Day For Night
 iMovie Tutorial 8

Effect
 Plugin
Adjust Colors
 built in
Brightness & Contrast built in
Tint
 Color Effects



This tutorial shows how to make a clip shot during daytime to look like it takes place at night.  There are advantages for a production to shooting during the day, ranging from economics to availability of talent.  There are also technical considerations.  Most video cameras exhibit noise when the light level is too low, resulting in a degraded image quality.

The most important factor is achieving a good quality "night" look is to take care when shooting the scene.  Avoid hard shadows by shooting on overcast days.  Obviously, do not shoot a bright daytime sky.  Other less obvious considerations are, for example, do not have any birds flying in the background.

The classic in-camera solution to shooting dy-for-night is to use a blue filter and underexpose by two stops.  We will show how to recreate this look using iMovie effects.

Steps

Step 0
 Open an iMovie project containing at least one clip of video.

Step 1 Place the clip in the timeline.

The human eye perceives less color at night, so the first step is to reduce the color saturation of the image, making it look a little more black and white.

Step 2
 Choose Adjust Colors in the Effects panel and adjust the Color slider partway to the left.

Step 3
 Click the Apply button and wait for the clip to render.

The next step is to make the camera look like it is drifting in and out of focus.  Typically this occurs as either the camera or the camera operator is unable to focus on the action quickly or steadily enough.  It is a useful way of giving a "live" unrehearsed feeling to a clip.

Step 4
 Choose Brightness & Contrast in the Effects panel and adjust the sliders as desired.  We want to make the image darker, but keep some highlights, so the Contrast may need to be increased.

Step 5
 Click the Apply button and wait for the clip to render.


Step 6
 Choose ss| Tint in the Effects panel and add just a touch of blue to the clip.

Step 7
 Click the Apply button and wait for the clip to render.
Variations

Make sure that when adjusting the brightness and contrast of the image, you leave some areas of highlight.  An image which is too flat and dark does not look interesting.

The addition of the blue tint should be very subtle.  The idea is to add just enough blue to give the impression of moonlight.  So the lighter areas of the image should still keep their own colors.  In the example above, the reds and yellows are muted, but still read as reds and yellows.

For more tutorials and information about iMovie plugins, please visit www.stupendous-software.com