In general, night is all about brightness ratios, and having something of orange color to contrast to the blue fill of the night. (Actually, moonlight is pure daylight bouncing off of the moon, but we think of it as blue since most ambient light in the city is tungsten or sodium which has a markedly orange cast.) So you might light interior with HMI leaving it blue, and have warm tungsten sources in the shot to sell the blue.

If the shot is an exterior, choosing a background such as a tree shaded glade with hard shadow light passing through tree branches will help sell the effect, and you could use shiny boards and rifle boards (makes about as much light or more as a 12k HMI) to get the light levels on talent several stops over the BG to make sure the BG looks dark as compared to the light on the talents face.

If you must see sky, use a polarizer to darken it. I would get the lighting ratios correct in the field, shoot with a tungsten balance 3200 on the camera, and finalize color correction and darkening in post. The sun with long shadows is best, and if on talent, is best as a back light or 3/4 back.

If the shot is interior, the idea is the same. Look to use lots of dark and maybe a splash of light through a cukoloris or a moving leafy branch to cat interesting light on the background.

I would also suggest the use of a boatload of ND filters and open the iris on the lens up to severely reduce the depth of field. No need to shoot underexposed since you have all the color correction tools to play with later, but the ratios of color balance and lighting are much harder to change in the editorial suite, but, as you probably already know, pinning techniques can be of help in that situation as well.

 

Submitter: Jim Redden