Making Daylight look light night

Terry25 wrote on 4/26/2003, 11:59 PM
My testing leads me to believe this isn't really possible with video but I'm hoping someone knows something I don't.

In film there's a technique to overexpose and make a daylight shoot appear as if it were night-time. Some scenes in the old Paula Abdul video Rush Rush were done like this. I'd like to do this with video. Either with the camera or with effects. Any ideas?

Comments

flicktease wrote on 4/27/2003, 12:23 AM
I don't know anything about the video you mention. There is however a filter under Video FX under color curves called 'night' which is used to make a daytime shot look as if it were shot at night.
PeterWright wrote on 4/27/2003, 2:04 AM
Try putting a solid colour, black or dark blue, above the day shot and reducing the colour's opacity to around 50%.
Jason_Abbott wrote on 4/27/2003, 3:13 AM
Day for night is a common color correction task. I'll summarize the steps from the "Color Correction for Digital Video" book.

With Color Corrector:
1) Desaturate to taste
2) Add some blue to the shadows and midtones
3) Drop gain and gamma
With Curves:
4) Crush some of the blacks on the blue curve
5) Clip the whites (of just the blue curve?--not sure)

I suspect you could find some tutorials out there as well.
FuTz wrote on 4/27/2003, 8:59 AM
I remember it's been discussed on this forum not so long ago and there was a few posts concerning lighting and a few post-prod tricks. Maybe do a search...?
BillyBoy wrote on 4/27/2003, 9:20 AM
To turn day into night start by dropping the track opacity down to about 40%. Then as Jason suggested lower saturation, gamma and gain. Depending on how dark you want it changing the blues in shadows and midtones isn't that much of a big deal. Use color curves, set a point near the middle, drag down and to the right so the center point is about a third of the way between its starting position and the bottom right hand corner. Now adjust the track opacity up or down as needed a little and you should be pretty close. Finish by tweaking gain and gamma so it doesn't look too harsh.
musicvid10 wrote on 4/27/2003, 12:43 PM
Here is the older thread futz referred to - all good suggestions.
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=137386&Page=0
pb wrote on 4/27/2003, 4:44 PM
Tiffen "Day for Night" filter on the front of your lens, same as the film guys do. Just be careful with framing, shadow and glare. I have it in 4 X 4 for the matte box but I am sure they'll have screw ons in 82mm, 72mm etc.

Peter
Terry25 wrote on 5/5/2003, 1:44 AM
I've tried out the suggested effects and for the most part they're very good. I wouldn't say it presents a 'real' picture but its enough to suspend disbelief and create a useable night 'style'.

Its very good for backgrounds, and scenery. There really isn't one preset that can handle it flawlessly. Its really something that has to be considered and tweaked for each shot, even different angles of the same location.

But I'm after something much more. I want to maintain the colour of the people and darken whats behind them. Please share any ideas for doing it (or coming close to something approximating what I'm after). If this really needs a special program like AE or boris - I'd be interested in knowing what they offer.
TorS wrote on 5/5/2003, 1:55 AM
For clarification - do you mean something like a still taken at night with flash? Where the flash only light up what's immediately in front of the camera?
Tor
Terry25 wrote on 5/5/2003, 3:25 AM
Yes, thats a good picture of what I'm after.
TorS wrote on 5/5/2003, 3:49 AM
You could make a copy of the track and isolate your foreground with a mask (soft feather) then give the background the nuit americaine treatment. See the thread Jill started before easter about darkening parts of a scene:
Need a guru

(Nuit Americaine is the French expression for "Day for night shooting". It's even the title of a Truffaut film about the making of a film.)
Tor