History Film / DayForNight

* ArtisticLicenseFilmSchool: [[AvertedTrope Thankfully averted]]. As Truffaut wrote the screenplay as well as directing and starring in the film, he drew from his experiences working in the film industry to portray the mechanics of how films are made, and the problems that can arise.

* {{Meganekko}}: Joelle.

''Day for Night'', known originally in French as ''La Nuit Américaine'', is a 1973 comedy film by UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave director Creator/FrancoisTruffaut.

* Alphonse (Creator/JeanPierreLeaud), the actor who plays the younger male lead in ''Meet Pamela'', is engaged to be married to a production assistant on this film, but his fiancée has a case of YourCheatingHeart.

* TimeCompressionMontage: Half-way through the movie, a longer montage of key scenes from the filming of ''Meet Pamela'' is shown to demonstrate how the production moves along smoothly.

* SeriousBusiness: One of the central themes is the fact that for the main characters, the movies they make are more important than life itself.
** Neatly summed up by one of the female members of the crew when dumbfoundedly talking about Liliane running off the set with the stuntman: "I'd leave a guy to make a movie, but I'd never leave a movie for a guy."

* LoveFatherLoveSon: {{Inverted|Trope}} in the fictional film ''Meet Pamela''. Julie's character gets married with Alphonse's, then she falls in love with his father.

* {{Blooper}}: In-universe. Several takes are wasted by Severine forgetting her lines or missing the right door.

* CreatorBreakdown: In-universe. Severine has one in front of the director, Alphonse and Julie also make scenes.

* DeletedScene: In-universe example. Alexandre's death and the insurance agent's refusal to cover the cost of recasting the role mean that his remaining scenes must be dropped from the shooting schedule, and several sequences which have already been shot but for which his footage has not been filmed are also cut from the finished film.

* FakeShemp: In-universe example: Alexandre dies in a car crash before filming the scene in which he is shot by Alphonse. The scene is shot with a stand-in seen only from behind.

* HideYourPregnancy: In-universe. In a scene where Janelle, the woman who is the secretary of the Father-in-law, gets out of a pool to take a letter for him, the crew discovers she's just barely pregnant, and by the time she comes back in six weeks for the main part of her scenes, she will be obviously several months pregnant. They have to figure out a way to cover the issue, but they can't simply have her seen as pregnant as it will complicate the story by making the audience think her boss knocked her up.

* RealitySubtext: In-universe. Julie has problems with her husband. She talks about them with Ferrand. Immediately, Ferrand rewrites the dialogue of the film to incorporate some of the sentences that Julie used to describe her relationship with her husband.

* RomanceOnTheSet: In-Universe, ''Day for Night'' is made of this trope. Alphonse gets his girlfriend Liliane a job as a script-girl so she can be with him during the production, she then falls in love with the stuntman and runs off, heartbroken Alphonse has a fling on the rebound with Julie, while a number of other members of the team also have affairs with each other. Hilariously {{Lampshaded}} in the rant by Mme. Lajoie, who is only on the set to watch her husband so he doesn't engage in any hanky-panky.
* ScheduleSlip: In-universe discussed by the crew whenever an actor is not ready to do his/her scene.
* SerendipityWritesThePlot: In-universe example. Several times does the TroubledProduction force the crew to improvise and change the script to adapt to new circumstances on the set.

* SnowMeansDeath: In-universe in the FilmWithinAFilm. Joëlle, the script girl, suggests that Alphonse's character should kill his father in a snowy setting. Ferrand likes the idea and the scene is actually shot in a snowy setting.

** In-universe in the FilmWithinAFilm: the characters played by Alphonse and Julie arrive by car at the parents' home and Alphonse's character gets out of the car and says "Je vous présente Paméla" ("I want you to meet Pamela"), which is the French title of the fictional movie.

* TroubledProduction: In-universe example. Between a power failure at the processing lab ruining footage of a key scene, Severine's alcoholism, Stacey's previously undisclosed pregnancy, Alphonse's relationship troubles, Julie's delicate emotional state following a nervous breakdown, a tight shooting schedule, and Alexandre dying in a car crash with several key scenes left to film, nothing seems to go as planned for ''Meet Pamela''. Against the odds, filming is completed, but not as originally intended.

* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: In-universe. We are told that the director writes the script as he goes along and actors get their lines handed to them only shortly before the shoot, which causes discontent among the cast.
* WrittenInInfirmity: In-universe example. One of the actresses failed to mention her pregnancy when signed to the film, and since with time it will become more pronounced, they decide to incorporate it in the movie.

* ArtShift: Ferrand's dreams of when he was a young boy are in [[DeliberatelyMonochrome B&W]].

