Night filming

got a question about filming the soaps, when they do night shoots why do they film in the early hours when in winter it's dark in the evenings anyway

Lighting for night is expensive...

Also 'planning permission' etc - would you want a noisy film crew in the street outside or car park down the road at 2am?

filming at 8pm or even 5pm in winter makes more sence than waiting until 1am, and soaps film on closed sets so not near any neighbours

Its less about neighbours and more to do with the cost of hiring crews on night rates. Day rates are less expensive and start very early in the morning.

Other workarounds include "day for night" shooting, where filters are used on camera to reduce the light in such a way as to appear night-time. Famously this was done for The Exorcist:

http://whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/the-exorcist-priest.jpg

And for the original Psycho film:

http://www.thingsinmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/psycho-house.jpg

In many of the shots there were fluffy cumulus clouds visible in the sky - a clear clue that it was photographed in the daytime as that type of cloud doesn't appear at night.

In both cases it was a question of budget - and that remains true for most production today.

This is turning into quite an interesting discussion about night shoots, but no matter how many times I read it I still can't actually understand what the OP is asking!!

Think it basically boils down to why do they film at some ungodly hour in the morning as opposed to filming at, say, 7pm when it's already dark.

Of course for younger actors (under 18, mostly), for night-shots you can usually only film for so many hours a day and even then between certain times of the day, which effectively rules out night-filming, which you may be able to get away with on a stage.

Think I remember a recent(ish) EastEnders explosion was reported at being done at something like 2am.