The trouble with lighting heavy woods and jungles is that a big light in the background to create backlit moonlight gets blocked so quickly by foreground trees. I shot in some swamps & woods in New Orleans recently where I found a narrow strip of woods only thirty or fifty feet deep with a clearing on both sides. That way I could put a big HMI on a condor on the rear side of the strip and a camera on a dolly on the front side of the strip. You couldn't tell at night that the woods were only thrity feet deep, especially after I added some light smoke.
I often add some nearer backlight from a foreground tree by mounting something light like a Kinoflo up there. Or I add an overall soft top light with hanging a string of Chinese Lanterns with blue-dipped photofloods (or blue-ish compact fluorescent bulbs might work too.) If I have more space, I might use a balloon light but the Chinese Lantern trick works well -- I stole that idea from Stephen Burum, ASC, who lit some of the jungles in "Casulties of War" that way. Just be prepared to use bug spray or else the lanterns get covered in bugs at night and get darker. I've heard that some people turn on a big light off-camera pointed away to fool the bugs to fly there before they turn on the overhead lights. Or instead of a string of Chinese Lanterns, I've put a row of 4' Kinoflo (daylight) fixtures mounted to tree trunks, just above the frameline, all at a backlit angle pointed downwards, like to light a run through the woods.
