DAY FOR NIGHT TECHNIQUE
BLUE HOUR Fury Road’s blue tint makes for a strong contrast (left); while Nope keeps you in the dark (above and bottom left)
As a colourist, Nakamura’s role is to help filmmakers tell their story. “You have to imagine what a scene looks like with a really strong moonlight. Then, as a colourist, you help craft those images appropriately. Every single scene where I’ve encountered this is a little bit different. Sometimes it’s a little brighter and works, others it’s a little darker and works.” In Nakamura’s view, shooting at night will almost certainly look better. “Sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way though,” he says. “It could be down to a number of different reasons. But I’ve just got to do my job and get it to where they want it to be. There’s always a way. Some people do it better than others, it’s a real skill set on the production side. Audiences don’t always know that day for night is there, but that means it has worked effectively.” Day for night is such an integral part of film history, it’s even been at the heart of a film itself. Francois Truffaut’s 1973 film Day for Night follows a crew who opt to shoot a scene using the technique, with the director suggesting it be shot ‘la nuit américaine’, as it is known in France. This translates to American night, as the technique is synonymous with Hollywood. Maintaining the illusion is integral for filmmakers to keep the technique alive. But despite its artificiality and criticisms, it has so far stood the test of time – and it doesn’t look as if that will be changing anytime soon.
day. The harsh lighting makes it really hard; when it’s softer, it’s easier.” The more highlights you have, the more difficult it is to achieve the effect and make it realistic. “When it’s overcast, you don’t have harsh shadows and can sometimes get away with it,” he adds. “The other thing is if it’s around 1pm in afternoon light, or you have harsh light and deep shadows and super-hard contrast, then that’s really hard.” For cinematographers, the challenge lies in how much darker the grade will need to be for it to look right. “You’ve also got to consider if you can see your actors’ faces if the grade comes down two or three stops. Many of the difficulties arise when there isn’t enough light on the actors’ faces and we’re forced to bring the grade down a lot because obviously we need to see actors’ performances, which makes those situations tough.”
Nakamura explains that he’s worked on sequences where cinematographers have put in bounce light on the actors. “It’s this weird thing where, if you look at the shot normally with a normal daylight grade it’s a little odd because they look a bit too bright and a little artificial. The hardest thing is having to bring the grade down far enough that it looks realistic, but if we are unable to see the actors’ faces, then it has to be rotoscoped and visual effects need to get involved.” Digital grading has undoubtedly expanded all sorts of possibilities. “A lot of difficult situations don’t work without luminance, chroma keys and power windows,” adds Nakamura. “Without these, this would be a whole different conversation about day for night. The fact that we have so many tools at our disposal to make images look more realistic makes a huge difference.”
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