Day as Night Filter -- is this a Neutral Density Filter?

[Pirate]

In my film (motion picture) class, the instructor was talking about a Day As Night filter that lets you film in the daytime so it looks like night.

Is this just a Neutral Density filter?

 

[illuminati_02]

Nope.

Googled and found the press release.

http://www.tiffen.com/dayfornight_pressrel.html

Need to compensate for exposure yourself, obviously, but adds a shade of lavender and lowers contrast to give the impression of a night scene.

 

[Lflex]

A blue filter and underexposure in sunlight and avoiding the sky in the frame will do the trick

 

[Vics]

My understanding of shooting day-for-night was that they used red filters. Blackens the sky and boosts contrast (deeper shadows. Not so? Of course, that's just black & white films. Westerns, mostly.

 

[Paddy C]

A blue filter and underexposure in sunlight and avoiding the sky in the frame will do the trick

Yes, this is, to the best of my knowledge, the classic way of shooting "day for night". Looks terribly fake with strong sun, which you'll see in colour westerns.

Might be kinda neat to try out with colour stills now that you mention it.

 

[Pirate]

Sure, that works for a B&W image, but what about a colour image?

 

[AFenvy]

I have almost never seen a "day for night" shot that isn't terrible. They are incredibly hard to pull off, the best you can hope for is that it won't be too jarring over however many frames in a movie the shot lasts.

 

[konicaman]

In the good old days Day as Night (in movies) was, as far as I recall, achieved by the use of half sector aperture, where a half circle would alternately cover the right and the left side of the frame in every other picture. At least my father's old Bolex would do it that way - it looked relatively convincing. But that is probably not an option with a modern video camera...

 

[Pirate]

Cool info. Thanks guys!