Filmmaking Essentials: Master Scripts, Cameras, Lighting & Directing

1. Introduction: Hey, guys. Welcome back. So if you're here from the creative grammar, from the mastering your cinematic composition, welcome. If not, if this is your first class for me as a teacher, welcome still. My name is Dijo Senguta. I'm a teacher, professor sense, whatever you want to call me. My background in film is all over the place. And it's in a good way. I was passionate about film ever since I was 3-years-old. I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I can eat this all day, dream about it, do it. And it's just like, I'm never tired. So a little educational dground about who I am. I did my master's and my bachelor's in films and animations from Rochester Institute of Technology in Upstate New York. So I am also an award winning filmmaker and film producer. I have done plenty of short films, plenty of music videos. One of my biggest web series is on prime video right now. One of my latest short films got nominated in Cans 2024, and that was honestly one of the biggest humbling and exciting experiences that I've had. And with that, I started my journey of teaching people, teaching people a to get into this industry. Film can be vast and it can be intimidating, but I'm here to pave a pathway for all of you guys so that you guys can relax and just follow me. And then all you have to focus on is your passion and honing your skills, and understanding which direction you want to go. So this class is called Live Action Filmmaking Essentials. So if I take a look over here, what I'm going to be teaching you, I'm going to be making your arsenal ready for the entire live action scenario. So I will teach you how to write a script. I will teach you how to do a storyboard, which is essential for pre production. I will dive deep into the grammar of how to actually do it and make sure it is industry ready for maybe your clients. Maybe as a freelancer, it could be with your collaborators. It could be for your boss, for your manager, for your school project. You never know you might be interested in being a scriptwriter computer, so this will teach you the format of how Hollywood industry works. Then we talk about cameras. So I'm not going to dive into specific cameras. I'm going to dive into the theory of how a camera works, and I'm going to talk about how it relates to our eyes as lenses. So we will discuss the camera. And I'm telling you, this knowledge not only works for live action, if you are into CGI and if you want to do motion graphics, all of these parameters that I'm going to teach about camera, this knowledge can get translated even in the software. So for example, when you have virtual cameras, when you render stuff, these knowledge such as apertures, ISO, what these are, how can we manipulate them to actually showcase exposure? I will be teaching that. I'll be teaching you lighting as well. Now, lighting, again, I'll be showing it to you in a live action way, but keep in mind this is very, very useful, even in CT environment. So pay attention how different lighting works, different scenarios, how it affects the mood of a film. I'll be teaching the basics over there as well. The next topic I'll be covering briefly is directing. So directing as to what directing entails, everybody wants to be a director, but what is your job description as a director? Is it always your film, your idea? It might not be. It might be somebody else's story, but you are directing it because you know the art of making the film. You know the art of converting that idea into a film language. Now, think about it like this. If I am Leonardo Da Vinci, somebody tells me, like, Hey, I really want to see a landscape where I feel peaceful. Now, it is that guy's idea. But Leonardo DaVinci takes that idea and converts it into a painting. So that's what you guys are doing. You guys are converting an idea. Sometimes it might be your, sometimes it might me not. You're just converting that into mode of film, which is what I'm going to be teaching you. And I'll cover briefly as to how to talk with, how to discuss stuff with actors, and how to actually get them motivated to actually enhance their performance. Alright, so that is what I'm going to be covering here. Have classes, which is the composition, live action, and then I have everything related to post production. So if you want to get into post production, make sure you follow those courses where I teach Mastering DaVinci Resolve, where I teach mastering color correction and color grading. So after you've shot your film, you can kind of go and learn those things. So it's like a proper pathway, and then you can make an educated decision as to what you want to do with your life. In film, only thing you need is passion. So let's get started. 2. Scripts: Okay, so storyboards and scripts. So what is storyboards and scripts? It is the initial pre production. It is the initial way of actually writing stuff down. Remember, creating the instruction manual. The way things work is, you might have a nice script, but the way the film world works is the script is written in a certain format. It's not just a word document. There are certain ways the way it is, and I'm going to be showing you examples on the screen and showing you exactly what it means. The best way to explain this is first, you have a story, right? Once you have a story, you need to think of, how will I write this down, and that is what I'm going to show you. So we're going to go to use the example of our movie countless. And let me just open the script. So this is the final script that we have. So as you can see, over here, if you take a look, we have these various things on the screen, which is a little bit daunting. I get it. But we're going to go step by step. So this is how a script looks like. A professional script. So as you can see, this one, two, three, four, five, these are known as scenes, okay? So scenes is when a scene changes, when there's a bedroom, it could be a living room, it could be a kitchen. So when a scene changes when you're shooting, like, it could be a sofa setting, it could be a dinner table, it could be a restaurant. Those are scenes. So take it literally in this sense. So if you see the first line over here, these are called scenes right over here. So now if you see we have interior, which is INT. So the way to write is INT dot. So it could be INT or it could be EXT. So you have to think whether this is an interior shoot or this is an exterior shoot. The reason why these are important because in the future, after the script is done, it will