What's the best way to color correct for nighttime shooting? For example, a scene where it's night and all the lights are out in a house.

I'm lighting the room very well but I can't get the shot to look natural in color correction (I'm using magic bullet); some areas look too bright as if I had lit the room for a film. I'm using a GL2 which produces a lot of grain in low light so I really have to light it well to get good looking footage. Should I use softer lights? What's the best way to go about lighting a scene like this?

Can you post a screenshot? Or tell us exactly what you're doing for lighting?

Well to reduce grain, you have to have light. There is no way around that. As far as having light to work with and still give that feel of night time shooting, utilize lights through windows with a blue gel or use a very soft source and reflect it. This will lightly boost the actor and his surrounding back ground. You can light for night and still keep it believable.

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Originally posted by Elevation Pictures:
Well to reduce grain, you have to have light. There is no way around that.

Not so. Just don't use electronic gain on the sensor, and your blacks will be clear.

I use a 1300watt CoolLight (www.coollights.biz) through a window for eerie "killer in the house, power is out"-type scenes.

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some areas look too bright as if I had lit the room for a film.

As with "the first rule of acting is, 'don't act!'" the first rule of lighting is, "don't light it like it's a film!" Make sure there is contrast in your image. Light your foreground and not your background, or vice versa. Use barndoors, diffusers to shape the light, and soften it or direct it to a smaller area. Don't flood the frame with it. the GL2 does need light for a good image but it doesn't need it everywhere in the frame.

www.dvinfo.net/conf has a "Photon Management" forum where these lighting questions will be quickly answered by qualified, able professionals. You might be best suited to ask your question there.

Some cameras still look grainy in the blacks even without gain, but yes, for the most part, avoid gain.

One way to look at is this: if you're lighting for daytime, you expose for the shadows, so the highlights go over. If you're lighting for nighttime, you expose for the highlights, so the shadows go under.