Cinematic Day for Night Color Grading in Premiere Pro

Published on August 25, 2017

Adobe Premiere Pro Tutorials

Color Grading, Day for Night, premiere pro

We always say that fixing it in post isn’t the best option when it comes to filmmaking. But sometimes there is no other way. Like masking out unwanted objects and persons or even creating a night shot in post because you didn’t have enough time to create a real night shot. So in this tutorial we explain how you can transform your day shot into a night shot in Premiere Pro. Use advanced color grading and lighting effects to make a realistic day for night scene.

Before you start creating a day for night shot in Premiere Pro, there are a few things to keep in mind during the production. For instance, when filming a person during the day for a night shot. Keep in mind where the sun is. Try to use the sun as a backlight, so it will create a rim around the talent and in a way be mimicking the moonlight. If you place your talent with the sun as a front light, it will cast harsh shadows on the talents face. This will immediately give away the day for night effect and destroy the shot.

Another thing to keep in mind are your settings of your camera. When shooting a day for night scene, you can’t use the same exposure settings as a regular day scene. This time it’s allowed to underexpose your shot a little. This will put your levels closer to the real night time look. Except for the exposure, you’ll also have to pay attention to the white balance. Always make sure that you have cooler white balance setting when filming a day for night. This prevents you from forcing yourself to push things a little too far in post production and completely degrade the image.

Combine these production tips with the Premiere Pro color grading tutorial and achieve a realistic night shot. It will probably ask some practice and time, but when mastered it will be unrecognizable for the untrained eye!

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