The Sun does not rise in this series until the Season 3 Finale. So, naturally, we will have some lighting challenges throughout the first 3 Seasons of the show. Season 2 will have the Two Trees for all the Valinor scenes, but the Trees are killed in the end of the 2nd Season.
So Season 3 is limited to starlight and firelight and lamplight for pretty much its entirety. The entire season is set 'at night' with no moonlight.
Obviously, nighttime and dark on a movie set are rather relative terms - that tends to just mean everything has a bit of a blue cast to it. But I do think it is a challenge to get through an entire Season with no Treelight, Lamplight or Moonlight, let alone Sunlight.
Here are a bunch of scenes from the first Season of Supernatural that were meant to take place at night/in the dark. Since the premise of their show is essentially hunting ghosts, they have a lot of night shoots. But of course they also have moonlight and flashlights and streetlamps to help with the ambient lighting, and the majority of the episodes still take place in daylight.
The same show also makes use of lighting to designate scenes that take place in the realm of Purgatory. Purgatory is, apparently, rather sepia-toned.
The surprisingly brightly lit Shelob's lair, which does not seem any darker than the Stairs of Cirith Ungol outside:
We can definitely cheat. Just light the scene off camera, and not specify where the light is coming from. But I think we want the audience to feel that it is dark, and it is night, and that outside the reach of the torchlight, the world is a dark and scary place.
At least we can still use rain and ice to reflect whatever light sources we do have in many scenes (like this example from Road to Perdition):
So Season 3 is limited to starlight and firelight and lamplight for pretty much its entirety. The entire season is set 'at night' with no moonlight.
Obviously, nighttime and dark on a movie set are rather relative terms - that tends to just mean everything has a bit of a blue cast to it. But I do think it is a challenge to get through an entire Season with no Treelight, Lamplight or Moonlight, let alone Sunlight.
Here are a bunch of scenes from the first Season of Supernatural that were meant to take place at night/in the dark. Since the premise of their show is essentially hunting ghosts, they have a lot of night shoots. But of course they also have moonlight and flashlights and streetlamps to help with the ambient lighting, and the majority of the episodes still take place in daylight.
The surprisingly brightly lit Shelob's lair, which does not seem any darker than the Stairs of Cirith Ungol outside:
We can definitely cheat. Just light the scene off camera, and not specify where the light is coming from. But I think we want the audience to feel that it is dark, and it is night, and that outside the reach of the torchlight, the world is a dark and scary place.
At least we can still use rain and ice to reflect whatever light sources we do have in many scenes (like this example from Road to Perdition):
Last edited: