cinematography Trying to achieve this look

I

Iopsis

Hey guys,

We're attempting a night shoot, and we've got this idea in mind for the look of the film.

That being said, there are a load of difficulties trying to achieve this shot, purely because of time restraints, and the fact that we'd never be able to get this amount of detail at night.

We've thought of different things, like doing day for night, or perhaps rotoscoping out the city and compositing it in later, but I was wondering if you guys had any other suggestions?

We're a relatively low budget production, and headlights won't nearly be enough to uncrush foreground black as well as us getting detail in the city at night.

1455169_10153414367130554_732608014_n.jpg


Thanks
 
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GuerrillaAngel said:
It's a painting. You'll not going to be able to reproduce that look on a low budget.
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Never say never. Rule number one. I hate it when people say that something can't be done.
Just because we're low budget, it doesn't mean our resources are limited.

I think the best bet is for us to do day for night. We have a really good VFX artist that can grade it for night time, and just composite some lighting for the cityscape and car.

As for the cloud formations, thats a different matter altogether.
 
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The problem is that it's not a real image and it depicts an unrealistically bright visual representation of what night looks like. With the only light source being the car headlights you would actually not be able to see the detail in the city or even the grass in the foreground.

In my opinion day for night will require tons of extensive visual effects in post and it still will never look right.

I would shoot the scene just after sundown, then color grade all the yellows and oranges into blues and purples. Or actually maybe even just before sunrise before the light turns orange.
 
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change the framing a bit so that the moving actors are not overlapping the city space\background and you should be able to do some set extension and vfx compositing to get something like that. Its not going to look "real" but it may be the stylized look your after.
 
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firstly you need location, secondly I suggest getting a RAW camera, thirdly you will need to practice and practice before you get it right.

4th I would take plain raw dng clip, then apply multiple masks across the image adjusting the exposure per mask so that different parts of the image are lit differently to reflect the image above, then I would add a 4 stage gradient horizontally or whatever to darken and gain more colours.

this alone should get you closer to that image, the rest can be done VFX wise.
 
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8salacious9 said:
4th I would take plain raw dng clip, then apply multiple masks across the image adjusting the exposure per mask so that different parts of the image are lit differently to reflect the image above, then I would add a 4 stage gradient horizontally or whatever to darken and gain more colours.
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I would second this.

Additionally, the scene posted by the OP has been painted greyscale, with overlay tints to colour. While this is a doddle to do for stills, for moving frames I suspect this takes a fair bit more work to track the shots. I'm not sure if the OP's time constraints will facilitate this, but then again i'm a noobs when it comes to editing workflow for motion picture, and have no idea how quick this is to do in post.
 
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Besides the suggestions above, I did some calculations to see what you would need with ambient lighting alone. Keep in mind this shot may not be possible with ambient lighting since any light source (buildings in the background, moon, taillights) will be blown out.

The photo below was taken at:
35mm F/4.5 @ ISO100 for 315s shutter

In order to achieve this with a shutter speed of 1/50 (to maintain the "film look"), you'd need to increase 15 stops. This would leave you with these values, assuming you use a 1.8 aperture lens:

50mm F/1.8 @ 128,400ISO.

Even then you're technically about 1 stop short. Beyond that, shooting a 50mm @ 1.8 limits your DOF, rendering the buildings out of focus for sure, unless you want that. 50mm @ F/1.8 on a Canon 7D will render between 12.5m and 18.9m in focus, assuming you set focus at 15 meters (I guessed based on that drawing, could be further/closer).

I'm pretty sure on this photo I did increase the "fill light" in post to achieve the desired brightness. Food for thought.


Prairie at Night by REVVD Images, on Flickr
 
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Moon has to be over your left shoulder. Right during civil twilight, or just after… this will allow for enough light on the foreground to get near the levels you're looking for in the image -- and still let the sky be lit enough to get that gradient to the horizon.

The moon will provide the foreground fill light. Add the headlights using a car backed away from the subjects enough to light them head to toe. You won't get the city lit -- the moon will help with that.
 
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This painting is unrealistic. Light levels of the city in the distance re almost as bright as headlights. The light of the sky and the light coming from the left (???) is unexplained as well.

If you want to achieve a similar set up but a bit more realistic,I would suggest getting the fastest lense and exposing for the city lights until they are of a desired level. Than I would fake the headlights with a fixture that balances with your exposure settings.
 
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8salacious9 said:
firstly you need location, secondly I suggest getting a RAW camera, thirdly you will need to practice and practice before you get it right.

4th I would take plain raw dng clip, then apply multiple masks across the image adjusting the exposure per mask so that different parts of the image are lit differently to reflect the image above, then I would add a 4 stage gradient horizontally or whatever to darken and gain more colours.

this alone should get you closer to that image, the rest can be done VFX wise.
Click to expand...

What he said. And he should know as he's just DOP'd a music vid with exactly this thought in mind.
 
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Iopsis said:
Hey guys,

We're attempting a night shoot, and we've got this idea in mind for the look of the film.

That being said, there are a load of difficulties trying to achieve this shot, purely because of time restraints, and the fact that we'd never be able to get this amount of detail at night.

We've thought of different things, like doing day for night, or perhaps rotoscoping out the city and compositing it in later, but I was wondering if you guys had any other suggestions?

We're a relatively low budget production, and headlights won't nearly be enough to uncrush foreground black as well as us getting detail in the city at night.

1455169_10153414367130554_732608014_n.jpg


Thanks
Click to expand...

I think you're going to have to be creative. One thought I have is that the city beyond the hill could be filmed at night and the actors during the day. Then put the city where the hill drops off. How you'll get the car to look like that during the day I don't know. I think the closer you are to the car and actors the easier it will be.
 
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