Artistic night scenes are surely much different from night scenes made for work. In the first kind you usually want to hide most things to focus attention only on a few important details. In night scenes made for work you don't have this "luxury" and you are forced to still show most of the object you are presenting, although with subdued lights. This is something to take into account. In general, night scenes are perfect exercises for global illumination. Most of what we see in the night, in fact, is visible because of bounced/reflected lights. But being on a tight deadline you might not have the luxury to rely heavily on GI. Therefore a good use of ambient light will become crucial. I would say, do not overdo it. try to "invent" some plausible human light sources instead, and use point lights and spotlights with low power, large range and very high falloff. Apart from these general tips, it is difficult to say more without evaluating a single specific scene.