Help with short film

[OurBovinePublic]

Hi. Time again for my semesterly post :) We have to make a 2 minute short film for my class. Mines is going to have at least one scene at night time in a dark room and I was just wondering what you guys thought was the best way to shoot this . I was thinking about maybe doing it in night mode like Paranormal Activity etc. but not really sure it would suit what I was making. Any ideas?

Thanks

Colm

[Arfur Teacake]

Study films themselves and work out how they got the night scenes,

here is an example plenty of ext and int night scenes


alternatively its not always convenient to shoot at night , so you will need to go to a curtain or drapersl supplier and ask for 'black out' to cover your windows then you can control the lighting.

another trick used for making day into night is to turn the camera aperture right down so the sky looks dark and then light your subjects with atrificial lighting.

[OurBovinePublic]

Would you recommend using 3 point lighting? This is what we were taught in class but I was worried it would be too bright and it may not come across as night time.

[Arfur Teacake]

Would you recommend using 3 point lighting? This is what we were taught in class but I was worried it would be too bright and it may not come across as night time.

Yes if its what I am thinking of. if your aiming for your person to be scary then a light shining up from below to get shadows around the face often helps.
In the Edgar Wallace clip they probably only had only things like big Brutes? (which were arc lights lasting 20 mins before the stick ran out), that were very warm in CT and on colour films showing night in those days they could not have them too bright or the scene would look artificial.
You have the advantage of modern lamps like metal halide which are much more blue in CT and maybe give a more realistic night look ?

but here is where you come in- the artistic genius uses what he has