Two lighting questions

[JZASMM]

I have two scenes I am shooting and was wondering the best way to do it. For one scene, it is out doors, and I was wondering the best way to achieve a moonlight look that doesn't look completely fake, and the other scene involves a character watching tv, so how would I be able to light the subject to look like the tv is lighting him? We'll be shooting on film... probably 250D or 200T.

Thanks,
Jacob

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, you'd have to define what looks fake about moonlighting because clearly you have some sort of opinion about that.

The intensity of moonlight is dependent on what it is in relation to. In an urban environment, it is unlikely for the moonlight to be the brightest source of light and would thus read fairly dim compared to other sources, yet out in the wilderness away from any other light source, a full moon on a clear night can be an intense light and should read brighter.

I shot these still photos of my car parked in the desert under real moonlight, with my camera set to tungsten-balance, underexposed by two stops:

This wasn't underexposed at all:

So you see that moonlight is really the same as sunlight, just much dimmer.

But you can make moonlight as blue or neutral white as you want, or blue-green, pale blue, whatever you want. You can make it hard or soft.

Generally though you are trying to give the impression of darkness, so you want to create shadows in the frame, which is why moonlight tends to look better as a backlight, unless it is a frontal or side light broken up by trees to create shadow patterns.

But first you have to tell me if the moon is the only possible source of light in the scene and what sort of location this is. And what looks fake about moonlighting. Perhaps the best thing would be to find a reference shot in a movie that you liked or disliked.

Looking at what I already have on stored online, I have a couple of night shots from movies I've done but I can't find a moonlit exterior. Here's some moonlit interiors:

Here's a night exterior without moonlight:

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Here's a snapshot I took of a stand-in while I was lighting a forest for a night scene:

I'll probably time it even darker when I finish the movie.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Regarding a TV lighting effect, again, the intensity would depend on if it was the only source of light in the scene/room, just as in real life because your eyes would adjust to the lower levels of light.

A TV set is really just a soft light source, the size of the TV, that is shifting in intensity as objects move on screen, with sudden jumps in intensity when the scene on TV cuts to a new angle that is brighter or darker. There are also shifts in color depending on what's on screen. Also, a TV set is daylight-balanced (if not bluer) so would read overall as being a colder light source than a tungsten practical.

So I usually start out using a 3'x3', maybe 4'x4', frame of diffusion as the off-camera "TV", and then the question is how much flicker to give it. I've done it many ways, depending on complicated I want to make things. I've just put a light on a dimmer and randomly faded up and down, I've put two lights behind the diffusion, one on a dimmer and the other on a flicker box, I've had both on flicker boxes at two different rates, etc. I usually make the effect 1/2 Blue as a base color compared to the room.

I find, though, that the best effect is for me to simply dance my fingers in front of the light behind the diffusion frame in a random pattern, sometimes using more of my hand to cover the lamp, etc. Or taken a small flag and waved it front of the light behind the diffusion. I've also waved magazines. I've also sat in front of the diffusion frame, under it, and waved my hands and arms around randomly. That works pretty well... except that actors find it hard to concentrate when they see the DP waving at them like he is trying to land a plane or hail a ship.

The effect should be like a slow random pulsing with an occasional spike in brightness, maybe a couple of flashes like during rapid editing of what's on TV.

If you want to get really fancy, you can also wave colored bits of gels in front of the lights to shift the colors around.

If you can get enough exposure this way, you could try actually projecting video onto someone's face, softened by putting it through a thin frame of diffusion.

 

[JZASMM]

The location is supposed to be in the middle of nowhere, with the moon being the only light source. Maybe "fake" isn't the right word... Harsh might be better. I don't remember exactly what it was that I saw that looked so bad but you could tell that it was produced - it almost looked like they were lighting a stage play. The stills you showed would be what I'm trying to go for it all looks extremely natural which is what I would like to achieve. I hope the clarifies my question, thanks!