Testing a Day for Night technique by drawing on paper with opposite colors and inverting it back in post.

A technique once commonly used during the previous century, whereby a scene was shot during the day, but made to look -with the help of various filters and lenses- as if it happens at night. Nowadays it is not so common anymore, but I did wonder whether it could be applied to traditional animation where the coloring is done directly on paper.

I figured I wanted to make a night scene with cars' head- and tail lights passing through the frame, so I picked the inverted colors of yellow and red and used blue and teal pencils respectively. The background is also done with inversion in mind, by drawing only the light parts, in this case the moon and tree tops.

Here is the 'uninverted', original video:

One could question the relevance of this technique nowadays, even in animation. This is obviously a non-issue in digital animation, and perhaps also in traditional cel animation, where the coloring is done after scanning. Only in 'niche' animation could this still be applicable. I do believe it provides for a unique atmosphere and perhaps also something to explore more.