Transform Day to Night in Adobe Premiere Pro CC (2017)

There are a lot of reasons why you might not be able to get out to shoot at night. Maybe the crew can’t meet then, maybe the camera isn’t good enough to capture the scenes at night, maybe there isn’t enough lighting equipment. However, you still might be able to get those night scenes your film needs, it just requires a little planning, and some post production work. Today we talk about, how to transform your shot from day to night in Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

How to Transform Your Shot from Day to Night in Adobe Premiere Pro CC

1. Disclaimer: Cannot be accomplished for all shots – especially if you capture the sky in your shot
2. Create new Sequence
3. Drag footage over to sequence.
4. Create a new adjustment layer. Can be created from File->New->Adjustment Layer
5. Go to Effects, Video Effects, Color Correction, find Lumetri Color (you can also click on the color tab and it will automatically add it to the layer – we will stick with editing work flow/defaults)
6. Lighting: Navigate to basic correction, drop exposure down to -2.8 (cloudy/dreary), increase contrast to 95, increase shadows to 32 (not pitch, but close), decrease saturation to 61
7. Curves: Navigate to Curves, take top of line and drop to 75% (highlight/brightness), now curve. This will help take bright shine off and adjust coloring (uncheck active to turn off/on) 
8. Click on the blue color circle, click in middle and drag to the left, click red color circle and drag to the right (This will create a hint of blue in the shot)
9. Add noise, set amount of noise to 5%
10. Navigate to Vignette (2 ways)
    1. Create your own: create a black video (file->new->black video), used opacity filter, drag circle mask out, feather, and reduce opacity of black video
    2. Use Lumetri’s built in vignette, set amount to -.8, set midpoint to 0, set feather to 100 (now center is lit/outside edges darker)

There you have it. That is how you transform your footage to look like it was captured at night. Remember, not capturing the sky is what really helps pull off this effect. If you know you can’t shoot at night, plan your shots accordingly so that they work with this. A cloudy day is also really helpful. It will reduce the overall light outside, making the exposure reduction emulate light better than a full sun outside.

More Adobe Premiere Tips and Tricks:

Other Premiere Pro Tutorials:

• RGB Glitch Effect
• Whip Pan Transition
• Quickly Edit Footage to a Beat