not hear chirping birds and rushing cars at night. In fact, you never hear chirping birds, you are more likely to hear crickets making their beautiful music and fireflies buzzing about. This is something you are going to need re-adjust and create a digital nighttime!

These are just some little tips in shooting day for night shots. There is a lot that comes into shooting at night,  this post just gives you a bit of insight into how you might want to try something new.