Lighting for dark!?

A question was raised on cinematography.com:

"So I encountered an interesting situation in a short I shot this weekend. I'm curious how others would have attacked the problem. A woman goes to bed and is attacked during the night. The script specifically says that there are no lights on. The scene must be shot during the day necessitating window blackout and thus no possibility of seeing city lights out the windows."

Now this question is directly relevant to our film, where a scene takes place as Hazell wakes up after hearing a noise outside - obviously at night.

A few replies we posted and most contained the same resolution:

"My approach would be threefold:
1. Creating overall Fill for the room: I'd probably put 2K Mighties through softboxes wrapped around them- then have them rake the ceiling- assuming that the ceiling would not be seen. This should create an overall fill in the room. The editor can take it down in post if too much is seen.
2. Production Design and Wardrobe: Work with my production designer and Wardrobe people- Light colored walls for background and light colored wardrobe on the actors that is darker than the wall in their background.
3. Eyelight/backlight: For Eyelight- A soft source that the actor's pupil would reflect. For Backlight- nothing fancy, just enough to give some separation.

Oliver Young - Skip Conversions

UK designer Oliver Bishop Young has converted trash dumpsters into a number of awesome things, check them out below.

Nil by Mouth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F9bNgBg_9k

Todd Hido

I got introduced to the work of Todd Hido an was immedietly captivated. Check him out:







This is from his "Homes at Night" series. A collection of photographs of suburban America at night. The use of mixed colour tempreatures is amazing and is something i am particularly interested in using for this film.

FrameDiscreet

Got recommend an mazing blog called Frame Discreet

http://framediscreet.blogspot.com/

Dan Witz - Night Paintings

Now Dan Witz is an artist (contemporary/street he comes under many classifications) who has intertesed me for long while now, ever since i visited an exhibition of his a few months back. Unfortunately i couldn't take any photos even so, they wouldn't have done his work any justice at all. Since the early Renaissance, painters in oil have known that light, entering a painting, traveling through a lens of transparent color glazes, gathers strength then bounces off the bright white ground making their canvasses seem to glow with its own reflected light. Witz combines this centuries old and largely forgotten technique with the latest state of the art digital technology and has truly mastered the ability to transcend time and place and made it his own.

You can see the use of this technique in the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHtSzPT1jP4

Another attribute of Witz' work which was aesthetically pleasing to me was the use of reflections on his "Night Paintings" series. It immedietley caught my attention when i viewed his work, literally pools of light compliment its reflective counterpart.



In the above painting, the deep red of the 'Liqour' sign is reflected on the wet floor of the street.
Here is a selection of work from the Night Painting series... Enjoy.

I particularly like the frame within frame on this piece, this coupled with the reflections creates such an immense totality.

High Res - Jose Parla

For the HD massive...



And fucking hell! I can't describe my dissapointment upon uploading that image after selecting "post this image as LARGE."