Avoid the flat look, regardless of whether you’re shooting an interview or an ambitious epic. Avoid lighting your subject directly from the front with a single light source.
A popular technique in professional lighting is to use a soft (diffuse) light source from the front and a stronger, more directional light from the back, so that your subject has a hot edge. The soft frontal light is known as the fill light; the strong light at the back is known, unsurprisingly, as the backlight.
You can arrange the lights in such a way as to leave darkness between the area illuminated by the backlight and the area illuminated by the fill light, depending on how moody you want the shot to be. This tends to work very well, although even the moodiest films tend to avoid leaving dark shadows on the faces of female talent.
For a slightly different look, the backlight can also be soft, but it should still be hotter than the fill.
You should light your film or video shot by shot. This means that when you relocate the camera to shoot a different angle, the lights must be moved as well to ensure the subject is always lit correctly. This is partly why films take so long to shoot.
Setting up lights is the most time-consuming task in film shoots. It is therefore good practice to shoot a scene in such a way as to minimize the need to relocate lights – in other words, shoot in the order of the lighting set-ups.
Here’s a trick that can save huge amounts of time: when covering a scene with a shot and reverse shot, instead of moving the camera and lights for the reverse shot, simply switch the actors around and move the camera to the other side of the eye-line, in order to maintain the correct eye-line relationship. This allows you to use the same lighting set-up for two or more pairs of shots. Depending on the situation, it may help to move some props around too. It generally works best when the backgrounds of the two actors cannot be distinguished. This technique is not always appropriate, but in the right situation it can be totally convincing and a huge time-saver.
Film lighting tips
(Page 3 of 13) <<< Screenplay tips / three-act structure | Camerawork tips >>>
Copyright © 2007 LAvideoFilmmaker.com – All Rights Reserved. _______________________________________________________________
Avoid the flat look, regardless of whether you’re shooting an interview or an ambitious epic. Avoid lighting your subject directly from the front with a single light source.
A popular technique in professional lighting is to use a soft (diffuse) light source from the front and a stronger, more directional light from the back, so that your subject has a hot edge. The soft frontal light is known as the fill light; the strong light at the back is known, unsurprisingly, as the backlight.
You can arrange the lights in such a way as to leave darkness between the area illuminated by the backlight and the area illuminated by the fill light, depending on how moody you want the shot to be. This tends to work very well, although even the moodiest films tend to avoid leaving dark shadows on the faces of female talent.
For a slightly different look, the backlight can also be soft, but it should still be hotter than the fill.
You should light your film or video shot by shot. This means that when you relocate the camera to shoot a different angle, the lights must be moved as well to ensure the subject is always lit correctly. This is partly why films take so long to shoot.
Setting up lights is the most time-consuming task in film shoots. It is therefore good practice to shoot a scene in such a way as to minimize the need to relocate lights – in other words, shoot in the order of the lighting set-ups.
Here’s a trick that can save huge amounts of time: when covering a scene with a shot and reverse shot, instead of moving the camera and lights for the reverse shot, simply switch the actors around and move the camera to the other side of the eye-line, in order to maintain the correct eye-line relationship. This allows you to use the same lighting set-up for two or more pairs of shots. Depending on the situation, it may help to move some props around too. It generally works best when the backgrounds of the two actors cannot be distinguished. This technique is not always appropriate, but in the right situation it can be totally convincing and a huge time-saver.
Cheap camcorders