Very good question!
Having done several night stuff myself (gaffing) i would suggest to you to use enough lights so you dont have to open your iris up all the way, cause this gives you that grainy look. If you shoot enough light and then close down your iris your blacks will look black and not grainy. Now to apply!
Alot of the lighting depends on what is going on in the scene and where the action is taking place. Its a wreck, but is this from the POV of the people inside the car? Or is it detectives walking around the crash with cops moving to and fro.
I personally believe whole heartedly in motivated light, so that makes being on a computer and not on set a whole lot harder.
However, here are a couple things you can do.
1) Moonlight - Depending on what equipment you have, put a decent sized HMI on a mambostand and topstick it, and shoot it everywhere. I would suggest maybe putting a half scrim in so that the subjects closer to the light arnt too hot. This moonlight should hit your whole set, and most importatnly the background, cause this will give depth and reality to your film.
2) Car lights - If the characters are in front of cars or crouching down, use some small tungesten lights as their key light to light up their faces. Depending on where your motivated lights are, you could also have other car headlights and backlights as well, or maybe a streetlight.
3) Police lights - Devise a way to create a police lights effect. This also on the time period and the rotation of the lights, but get some red and blue flashes in and out of your picture.
This is all i can think of for right now. Once again, it is hard to help you when you arnt sure of what is going on in the scene or the location. Also, what kind of equipment do you have?
