Creating a Moonlight Effect

[Finer]

For a good portion of one of my up coming films I Need to have a natural moonlight effect. Obviously shooting at night with no lighting would be impossible. so what kind of lights and lighting technics would I use them to create the look that it was shot with only the moon to provide visibility.

Just as an extra piece of information, I am planing to give the film a blue look by raising the blue gain on the camera, so the lighting it self may not have to be blue it self to give the right color.

another thing, most of the this moonlight shoot will take place in a forest like area

[koolkat467]

all i can say is that maybe you can use a huge blue flashlight and make the color sssssuperrrrr soft. so it looks like its natural. and then the blue from your camera will help bring the colors out a tiny bit.
sorry. its the best i can think of!

[koolkat467]

i forgot to mention, that if u put branches in front of a light, it will look like tree shadows. :D

[jburas]

Soft and blue. That's what it takes. Put your camera on incandescent light balance and either use HMIs (which I'm guessing you don't have) or put blue gels on your lights. Or get those blueish GE lights... TruColor I think they are called. Or get those daylight balanced florescent bulbs and make a DIY light bank. That's actually your best bet. I think someone else on the forums has a tutorial about that.

[trspballer7]

Here, reflectors will be your friends. If you point the lights away from the talent, and use reflectors to put it back on them, it will make the light very soft. Especially if the original light is diffused. This will light up your talent without giving the impersination of actual lights on him/her.

[Finer]

thank you I think thats what I'm going to do, I might even build a hand squeezer to get rid of any unnatural hot spots that might show up.

[uzi1951]

? A string of the big blue Xmas lights?

[google550]

Here, reflectors will be your friends. If you point the lights away from the talent, and use reflectors to put it back on them, it will make the light very soft. Especially if the original light is diffused. This will light up your talent without giving the impersination of actual lights on him/her.

Yep. I'd get a true-color light (or a cool-temperature light) and hit it against a silver bounce card. You can use tree branches just like KoolKat said to make it look like it's coming from the sky.

[happyhands man]

a big bright light with a blue gel over it

[google550]

To me, all these ideas look pretty good, so I would suggest you test all of them beforehand.

Tell us your result!