Cinematography at Night

Night exteriors present cinematographers with a unique challenge. Do you go for hyper-realism or something more lyrical and poetic? This video explores the varied ways cinematographers have represented night on screen. From the grounded, gritty, vérité of The Last of Us – the vast ambience of the dusk-for-night work on Dune – an homage to classic day-for-night in Mank – the creation of an entirely new method of day-for-night capture in Nope – and finally the desaturated monochromatic moonlight of The Northman. We will look at how ultimately the question of ‘What is night?’ can be answered simply – it is whatever is right for the story you are trying to tell. Truly, the sky’s the limit. //CHAPTERS 0:00 The Last of Us 6:26 Greig Fraser and Roger Deakins 7:53 Dune 8:52 Mank 10:22 Day-For-Night & Scope 11:27 Nope 13:47 The Northman 19:45 Conclusion //SOURCES ShotDeck Shot Talk Dune Team Deakins Podcast - Learning Lighting Reel Blend Podcast Eben Bolter Eben Bolter’s Twitter thread covering The Last of Us FilmLight Micro Salon Paris '23 - Eben Bolter Team Deakins in Conversation with Greig Fraser Go Creative Show - Dune Mank| Scene at The Academy Go Creative Show - Mank Behind the Magic: The Visual Effects of Mank Mank VFX Breakdown - Artemple TIFF Hoyte van Hoytema and Jordan Peele on Nope (2022) MPC - Nope VFX Breakdown GoCreativeShow The Northman The Northman VFX Breakdown | BlueBolt #videoessay #cinematography #filmmaking