Day-for-night criticisms

[darlyn]

A nice article suggesting a slightly different approach to this effect: http://www.videomaker.com/article/10368/

I think the Film Riot plate was desaturated way too much. It's nearly monochrome with a tint of blue. The skin tones have an unnatural dark, chalky paleness reminiscent of the Left 4 Dead menu screen.

I fiddled around with hues, saturation, levels, and shadows in PS to get the following:
http://imgur.com/Cc7fe.png

as opposed to Film Riot's:

http://imgur.com/KOt4N.png

Download the PSD (http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=12b8f8f5648b48d7e7ba8e3c6e11ce20f89e4723 10616a995be6ba49b5870170)

[jonnywb]

To be honest, I like Film Riot's one the way it is... it also depends what you're using the footage for I guess...

[darlyn]

I agree that the FR shot has it's own unique style, which I like, but it isn't entirely realistic.

In The Mummy (1998/9) there is one desert sequence in which the effect was achieved convincingly. The DVD extras showcase the original plate and a brief explanation. I would post it but I can't seem to find that 10-year-old DVD in my house at the moment.

[rabidbadger]

Now that I see the difference, I kinda agree with darlyn.

Ultimately, it depends on usage, if zombies were the subject, the washed out version might be more appropriate, but just humans in the woods, then keeping some fleshtones is more realistic

(keeping in mind that the goal was "almost" night, and darlyn's version looks closer to "actual" night) (though not totally, but darlyn was working from FR footage, so caveats)

[scoobydiesel]

I love videomaker as i might check into them for a job(they are in my area)

but i agree that it really matters on what you are aiming to do over all.

The first looks more night then it should for something trying to be Near night.

[kzap]

I try to go darker but it depends on the effect you are trying to get, sometime you just want the audience to know it's the night while still letting them see everything.
Sometimes you want it to be so they can't see very well.
I have done a lot of day for night in my films (only done one real night shoot) and you can get many different effects depending on what you are trying to portray.
I think it's best to use day for night in rural areas as their would not be very much light at night anyway so it would be easier, were as in a town were there is going to be street lights and shop window day for night would look really fake.
With day for night you are never going to get something 100% realistic so you have to decide what looks best for your shot. I never followed any tutorials I just mucked around with the saturation, rightness, contrast and color balance, till it looked right and tweaked it for each individual shot.
Dusk (almost night) for night is slightly better but you still have to be careful when showing the sky.