Nigthtime around a Fire with Magic Bullet.

ThomasTyndan wrote on 10/17/2006, 6:18 AM

I am having an issue with wanting to have the "around a campfire" film look, where the background is a dark cold blue, or black and around the first is the warm Red. Am I going to have to shoot that video near dusk, or is it possible to shoot a daytime version and use magic bulllet to get the desired effect? Anyone know how this can be done?

Comments

mr.beebo wrote on 10/17/2006, 6:38 AM

I havent done more than throw one on an event for a moment to see the difference, but MB has several effects for giving footage shot during the day a nighttime effect, but, depending on your lighting, you will probably have to make adjustments with curves/levels and color corrector.

farss wrote on 10/17/2006, 6:43 AM

I'm thinking you should be shooting this at dusk / night.
Thing is a real fire will not give you enough light to avoid having the camera getting very noisy so you need to augment the light from the fire with lighting. Victor's Light It Right DVD start soff with a demo of how to do this but it's very short. Also you can build Flicker Boxes that you plug normal lights into that are gelled red and yellow. Someone over at the lighting forum at DVInfo posted pretty good instructions on how to buld them, should cost under $20 for all the bits and only a few hours to throw one together. Just one warning, most lamps don't last too long on these kinds of flicker boxes so take a few spare lamps.

Trying to fudge it shooting in daylight I think would be impossible, even those shooting film don't do it and they've got a lot more wiggle room. Shooting day for night is a very different issue, that's relatively simple compared to a campfire scene unless you can figure a way to get more light out of a campfire than the sun puts out.

Bob.

Bob.

farss wrote on 10/17/2006, 7:20 AM

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=67350&highlight=flicker+box

Scroll down to the last post for a schematic, dead simple.
First post has links to photos, they still seem to be valid links.

Bob.

MichaelS wrote on 10/17/2006, 7:49 AM

I shot a cowbpy music video once in Tombstone. Lit the campground at night close to normal, but allowed for hard shadows. Used a $1.50 floodlight bulb and my wife moving her fingers in front of a piece of orange gel for the the close-ups.

It worked.

Test whether you really want darkness, or just the feeling of night. They are 2 different visual situations. A nice amber wash, broken up with flickering/fingers may give you enough light to overcome the noise.