help you plan your shoots better, and that is the job of a line producer. A line producer basically takes care of all the logistics. So you will exactly know how many interior shots you have, how many exterior shots you have. So it'll just help you segregate the types of shots. No, we have interior, and we have bedroom with couch right here. So basically, this is where you explain the scene. So it could be interior INT dot, living room, INT dot, sofa setting, something like that. The reason why I have number one over here is because this is a loop. So we have the way I made it up is oop number one would be number one, then we have loop number two would be number two. So usually it's unless you're working on a loop film. This doesn't make sense. Otherwise, you usually won't have this number one and number two. Now, we have a hyphen, and we have a dash. I mean, we have a writing called night. So basically what this does is you explain the time of the day. So it could be INT, dot, bedroom with couch, hyphen day, hyphen afternoon, hyphen evening, hyphen night, hyphen twilight. So stuff like that. So again, the way it does is it helps you segregate the time of the day because that is important for short planning, whether you need lights, whether it is a golden hour where the sun is setting, whether it is high noon, where the sun is right in the middle. So those things matter a lot. So that is what a scene is. Now, if you take a look over here, we have these things right here, right, which is just plain old simple text which is there. They don't have any formatting as such. So these are called actions. All right? These are called actions. Now the way actions work is your script needs to be written. What is being seen. For example, have we see a woman goes and sits on top of him and they engage in an intense makeout session. The woman kisses his neck. So over here, the script, the action of a script has to be descriptive. It has to be written the way it is shown. For example, you cannot write. The man is feeling emotional. You cannot write that. You have to write in the way the man's eyes are squinched and he is about to have tears in his eyes. So you need to be very descriptive of what the script is. Remember, thumb rule. Can you see it? If you can't see it, you write it. If it's not seen, it's not there on the scene. You get it? If it's not seen, it's not seen in the scene. You get it? If it's not seen, it's not seen in the scene. So you have to write it the way it is written. Keep that in mind. You can't just write, Man is angry. You can't just write, Man is sad. How is he sad? Is he like this, is he is he like this. You need to explain that in detail. That is what an action is. The reason why this is is because it helps actors understand what they need to do, what type of emotion they need to play, because that is the relationship between the director, the scriptwriter, the story, the original story, and the actor. They need to be in sync, alright? So that is what an action is. Now, if you notice Um, over here, we have the man over here, we have the woman over here. They're in all caps, and over here, the woman is not in all caps. Now, why is that? So the reason why this is is when you first introduce a character, right? Whether it's a man, whether it's a woman, the first time you introduce a character, they need to always be all caps. Alright? Now, sometimes what happens is sometimes your character might have a name, for example, Nikhil, right? So again, think about what I just said. You cannot write the name Nikhil until and unless it is seen. So it has to be seen in order to be in the scene SCENE. It's going to be written right over here, so you understand what I'm trying to say. So if there's a situation where the character's name is Nikhil, but we actually don't know his name yet, it will always be man, right? It will always be man until and unless somebody else he's having a dialogue whereas he's like, Nikhil Rugja that time, the character's name is introduced for the first time in your movie. So at that point of time, you need to write NI KHIL in all caps, like right here, how man over here, there are no names. That's why there's no name, but that's why it's all caps over here. We see a woman. So the other example that can be is it could be like a desk setup, right, where a person is sitting on their desk. Usually, some office desks have their name tags over there or maybe the door has a name tag. So if that is seen in the scene, then you can use that in the dialogue section as well. So it could be something like we see a door which has a name placard called Nick Hill on it. So over there, that Nikhil is NIKHIL all caps because you're introducing the name of the character. Then after that, the audience knows what and who Nikhil is. Then you can do whatever you want. So now we see over here the man, which is over here. So this when it's coming in the center, this means that it is a dialogue, right? Then we have this which is the actual dialogue. And you can see over here that we have parentheses. Now what is parentheses? Over here, it is the action, the emotion with which the dialogue is being said. It is called a parentheses, which goes after the character. Let's see another example over here. Over here, we can see man impatiently. You'll see all these dialogues. All these dialogues, when the dialogue is being set, they always need to be all caps. In the action is what I meant that all caps need to be there only when you introduce a character. Now, you see the parentheses now, they are not below, they're on the side. So when this happens, that means you're showcasing that it is a voiceover, which means V O. So now the way V O works is that he's thinking about it, right? Sometimes you have scenes where they're just like, so you see points like this is where voiceover is important. My mouth is not moving right now, but I'm thinking about it. So to the editor, at this point, you just like, include a voiceover, right? Understood, right. Alright, cool. He's there, so he needs to know. This is Nikol Wile. That's why I used his name because he's right in front of me. Come say hi. Lo, guys. This is Niko Bao. Alright, so you can see, VO is when that's the example that I showed you. And sometimes what happens is, you might see in scripts, it's called OC, which is called off camera or OS, which is called off screen. Alright? So off camera, the difference between OC and OS is off screen means on the scene that you're seeing it, it is not visible, right? That person is not there in the scene, in the locality of what the audience is