FIlm Planning - Day or Night shoot?

The decision has to be made, will the shoot take place during daytime, twilight or at night. Each has its different connotations and practicalities, but each needs to be properly analyzed as a possible time.

During the Day
This has got to be by far the easiest to film in because of the abundance of natural light, and less need to create artificial lights to shoot the film in. The light is also very practical for setting up shots and props etc.
However, this is possibly the least scary environment out of the three proposed and, as discussed in the lighting section, it is much harder to hide the protagonist in daylight, and it generally allows you to hold back less information from the audience. Also it is the most common time of day for people to be out walking and therefore may make framing more difficult, and filming could take longer.

At Twilight
This gives you greater effect when it comes to darkness, and chances are that less people will be out where you are shooting at this time. The lighting on the camera always appears to be darker than i actually is, making twilight seem a lot more like night.
But it is a dangerous time to film due to the rapidly fading light at this time of year making continuity errors a lot more common, eg. if you have a pause between shots, the light can change very dramatically. There is also the fact that light may vary on different days, making it hard to keep a constant light within the film, eg. if it cloudy one day and then sunny the next, there will be noticeable difference. it may also be harder to incorporate artificial lights into the scene and keep it looking natural.

At Night

Filming at night poses the most problems due to the complete

absence of light from the set. This means that all lighting will have to be artificial and set up in such a way that it looks like natural moon/star light. This is a very difficult effect to simulate and often in films the light is sourced from an unnatural source, eg. a torch or candle, so there is no need to make the light look natural. The alternative is to not shoot in total darkness and to use blue lights, g

iving the scene an eery blue glow, as seen in films such as 'Saw' or '30 Days of Night'. The alternative to blue light is to give the scene a red tinge, either with lights or in the editing software. This is a common technique used in slasher films eg. 'Freddie vs Jason'.

Above (left) is a still from '30 Days of Night', showing the blue filter effect used, and (right) the red filter effect used on Freddie Krueger in the film 'Freddy Vs Jason'

However Darkness can create the greatest effect within a scene because of the element of the unknown, where there is so much information hidden from the audience. This creates a scene of suspense.