Lighting for film

Lighting for film
-          Why do you need to consider lighting?
-          How can you use lighting to affect the mood for your film?
-          What light sources are available, and how do you control them?

-          Practical tips

-          without light you will have no image

-          Carefully controlled lighting directs the viewers’ attention

-          Lighting can affect the mood and emotional impact of a scene.

-          Light creates mood like music creates mood


Light quality
-          Hard light: casts sharply defined deep shadows
·         The sun, candles, unfiltered tungsten lamps

-          Soft light: casts soft shadows with undefined edges
·         Overcast day, lamps with diffusers, light reflected from certain sources

-          Contrast range – latitude
·         Latitude describes the contrast range that a camera can represent
·         The difference between the lightest and darkest areas of a picture

-          Low key
·         Features high lighting contrast, with dark shadows and bright pools of light
·         Associated with night time, mystery, tragedy, sci-fi and horror

-          High key
·         Features a more even low contrast distribution of light
·         The light will be evenly spread meaning most of the set will be lit
·         Associated with daylight, comedy and the majority of studio shows

Lighting equipment
-          Tungsten lamps
-          Most common professional light
-          Range from 150w up to about 24,000w
-          Generate a lot of heat – take care when handling and setting up
-          Consistent colour temperature of 3200ok (kelvin)

-          Reflectors

-          Silver reflector reflects hard light

-          Mirror reflects very hard light

-          Gold reflector ass a gold hue to ‘warm up’ the lighting

-          Diffuser – set up in front of a hard light to change it to a soft light

General lighting setups
-          Three point lighting set up
-          Even when numerous lights are used they will perform one of the functions of the three point setup
-          Use the basic setup as a  starting point for your lighting

-          Key light

-          Usually the brightest light

-          Casts primary shadows -  the main shadows

-          Can be hard or soft

Fill light
-          Used to fill out shadows caused by the key without causing its own shadows
-          Usually softer than the keylight

-          Back light

-          Creates a bright outline around the subject

-          Used to separate the subject from the background

-          Helps create depth

-          Clothes light]additional to the keylight, adds shape and brings out the teture of costumes

Kicker
-          Additional to the back light, usually set lower and set up as a cross light

Eye light

-          Adds shine to the actors eyes


Background light
-          Used when the other lights are not enough to light the background of the shot

Motivated light

-          This refers to the light sources in your scene being justified

-          The lighting will be realistic and not draw attention to itself

-          If the light sources are obviously unmotivated the images may look unrealistic, but this can give the film style


-          General lighting technique
-          De-emphasize areas
-          This will focus the viewer’s attention on the subject
-          Be careful of shiny and reflective surfaces
-          Taking away light can be as effective as adding it





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