seeing, right? Off camera is the person is there in the scene, but it is not visible in the camera. So there's a minor difference. You need to make sure you use that accordingly. Basically, the whole concept of this script over here, just showing you some other examples, always make sure you name your scenes as well as one, two, three, then we have these are some of more actions. Then we have more we have more dialogues over here. And last but not the least, we're going to be talking about transitions. Transitions happen towards the end of a scene or the beginning of a scene on the right most side of the paper. Alright? Keep that in mind, because most of you guys will be using Microsoft Word. So what I'm going to be doing is I am going to be putting a Microsoft Word document for you guys below, which would be already formatted in the script section. So it'll be easier for you. You use that format and you edit it according to your own script, because what I want you to start doing is I want you guys to start thinking of a story that you have and start writing it in this format, right? Now, moving to transitions. It could be at the end of a scene or it could be at the beginning of a scene, right? So you have cut to fade to black out, fade to black, cut to black. Those are some things that you can use. So if you see cut to, we have a colon, which means it's going to the next scene, right? So if I say cut to black, after that, it'll be a full stop. Means it's going All right. So that is what a script is. Oh, there's dissolved too, so you can see dissolved too. So as a script writer, I have envisioned this as a transition. Obviously, when you're into editing, this dissolve might not be a proper usage. So that's like that changes with time. And cut to black, you can see over here that it is the end of the scene, it just cuts to cuts to black. So what I'll be doing, like I said, there'll be a Microsoft Word document, and you can use that template to construct your own script. And I want you guys to start working on your story because from today onwards, we will be working together and working to make your short film, which I will personally critique, right? So think of a story that you have and have a script ready, okay? And one more thumb rule, right? Each page of script is equal to 1 minute of screen time. All right? Remember, one page of script is equal to 1 minute of screen time. So if it is a ten page script, it is going to be approximately a ten page movie. Sorry, a ten minute movie. All right. So keep that in mind is the basic thumb. 3. Storyboards: Now moving on to a storyboard or a shot list. Now, what is a storyboard or what is a short list? It is when you convert your script into something more visual. Take a look at our web series called Ping Punk over here. So we have a scene one. So the scene you know, the interior you know, the scene description, which is the ping pong court, you know, and obviously, you know the fact that it is a day. Now you can see we have shot 1.1. So 1.1, 1.2, it could be 1.1, 1.2, one A, one B. In film, we call it one Alpha, one Bravo. We use the NATO alphabetic terminologies. So this is we have first a subject is what we are seeing. A little description of the subject, the camera, what camera is being used, which you actually know about the short size, remember close up medium shot. So we used the code was like CU, MS, WS. So these are the things that we use. The short type, remember the levels that we talked about, shoulder level, eye level, ground level, and also whether it's a single shot two shot, that and movement, whether there's movement. Is it dolly out? Is it a static shot? Is it a dolly in? What type of shot is it? That is something you need to mention over here as well. Let's see some more examples over here. So we have shot number 1.6, which means it is seen one shot six. We have subject, which is tobo which is the main protagonist. Then we have tobo is warming up continue the third time, Tboos off screen, right? So over here, you're explaining the subject a little bit. Camera, which camera it is camera A, short size, a medium, full shot. So which could be like a full shot and a medium, somewhere in between. Short type. A low angle and a single chart. So remember, low angles, we're trying to show him dominant. Single is a single shot. I mean he is the only person who has to be visible, who is the main person at that point of time. Movement over here, for example, you can see it static. No camera movements. That is the director's choice over here, which is me. So that's something that we had chosen. Now, on the right, you can see these are thumbnails. So these thumbnails are basically just quick drawings of how you envision it to be. Now, this was pure animation. Let me show you an example of how we did it in compress as well. So how do you do it for a live action? You don't need to do something crazy, as long as it is somewhere in between, it is fine. So, for example, over here, we don't really have any thumbnails. We just had simple just um, description. So you can see one Delta, short list, one Delta over here. So we see women blowing wind on the man's ear and biting it. So that's something you can see on the screen as well. Short size, close up, short type, we have a deep focus, which means the aperture is completely open, right? Is that huge depth of field is there. Shoulder level, right here, single shot. Movement is static. Now, over here, since it's live action, we have the thing of equipment. Now, equipment, we have sticks. Stix is basically terminology for a tripod. Lens the focal length of the lens that you're using. So we were unsure of the location, so we chose either 35 MM or 50 MM. Frame rate 60 FPS because we wanted to make this and shoot this in slow motion. So we shot at a higher frame rate. So these are things when you're in live action, you can write these down in your short list. So what I will do for you guys, I will be providing an Excel sheet or a Google sheet that is also available over here, which will have a basic format of a short list. So you can edit it based on your script. So the script that you're writing after you finished writing the script, after I review it, after that, we will work on the short list. So you use this template to make a shortlist of the same script that you're going to be working on your film, right? So use the same terminology and make sure you follow it, whether it's live action or animation, that is up to you guys. Ideally, I would prefer live action at the moment, since you're just starting off. I'm just trying to see whether there's some