How to Light a Night Scene | 4 Cinematic Tips for Moonlight

The moon has been recreated thousands of times by cinematographers and gaffers. Moonlight has always been an ever-present part of film and television, implying romance, dark times, and moments of sincerity. In today's episode of Ask Aputure, Nerris from the A-Team walks us through four ways you can replicate moonlight and the creative/narrative effects each of those techniques can have on your audience. These techniques include lighting tips and recommendations for camera settings to achieve the best results.

Stay tuned towards the end for a chance to win a prize!

BTS Credits:
-AndyAx
-Blind Turn
-iKouzacom

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Summary:
Filmmaker Nerris Nassiri teaches the best camera settings and lighting setups for filming and lighting moonlight during narrative scenes that take place at night. Aputure's YouTube channel provides free high quality cinematography, lighting, and filmmaking educational content to help you take your film projects to the next level.

#Cinematography #Moonlight #Cinematic

[sebastiantouma]

I recently DP for a feature film where it was EXT-NIGHT almost the entire time. What I did was light the whole thing with HMIs as the moon and set my WB to 4400 making sure that other light sources where warmer or different than my 5600K sources. It's really important to have LUTs created to see on set so you know for sure if your source (moonlight) is standing out as you want it. It was a horror film and had films as "Suspiria" "Phenomena" "The Exorcist" as reference.

[midwestdocumentarycenterin]

This is one of the most informative videos you've put out -- and that's saying something. Thanks very much for this!

[somewhereinbetween]

My favorite way to stimulate moonlight is definitely just popping an umbrella over my light (making it a round light source to stimulate the moon) and putting a blue gel if I feel like I want that blue tone instead!

[BlackWinterProduction]

I love all kinds of movie moonlight, both natural and artistic. And the natural moonlight colour probably depends on your location on Earth. Here, I always see a touch of purple in the night skies.

[CallMeLexis]

I've always wanted to emulate moonlight and shoot at night, thanks for these tips! Will get out there!

[brandingmatt]

I really like the look of the silver moonlight as it isn't too prominent, rather subtle and really making the highlights pop nicely. I would place a 4, 000 diffused light source as a backlight or keylight from above the subject and make sure that the shot was well exposed with a lower aperture allowing more light entry. By adding a hazer or some fog that would enhance the shot help to create a nice mood and atmosphere that really helps sell the moonlight effect. Love the information and content being provided as well as a huge fan of the technology coming out by you guys. Keep up the great work and making our jobs as content creators and creatives easier!

[GioMariatosTube]

My personal favourite is the gray look, it is atmospheric and not unrealistic like the blue

[hanevikfilmogtv]

the blue or neutral collor is my personal favorite

[TaylorGMoore]

Finished shooting a Feature where we used the final method for our woods shoots. Tungsten fixtures with a full CTB then desaturating in post. Was mostly backlighting the subjects then bouncing back to give the natural harsh look while still having some detail in the shadows.

[MikeOzmun]

Great video! Actually just finished shooting a short about a little girl who is raised by the ghost of her godmother. Night interiors were lit with a 300D outside the windows, and two 120Ds reinforcing, and warm tungsten practicals and lights simulating lamplight inside using ARRI tungstens on dimmers. WB set to around tungsten acheived a mix of warm tones on the actors with fantastical blue moonlight kicking. Surrealistic and beautiful results. Since it is somewhat of a "fantasy" film, told through a child's eyes, the intense colors worked well.

[javiermiranda]

I love the option #3 because more natural = better results for what I usually try to express in my movies.

Great video, very informative... Keep it on!

[MichaNowak]

Great video! For me personally all i can and like to use is diy led panel with blue gel . Then i tweak everything in post. Struggles of being begginer without much equipment

[omnidawnstudios]

Moonlight gridcloth is cool. 1/4 cyan gel is also cool. Skypanel. Use full 10K and add some green around +6

[patrickivison]

The only time I’ve ever needed to directly work with moonlight was for a class I was teaching to 5th graders. I just color corrected in Premiere. It looked AWFUL but the kids thought I was a magician lol. This is a great video though and I’m stoked to use this!

[fgwstudios]

I use a daylight led fixture inside of an Aputure spacelight with a ctb gel. Put the assembly on a boom and get it up above the subject and never had an issue. Though I’d love to try some of the ideas you have shared in this video.

[HilainLarkin]

For exteriors I use a space light/China ball, or sometimes a light with a honeycomb grid and snoot. I try to get the light to not spill into the ground and environment to much.

For interiors I like/use the examples provided in the video. For larger interiors(with a wider shot), I like to use a little bit of atmospheric fog/smoke to help give a little bit of spread and soften a relatively harder light source

[TheSomeawesome]

Wow this music is making me tear up as I listen to moonlight lighting tips

[ronbpix]

The Gray Look is complicated but it's the nice one for me.

[TheRocksolid]

Well to be honest, if you step outside towards nighttime, right after the sun sets but before the sky gets black, there’s a lot of blue in the sky. Especially on cloudy days. Those last blue rays are hitting before the light is completely obscured. I honestly think that’s probably part of where we get that idea that moonlight is blue.

[jrock]

My favorite way to do moonlight is mixing a daylight light coming down on the front and a different practical hitting them from the back or side...like a street light