3 Strategies for Lighting Your Night Exteriors

(Cinematic Lighting Lesson 14)

Summary: Lighting a night exterior may sound intimidating to some, but it’s actually a lot of fun since you can control so many elements. In this video Ryan gives you three strategies for lighting your night exterior and then shares five tricks he’s learned over the year to making your night exteriors really pop.

Length: 5:55 minutes

Video Lesson

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Transcript

Introduction

Night exteriors can be a lot of fun to shoot because of all the variety they provide. Moonlight, streetlights, firelight, neon signs, just about any lighting source or any lighting angle can really work for a night exterior. But where do you begin? In this video, I’ll start by sharing with you three strategies to lighting your night exterior. And then I’ll wrap it up by giving you 5 tricks that will make your night exteriors really shine.

Embrace What Is Given (Strategy 01)

Convincing Night Exteriors Are Shot At Night (LC114)

Convincing night exteriors are shot at night. While you can shoot day-for-night, it never looks the same; to me it always feels fake. Fortunately, modern cameras are getting more and more sensitive to light, letting us shoot at lower and lower light levels. So the first strategy to lighting a night exterior is to embrace the light that the location is giving you. If you’re limited on time and budget, and your camera is sensitive enough, then take advantage of whatever light is naturally there.

Block Your Scene To Embrace The Light (LC114)

However using the light given to you doesn’t mean you can be lazy and just turn your camera on. If you are embracing the light, then it becomes even more important to work with the blocking and framing of your shot. If the blocking ends up with the talent in shadow against a dark background, you’re going to end up with an underexposed ugly image when you get into the coverage of the scene.

Block Scenes Keeping Close-Up Shots In Mind (LC114)

Instead work with the director to come up with blocking for the scene to allow you to still create separation and depth in your image while still supporting the mood of the scene. That may mean moving the action closer to a street or porch light so the talent can be lit for later shots.

Start With Lighting Wide Shots Since They Take Most Time (LC114)

Embracing the natural light at the location is especially helpful for wide shots, something that can take serious time to artificially light at night since you have so much ground to cover, literally. So if you can, start there. But if that’s where you end your lighting of your night exterior you’ll be missing out on the power of the next two strategies...

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Lighting Diagrams

Tools We Used

Camera / Audio

Sony Alpha a7S Mirrorless Digital Camera

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Lens

Fotodiox Lens Mount Adapter – Canon EOS (EF / EF-s) to Sony E-Mount

Bright Tangerine Misfit Matte Box

Tilta FF-T03 15mm Follow Focus with Hard Stops

Sachtler Panorama 7+7 Head 100mm (similar head: 1006 DV 10 SB Fluid Head)

Sachtler Carbon Fiber Tripod (similar tripod: Carbon Fiber HD Tripod Legs)

MYT Works 4′ Medium slider w/ HiHat

Hollywood Beefy Baby Stand (8.5′) (two, to raise the MYT Works slider)

Movcam Cage for Sony A7S

Sekonic L-758Cine DigitalMaster Light Meter

Sekonic C-700 SpectroMaster Color Meter

Wooden Camera A/B Gold-Mount Plate for Sony A7, A7r and A7s

Audio Technica AT835b Shotgun Microphone (similar microphone: Audio Technica BP4071 Shotgun Microphone)

Wooden Camera DSLR A-Box

Delkin Devices 64GB SDXC Memory Card 600x UHS-I

DSC Labs One Shot Reference Chart (Matte Finish)

Behind the Scenes (BTS) Cameras

GoPro Hero3 Black (similar camera: GoPro HERO4 Black)

Motrr Galileo: App-Driven Motorized Head w/ GoPro Mount

Sony Alpha SLT-A57

Filmcity DSLR Camera Cage Shoulder Rig kit (FC-03)

Lighting / Grip Gear

Fill-Lite 200

Fill-Lite Wall Soft Light

24×36″ – Black Double Net

1/8 Color Temperature Orange (CTO) Filter (24×198″ Roll)

1/2 Color Temperature Orange (CTO) Filter (24×198″ Roll)

Foam Core Bounce (White)

Floppy – 48×48″ (1.2×1.2m)

Matthews Century C Stand Grip Arm Kit – 10.5′ (3.2m)

PBL Sandbags x4 bags

How To Cinematically Light A Corporate Video (Cinematic Lighting Lesson 20)

Rich49er says:
September 25, 2016 at 6:26 am

What is meant by the term cookies in trick 4? Thank you.
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- Tim says:
  September 28, 2016 at 10:14 am
  
  Cookies are another name for a cucoloris. They come in a lot of different styles and are used to break up a light so it doesn’t look like it’s coming from a set-light.
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Ahmedsalem says:
December 15, 2016 at 9:04 am

Very great stuff, just I think every point in this post deserve to be in a separate tutorial, especially firelight, but really what I suggest as new member ( I do not if I have this right or not ), is to show the rigging and flagging process because this the most important for us
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- Tim says:
  December 24, 2016 at 3:52 pm
  
  Yes, there are so many elements used in filming, and each element deserves its own lesson on how we did it. It will take time to film every little piece, but it is something we really want to give our members. So stay tuned!
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WaldoFonseca says:
October 26, 2017 at 1:31 pm

Very nice, thanks!
I see that you are filming with an a7s What is your picture profile setting?
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- Tim says:
  October 26, 2017 at 9:55 pm
  
  We shoot everything in S-Log2 which is Picture Profile 7.
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