other examples other than sticks. So we'll just see another film which we had, which is UGUnnvited guest. So you can see over here. Okay, there you go. So I'm going to zoom in a little bit here. So over here, you can see the equipment over here is we used a gimble, right? So over here, we wanted some movements over here, which is if you see if you see the VFX is object tracking. So if there's any VFX that you have, you can use that as well. But the movement was a tilt movement, so it was going up. So we wanted to use a gimble for that. So moving up as a gimble, and VFX was we wanted to track the cup and keep that in the center always. So it was like an aesthetic shot that we wanted. Here's an example. Basically, it's a close up shot, high level single deep focus. So you can see how we are using shot list to actually make something into the final product. So the guys, this is basically the instruction manual. So there might be situations where you might not feel like at that point of time onset, it might be like a different thing. At that point of time, you can take a creative call. You can make some impromptu decisions, which genuinely happens, which is not a problem, but you have a guideline. Now, sometimes in live action, you might not know what exactly that you have, in terms of, like, overall visuals. So at that point of time, you can just do simple stuff like this. So if you see over here, we had sketch drawing, okay? So over here, I just wanted to visualize how it will look. So over here, if you see shot one Hotel, right, was women and men talking. So if you check over here in countless, this is the storyboard that you're seeing on the left side, right, on the left side of the screen. And this is the right side of the screen is the final product. Take a look at both of these. The short size is a midshot. Right? We have over the hip, so over the hip of the woman, right? So obviously, you can see this is so rough. But as and when you're doing it, you get you start to envision stuff as to how it might be. This was on sticks, which is on a tripod, 24 FPS, and this was shot at 50 MM. So you can see that even a rough drawing such as this is all you need, right? So let's start working on this aspect. So take your script and start making it into a shop list. Now, I want you guys to take proper time in doing this. I don't want you guys to rush this. I don't want you guys to be super quick also about it. I want you guys to take your have a story that you think is worth telling the audience. All right. Think about it from that perspective and use the Discord channel, share some of your stories. I myself will comment, I have my team. We have Niko over here, Santos over here. They'll start giving you some feedback where, um, this story, you know, there might be some materials where I might not feel for the character, right? So we'll talk about story arcs and characters and all of that stuff, which already took a look at the webinar. If you haven't, please check the link below is where the webinar is available. So you can think about a story from that perspective. 4. Screen Direction: And last but not the least, when you are doing your storyboards, when you're doing your short list, one very important thing is screen direction. All right? What is screen direction? This goes back to a simple thing, which is making sure that you don't confuse the audience. So think about it like this. A man or a woman is talking, blah, blah, blah, and the man or the woman exits screen left. Alright? So if the person exits screen left, you want the person you want to shoot the other person in another location. What do you think the man or the woman should come out? Which side should he or she come out of? From screen, right, right? So if your person is exiting over here, that person needs to come in through there. Understand. So that is screen direction. Now, here is a wrong way of doing it. You can see this person is exiting left, and when we cut to the next scene, we see the person is entering from the wrong side of the screen. So now, see how confusing this is. Now let's do it the right way. Okay, so now this person is sitting down reading something, gets up, walks screen left. As soon as he walks screen left, you can see that he's entering now from screen right, right? So this seems normal because it's following a flow. This, my friend is called screen direction. This is something you need to keep in mind in your storyboards. So in your description, when you write in your short list or whatever, at that point of time, you need to mention if there's movement where the characters are going, where the characters are exiting, and where it is entering from. It will give you. Trust me, this will help you so much in editing and so much in overall visuals, you'll thank me later. Alright? So now, you might be thinking before I end this lesson, what is the difference between a storyboard and a short list? Now, a storyboard originally was usually used for animation because you have visualizations of animations over there. So a short list is basically the same thing minus the thumbnail. It doesn't include the thumbnail of what the visual is. So it is the same thing. Storyboard is with the thumbnail, shortest is without the thumbnail. So whatever floats your boat, you use that. All right. So moving on to the next lesson is after this, we will be talking about a camera and how to operate it. So once you're done with the short list, we can use a camera, whether it's your phone, whether it's whatever camera you have, we go and shoot it. All right. Moving on to lesson number two. 5. Cameras: Introduction: Alright, guys, welcome to the first onset intro to camera. Alright. So the way camera works, camera is very similar to our eyes, right? So usually you must know that automode is something that is definitely not good. Automode is something that we do not recommend at all. We recommend manual. Now the reason why we recommend manual is you have control over each and every single aspect of the camera of what it operates. So we will dive deep in and show you guys some examples of a camera that we're using, and keep in mind that I'm not going to be going in depth exploring each different camera. If you guys do want it, please comment message on discord, and if something there's a specific camera you want tutorials on in. But I'm going to mainly explain how cameras work, right? The way the camera each camera has, the settings, we're not diving into where what is. We're diving into the concept as to why things work the way they work. Now, when you understand the balance of power between different aspects of a camera, you will understand how much more easier it is to be able to control, be able to capitalize on your environment, and things like that, which will help you enhance your imagery. 