Lighting Effects - Night Time and Lightning

One of our films, Room for One More, has a scene that required a young woman to climb a grand staircase with a candle, at night, during a storm. A number of people have asked how we achieved this sequence so effectively.

Of course, filming at night presents a range of problems and conjuring up a real electric storm on demand is just a little beyond our capabilities.

However, we do have a first class tech team and director. The following notes outline how we actually achieved the final scene (which you can see in the video clip below).

Two main steps were required:

So over to the (main) people that made the magic happen as they offer a short explanation of the steps we went through.

Barry (lighting) – shooting on location

Downstairs set-up

There was one light between the stairs and front door, bouncing light off the ceiling. This gave sufficient illumination, with the daylight coming in through the hall window to light the subject.

Upstairs set-up

One light mounted on the landing set to a height that would shine through the chandelier forming a shadow on the wall. There was also light coming in through a landing window.

Downstairs shots

The camera was set up to the left of the subject and tracked her in a one shot up the stairs. We then took a close-up shot of her feet as she climbed the stairs.

Upstairs shots

The camera was hand-held low down, close to the landing floor. The camera tracked the subject up the stairs, through the spindles of the staircase, to the bedroom door.

Jeff (director/editor) – post production

Filming complete, I took over in post production.

The sequence had been filmed in daylight with a mixture of tungsten and natural lighting.

I changed the colour balance to give the "Night blue" effect.

I then increased the contrast and decreased the exposure value by shifting the black point.

Next came the lightning.

A straight flash frame looked very false. I therefore made a series of markers throughout the sequence where I wanted the Lightning.

I changed the exposure and colour balance for each sequence, decreasing the effect of the change in each clip. This gave the "flickering" effect found in lightning flashes.

The end result can be seen in the following clip.

Valley Films