help for my night scene

[Joanna]

hey,
I need to light a scene in a closed room, at night. The room has a window and the moonlight is supposed to get through it, except the moon isn't really on this side of the room, so i'm gonna have to fake it.
The thing is, the character is romantic and is obsessed by the moon but he is in this room, far away from it, working to get there, so inside the light must not be romantic or soft. I don't really know how to light to get this effect, half-romantic-dreamy and half "i'm still on earth". Perhaps just get the moonlight trough the window, and inside lighting tungsten, as desk lamps are part of the set. but is it enough? not very original...
Plus, I only got 4 redheads and gels... is it possible to get a correct moonlight with a redhead?
thanks for your help

 

[David Mullen ASC]

It's sort of a personal taste issue in terms of the right degree of dreaminess. If the scene really is about the moon, I wouldn't be afraid of making it more obvious, unless this is a realistic movie and the viewer is only supposed to barely notice that there's moonlight outside.

Here's one idea -- have the moonlight streaming in as a dead backlight. The trick here is how not to see the light stand if the camera is facing the window flat-on (if you're at a raking angle, it's not a problem, the stand could be just out of view on one side.) One way of doing this is to make a "goal post" rig -- two big combo stands on each side of the window, outside, with a piece of speedrail (pipe) connecting them to hang the light off of, above the frameline of the camera or hidden by the top of the window frame. A redhead with half-blue gel may be enough, depending on the speed of the stock, lens, and how dim you want it to be.

An even, light haze of smoke may help.

You could even put a small white circle of posterboard on a black stick outside to represent the full moon in the sky. One trick I've done in the past which works well is to make a large slide transparency of a real full moon (like an 8x10 transparency), mount it to black card with a circle cut out where the moon is, cover the back with tracing paper and backlight it. Then shoot from outside looking in as someone steps up to look out the window and have the reflection of this moon photo reflected in the glass.

Here are some moonlit scenes in an HD feature I shot called "The Quiet":

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