6. Frame Rate: Okay, so first aspect of film, we call it frame rate. All right? Frame rate is basically the number of images in a video per second. All right. So basically, think about it like this. Photography, still camera, videography, many still images, chuck. You put them together, that is a film. It's a movie, it's a video. All right. So when you have individual frames stitched together is what makes a video. So how do we measure this, right? The way we measure, the way we measure is usually frames per second. Now, the common frames per second is 24, 25, 50, 60, 120. So think about it like that. 120 images in 1 second. Can you believe it? Mind blowing, right? So now, think about it like this. The more images you have in 1 second means the smoother the images, right? So the more images you have in a frame means the more smoother the images, right? So, usually we usually use this for slow motion shots. But normal film is at 24 frames per second. Why is that? You might be thinking, Gijo, there's, like, you can use so many frames per second. Use the high sn. Well, my friend, if you want to look for a camera that has 600 FPS, that will cost you six lac rupees or probably, sorry, 60 lac rupees. So higher the frame rate, more the expensiveness, more the money that you're spending. And also, normally in film, we like motion blow. You know, for example, you see my hand now you don't. So it's like it's a blur, right? It's because it's shot at 24 frames per second. It makes it look natural. When you see cars going super speed, you actually see the driver saying hi to you and going, you don't, right? It's a blur, right? So that is what we are naturally our eyes are used to, and we like to see that motion. The way frame rate works is the higher the frame rate, the more you can use it for slow motion, right? If it's slower, which is 24, it's usually added with blur. So that's why we seek slow motion movements to be much more crisper and normal movies to be much more with motion blur. It is called motion blur, and filmmakers love it because it is realistic. No. The different types of frame rigs that we see in the world, we have NTSE and Pal. So what NDSE and Pal is is basically it's a format of how we send video signals to the camera. Alright, so NTSE is usually in North America. North America, some parts of South America, I think, Pal is mostly Europe and Asia. So in India, everything is usually Pal, but we use NTSC because film, right? 24 frames per second. So NTSE has around 525 resolution lines. And what that means is the lines that you see, those are like 100 and 525 of them, which is embedded into each pixel. So now, that is NTSC. Pal has 625 lines, right? So, technically, if you think about it, Pal video format is much more crisper than NTSC format. And Pal is usually shot at 25 frames per second, and NTSC shot at 24 frames per second. So yes, you can argue that Pal is higher quality. But the reason why most films are shot at NTSE is because of that motion blur because we don't really need that extra hundred resolution lines. We like that film blur because it adds realism to what we do. All right. So now, the first thing that we're going to be doing, we did frame rate. Now, the first aspect of a camera is before I get into that, the reason why I said 120 FPS is used for slow motion is when you shoot 120 FPS in slow motion, what that does is you can convert it and make it slow in your editing suite. Now, I will teach you that in our editing module where we actually have some higher frame rate footage and I show you how to speed it up, how to slow it down. All right, so we will get that into our editing technique because it is not something you can slow stuff in real life unless you're like, like that, but that's not possible. So that's where we get into that in the editing suite. 7. Aperture: Now, number one is we call the aperture, right? Listen to my mouth. Aperture. Trust me, this is one of the most important. Actually, everything that I'm saying is important, but it's very hard to understand these things. Aperture is basically, think of it like this. It's like a little hole, right? And aperture is like like this, basically. So it is the amount of light that you allow to pass through the lens. So you might be seeing like, you know, those shutters things like those things, that is called the aperture. So if it's open less, that means the aperture is closed. If it's open more, that means the aperture is open more. So basically what happens is when the aperture is open more, that means it has a lower F stop. What is Fstop? Fstop is measured in decimal points 0.8, 1.4. 2.6, 2.85 0.6, 7.8 22. So you think about it like this. Higher the number of your estop the lower the light goes into. So think about it, you're going to see graphs on my hand right now, right? So we have F 22 F ten, F 2.8 F 0.4, something like that. And you can see over here on this side, which is the picture of an aperture. So you'll see the higher the number of the Ftop, the closed the aperture is, the lesser the number of the estop the open the aperture ring is, okay? So if you think if the numbers confuse you, think of it like this. I want your shooting in a low light location. I want to let more light inside. So what will you do at that point? You will open the aperture, right? And what is opening the aperture? It's a lower number. So it's the opposite, okay? Now, it's too overexposed. I want to allow less light inside my camera. How will I do that? I will close the ring so that less light goes, right? Yes or no. Yes? I love how the DOP is unnoding, but I'm talking to you guys, not you guys. So closer the aperture ring, right? So in order to do that, what will I do? I will increase the number, so F 22. So that is one way of controlling exposure. So we have learned how aperture affects exposure. Now, one thing that the aperture effects is we will get into this thing called the depth of field. Alright? So now I'm going to call my beautiful friend Ashish to get on frame on a camera, and we're gonna cut to B roll. And yeah, he's right here. He's been watching me and nodding. He's been going like this, like this. Yeah. But now what we'll do is we have a sweet little setup over here. So what we'll do is we'll have him sit in front of not sit, but stand in front of the camera, and I will show you how aperture creates a difference. Alright? So over