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

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