* ShoutOut: To ''Film/TheRulesOfTheGame'', the Renoir film which inspired ''Day for Night'', which gets title-dropped and quoted outright.

* ForeignLanguageTitle: In-universe. A French-language movie gets the English title ''Meet Pamela''.

* TitleDrop: Two for one! It's in a scene where Ferrand (who only speaks French) speaks to the stunt double (who only speaks English) through Julie. Ferrand drops the term [[HollywoodDarkness Nuit Américaine]], which Julie translates into "Day for Night".

* ForeignLanguageTitle: In-universe. A French language movie gets the English title ''Meet Pamela''.

* HideYourPregnancy: In-universe. In a scene where Janelle, the woman who is the secretary of the Father-in-law, gets out of a pool to take a letter for him, the crew discover she's just barely pregnant, and by the time she comes back in six weeks for the main part of her scenes, she will be obviously several months pregnant. They have to figure out a way to cover the issue, but they can't simply have her seen as pregnant as it will complicate the story by making the audience think her boss knocked her up.

* LimitedWardrobe: For reasons that are unclear, the on-screen movie crew never change their clothes even though story unfolds over weeks.

* ScheduleSlip: In-universe discussed by the crew whenever an actors is not ready to do his/her scene.

* UnknownCharacter: After Alexandre dies, the film has to stop production until they find out how the insurance company will cover the accident. The insurance adjuster shows up and explains they can handle the cost of doing only a few days of re-shooting (not enough to replace the actor altogether). What Truffaut didn't know was that the insurance adjuster (who is uncredited in the film) was the famous author Creator/GrahamGreene. Greene was delighted to have the chance to actually appear in a film with Truffaut, whose work he admired, but Truffaut was disappointed that he didn't find out until later, as he admired Greene's work too.

* TheCameo: Writer Creator/GrahamGreene plays one of the insurance company representatives.

* The female lead of ''Meet Pamela'', Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset), has only recently returned to work following a nervous breakdown, and has attracted tabloid attention by marrying a doctor who is at least twice her age.

** Jean-Pierre Leaud's work in the [[Film/TheAdventuresOfAntoineDoinel Antoine Doinel cycle]] is constantly slyly hinted at. One of the montages has him peeking over and folding a newspaper, a reference to the private detective scenes in ''Film/StolenKisses.'' Alphonse, Leaud's character, takes another acting job in which his character will fall in love with a Japanese woman, just like in ''Bed and Board.'' Add both of these up and throw in a comment about Alphonse's ''rough childhood'' and you've got a very, very subtexty connection to ''The 400 Blows''.

** Jean-Pierre Leaud's work in the [[Film/TheAdventuresOfAntoineDoinel Antoine Doinel cycle]] is constantly slyly hinted at. One of the montages has him peeking over and folding a newspaper, a reference to the private detective scenes in ''Stolen Kisses.'' Alphonse, Leaud's character, takes another acting job in which his character will fall in love with a Japanese woman, just like in ''Bed and Board.'' Add both of these up and throw in a comment about Alphonse's ''rough childhood'' and you've got a very, very subtexty connection to ''The 400 Blows''.

* Alphonse, the actor who plays the younger male lead in ''Meet Pamela'', is engaged to be married to a production assistant on this film, but his fiancée has a case of YourCheatingHeart.

-->-- '''Ferrand''' (FrancoisTruffaut)

''Day for Night'', known originally in French as ''La Nuit Américaine'', is a 1973 comedy film by UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave director [[FrancoisTruffaut François Truffaut]].

For the filming technique, see HollywoodDarkness.

* ShoutOut: To ''The Rules Of The Game'', the Renoir film which inspired ''Day for Night'', which gets title-dropped and quoted outright.

* TroubledProduction: In-universe example. Between a power failure at the processing lab ruining footage of a key scene, Severine's alcoholism, Stacey's previously undisclosed pregnancy, Alphonse's relationship troubles, Julie's delicate emotional state following a nervous breakdown, a tight shooting schedule, and [[spoiler:Alexandre dying in a car crash with several key scenes left to film]], nothing seems to go as planned for ''Meet Pamela''. [[spoiler:Against the odds, filming is completed, but not as originally intended.]]
* UnknownCharacter: After [[spoiler:Alexandre]] dies, the film has to stop production until they find out how the insurance company will cover the accident. The insurance adjuster shows up and explains they can handle the cost of doing only a few days of re-shooting (not enough to replace the actor altogether). What Truffaut didn't know was that the insurance adjuster (who is uncredited in the film) was the famous author Creator/GrahamGreene. Greene was delighted to have the chance to actually appear in a film with Truffaut, whose work he admired, but Truffaut was disappointed that he didn't find out until later, as he admired Greene's work too.