here, Santos, he's again our DOP. So why don't we frame Ashish real quick? Let me just go here. Yeah. All right. So now what we will do is, I'll take charge of the camera. What I'll do is I'll send Santosh all the way behind over there, right? Santos go. Alright, so now if you guys see over here, at that point of time, you can see, like this little thing called F 5.6, right? You guys can see what F 5.6 is. F 5.6 is basically the aperture. So 5.6, what I'm going to do is, I am going to increase the aperture number. So when I increase the aperture number, what does that do? I'm closing the aperture. Someone increase the number, watch. See how is becoming excuse me, I am closing the aperture. So which means I am increasing the number. Look at what that's doing. That is making the image dark, which means I am closing it. Now, if you look at it, most it's underexposed right now, but at the same time, if you see Santos over there is more in focus, right? Santos is more in focus. But now let me increase the aperture. And by increase I know it's confusing. I'm saying increase the aperture. When I say increase the aperture, I mean, open the aperture. Okay? When I open the aperture means I'm reducing the F stop. So watch. It is getting more light in. But watch what happens. Santos is getting more blur. You see that? Now, this particular lens only goes to F 4.0 because this is a zoom lens, which it goes 16-17 millimeters. We'll talk about focal length in the end, but take a look over here how Santos is now much more blur, right? So that is what is called a shallow depth of field. So that is, my friend, one of the most cinematic things ever to exist. Now, if I had LAD lights behind over there, remember those Boca balls. These are called Boca. This is what booker means BOKEH. This element, the whole aspect of this blur in the background and blur and focus in the front is basically what Boca effect is. Now, the other thing I can do is to have cinematic sense, I can keep, like, this bottle like somewhere over here. So you can see what that does is with depth of field, basically what I'm doing is I am giving Asshmr dominance on this frame. So you can see how blur this is and how Santosh is also blurred but this also blur. This is called shallow depth of field. This is what brings, and this is what breaks and everything in cinema. And that is what my friend is real cinema. Now, moving on to the next one. Alright, Satoshi can come back now. He was behaving badly. That's why I put him in the corner. Just kidding. 8. Shutter Speed: Moving on to the next one. We have shutter speed, all right? Shutter speed is the amount of time you want the shutter to remain open to allow light to come in. All right? So the way shutter is is obviously it's like fraction works on a fraction of a second. Like if you will not see shutter speed 1 second, right? You'll see one by 48th of a second. It'll be one by 16th of a second. So that is the amount of time you're opening the shutter to allow light to come in, right? So that is also one way of controlling exposure. Now, the more time you have the shutter open, for example, now, let's say, if I have the shutter open for 1 second, I'm telling you, shutter one is a lot, right? Having shutter one is a lot. Yeah. And if you have a shutter open for one whole second and you have people moving around, that's just blur FYI. If you have shutter open, like for very less, then it's super crisp, right? So it's super, super crisp. So keep in mind, we're trying to balance both. So rule of thumb is whatever your frame rate is, you double that frame rate, and that is the denominator in your fraction of your shutter speed. For example, we're shooting at a frame rate of over here 24 FPS. So the rule of thumb the rule of thumb is to have the double, which is 24 times two is 48. So this camera doesn't do 48, so 50 is okay. So approximately hitting that margin is okay. So what this does, it creates proper motion blown. Now, if I'm shooting let's say 60 FPS, which is for slow motion, in the shutter speed should be one by 120th of a second. Now, there is no particular signs behind it in particular this double thing, it's just something. Through trial and error, this is what looks best. It's just a tried and tested method. It is something that looks best for the audience for a motion blur. All right? So that is shutter speed. So usually there's a style of filmmaking. It's called light painting, right? So what light painting does is the camera all singer lights are turned off, right? All singer lights are turned off. What happens is you turn on the light. The shutter speed is often for 2 seconds or sometimes even 5 seconds. What they do is usually it works with photos, right? You click the shutter button one time, and then they take the light. For 2 seconds continuous, shutter closes. So now what the output, the images, everything is blur. Only the light has a whole path of a circle. So that is what light painting is. So there's a short little thing, which I did is very difficult because it's hard to predict where light is. I did um back in the day, I did the Titact know, the game Tik tacto. I did it with light painting. Here's an example. The shutter speed was 10 seconds long. So 10 seconds long. 10 seconds long, I had to do in 10 seconds, I had to do the entire thing, and it was so difficult. But it created a very, very fun effect. Even there was a light painting where you can do fonts as well. You can actually have to basically have to take a torch and write in midair and if your shutter speed is open, that is beautiful to do. So that is what shutter speed. 9. ISO: Okay, moving on to the next one is called an ISO. It doesn't have any full form. It's just the name of an institute that invented this. It doesn't mean anything. It means the only thing it means is sensitivity to light. All right, so let's take a look here. So we have over here at Croll, we have an ISO of 800. So what does 800 mean? Now, the lower the ISO number means the lower the sensitivity to light means you're telling the camera, Kei hi, so. Don't be sensitive to light, right? That means basically what that will do, it will not affect exposure. But usually, what happens is, let's say you don't have too much light, right? When you increase the ISO, which is like 600, 700, 1,000 means you're telling the camera. Please camera, be more sensitive to light. That means it will increase the exposure, but this is an artificial way of doing it, which is why what happens is it introduces noise and grain when you have too much ISO. So do not depend on ISO purely for exposure. That is something you should keep it set and forget about it. The only way to adjust your exposure is through your aperture and it's through the lighting of your environment. Needed to be smart about where you actually go. For example, let me just show you we have ISO over here. Uh, so we choose the ISO, for example, we have a 800, right? So watch what happens? A degree ISO. So now, obviously, it's not going below it because I'm shooting in SLC SLC three, you need to have a minimum amount of ISO. I'll tell you what AL three is at a much later point. So it can go to 500. So I'm telling you don't need to worry about exposure. I got this, right? ISO is just your AI buddy who doesn't do math much. So don't give him much importance. Now let's say I want more exposure. Look. I'm doing like I'm cranking him up to 5,000 ISO. Now, you might think it's getting brighter, but the amount of noise that is there inside this is stupid. So the lower the ISO, always the better. Keep that in mind. Rule of thumb. Lower the ISO, the crisper image, and control your exposure through aperture, through your shutter speed and obviously where you shoot it, right? Keep that in mind. 10. White Balance: Four, we have white balance. Now, what is white balance? It's pretty simple, no. Balancing your whites. All right. Alright. Moving on. Next topic. I'm just kidding. So white balance is a very complicated one. Till today, a lot of professionals get confused with what white balance is. Usually what happens is a lot of times we have auto white balance, so it's basically you're telling the technology to imagine and think what the environment is and just balance something for you. I wouldn't recommend that. That's something that's not good. So at that point of time, when you're telling your camera, like, Hey, camera, you know, I'm too lazy. Just ******* do it, man. Literally, I don't want to do it. So basically, this is how technology takes over you. So you do not do not do autoht balance. White balance is very, very simple. I'll explain it to you very, very easily. The two types of lights, there's white light, blue light. Orange light, right? Naturally that exists in this world. Sun is orange light. These are white lights. And you see the sky, what color is the sky is blue, right? If you're color blind, it is blue. I'm just letting you know. But if you're not color blind, you know what blue is it. So now, what are these colors exactly? These are called color temperatures. Every color has a temperature. They are measured through a unit called Kelvin. That is the scientific measurement of temperature. Celsius and fahrenit is for layman terms, but in science, the way you measure temperature, like, if you go to scientists or laboratory, they will measure the temperatures even of the weather in Kelvin. So Think of it like this. The warmer the light, the hotter it is. The cooler the light, the colder it is, right? So if it's orange means there's more fire. Fire is hot. If it's ice and water, it's cool, which means it is blue. Now, the temperature measurements are like this. You'll see it in a graph right over here. Coldest is around 2000 Kelvin. Sorry, 7,000 Kelvin. The coolest means the higher the kelvin, means the cooler the temperature of the color. 7,000 8,000 Kelvin is like super cool. Moving on, moving on to the middle, we have around 5,600 kelvin. This is like, neither blue nor orange, just like in the middle, which is white light. Going all the way over here, 3,000 2000 Kelvin, which is flaming hot, flaming hot. So in the middle, this 5,600 Kelvin, this, my friend is what is called daylight. Okay, so at this point, you see we have so this right now in Ashish, if you see, he is at 5,600 Kelvin, which is properly balanced, right? So if you see over here daylight, if you just do a quick spin around, do a quick spin around, you see it's daylight. So there's no harsh light anywhere. It's only pure daylight. So this is right now, it's neither too warm, it's neither too cool. It's in between, which is white light, 5,600 Kelvin. Now, if I go to my camera and now before I do it, think about logically speaking, okay? When your wide balance is set to 5,600 Kelvin, you're telling your camera you have camera. This area is 5,600 Kelvin, so manage it accordingly, right? That was custom wide balance. Now, if I tell the camera, if I'm not doing it right, if I tell the camera camera, this image, right now, what you're seeing over here is 3,000 Kelvin, which is it is warm. So what will the camera output be? What do you think? I'll give it a second for you to think. It will compensate. Your camera will at that point of time be stupid because you're telling the camera, like, Hey camera, 3,000 Kelvin is the temperature. So the camera will be like, Oh, it is that warm. Okay, let me make it cooler. So then if you change the camera right now to 2000 Kelvin. At that point of time, you look and you see how not 9,000. So 2,500, you see how super cool Astygs looking? Now, you might think he's freezing right now. Look at him. Keep it 2,500 only. So if you see at this point of time, you might think that, Oh, Mento Wong Gata, the tanda gaga is because the camera is trying to adjust the temperature that you're telling. So if I'm telling the camera, like, Hey, camera, the temperature is 2,500. Now, if it was actually warm light, it would be properly white balanced. Understood what I'm saying. It's like, since it's already cool, throw up bolo ki or warm here, though it is increasing it even more. Understand. Knife I do the opposite. Now, guess. It's 5,600 right now is the right white balance. Knife I tell the camera, Hey, camera, change the thing to 9,000 Kelvin, which means it's super cool. So what will happen to Ashish? The camera will think that by Ina tanda Aka Suma thought Garam Dal Eta. So now, since it is actually not like 9,000 Kelvin, he will become he'll look red. He'll literally look red, and that's what you see in the camera at the moment. And that is wrong white balance. That is orange white balance. So keep in mind in the next lesson, there'll be a quiz about white band. I want you to give it a huge thought that when you're doing Kelvin, white balance measurement, Remember, the camera will the input that you're giving the camera is you're telling the camera. Hey, listen, the temperature is 9,000. Understand. So that's why it'll do the opposite. So if this is 5,600, if I tell 9,000, it'll be like you're telling the camera. It's very cool. So let me make it warm. When it's actually not really warm, it'll make it even more warmer, so you need to balance it perfectly. I hope you understood it. If you have any questions, comments below, in the quiz, we will see how many of you get it right, how many of you get it wrong. Based on that, I can do in even more explanation. Alright, so that's number four, which is white balance. 11. Focal Length: Okay, so now moving on to one of the most, I would say, expensive things in history of camera is a lens. A lens is determined by focal length and aperture, which we talked about. But we will talk about the last and the most important thing is focal length. Focal length is basically the angle of view in a camera. So the way focal length is measured, it is measured between the distance between the lens and the image sensor. The way it is measured, it is measured in millimeters, all right? So the smaller the focal length, the wider angle of view, the larger the focal length, the narrower angle of view. All right. So there are some thumb rules where we have now, what we're going to do is I'm going to speed this again. Speed this. Gonna slate it. Okay, so now you can see Ashish at this point of time. He is perfectly on a perfect focal length. Even actually, I don't think it's perfect because right now the focal length is 70. Now, let's change the focal length. Let's make it 50. Alright? Now, Ashish, why don't you do this? Why don't we get up from the stool? Alright? We'll try to keep you in frame. And let me just move the stool from. I just remove this. Keep it here. All right. Now, let's see. Let's talk about this. Focal length is how you shoot stuff, right? It's one of the ways of shooting. Now, if it were something wide like scenario, it's something like a landscape, you want a larger view, right? So for that, the focal length needs to be less. If you want to shoot portrait, the focal length has to be more because you're trying to give definition. Now, the other thing that focal length does is it distorts the image. The more wider it does, the more distortion it does. Now, let's say, I might be doing something wrong. Now, let's say, what I'll do is I'll change the focal length. 216. Now you see how white this is? I'm not zooming in. I'm just changing the focal line. Now, I cannot shoot portrait like this, right? Sorry, Ash why don't you come here? Come closer, come closer, come closer. Come closer. Now, see, this is 16 MM. Sorry. This is 16 MM, right? So you see, does this look good? He looks like he looks like that. It's like his face is cropping. It's like a little peanut. Now, we increase it to 24. Go one step back, two steps back. See little more definition to his face has happened now, correct? We move one more. 35, move one step back. Look at that. A little bit more definition has happened. 52 steps back. Now, look, 50 MM. This is the ideal for portraits for human beings, for whatever subject you want to shoot, whether it's medium shot, close up shot, 50 50 MM is perfect. Sometimes I want to capture something that's a little further away, right? But I can't get close to it. What do I do? I increase the focal length. It's called a telephoto lens, right? So basically, 200 MM. What do you think? Who do you think 200 MM people use? Why do you think people will use that? Who do you think uses that? Wildlife photographers. So why do you think they can't Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, let me just take a wide angle camera, shoot a lion, like, right from here. I can't do that. He's gonna eat me, right? So I can't be so close to him to the lion. So they have full narrow. They're like, How are they taking such good pictures of lions? They're so close, right? I like, no. It's just the lens is as long as they are. So it's huge telephoto lens, you know, like, they set over there, and the lens is like, as, like, very big. Those are like 300, 400 MM. So now, if we go over here, we have 70 MM over here. So if you go further away, Look at that. Now, come with me. See the distance. We have 70 Mm. So look at the distance that is there over here. You see the distance. But if you cut two over here, you see he's so close, but this is the simple medium short, right. So this is the point of a camera. So what this does is it gives you space to, like, you know, move around, have conversations, build a set. That is what the main thing about focal length is. Now obviously, let's go wide real quick. Not you. I'm telling him. Yeah, full word, go 16. See now over here in 16, there's no point of capturing ust This is like, establishing this room. Yeah, maybe at that point of time, you can establish the room. But if you're like, shooting like a conversation between people, go 50 or 70. That is when you can actually have a conversation between people. You want to add anything? Yeah, I think 50 m you can use above 50 M for portraits and conversations. That way you will look more natural the way you appear. So this is a very I can say, important information. Keep it in mind. Yeah, so keep that in mind. If you're shooting human beings, 50 minimum or I don't try I mean, 35 is still fine, but, like, it still distorts the years a little bit. So try to not do that much. So that, my friend, is the end of what a camera does. Fun fact. Your eyes are also a lens, right? This focal length of your eyes are 20 millimeters, which is why we can go wide. We can see everything that's wrong. I can see what Ash is doing with that gun. I can see I can see what this guy is doing on my side. I have a wider field of vision because we are our eyes are 20 MM, which means our eyes are wide lenses, right? That's a fun fact. So keep in mind, just to summarize certain things, we have number one frames per second, which is the frame rate. Number two, we have aperture, which controls the shallow depth of field, which controls the amount of light that gets let in. Third is shutter speed, which is the amount of time a shutter opens or closes to let light in. It is directly the rule of thumb opposite of your frame rate, that fraction of a second. Number four, we have white balance. White balance is basically balancing the white through color temperature. Always use color temperature. Do not do tungsten or do not do daylight because they will try to predict what is daylight. Also, tungsten is equal to bulbs, orange light. That is what Tungsten is. Number five is focal length. Focal length is what we just discussed. It is about the angle of view in your camera. So with these five things that you have is what you create in the framing. You create your composition and you create magic. Thank you, guys. I'm sure you guys would want to understand the menus of a camera. I am not diving deep into it. I'm more diving into the concept and the out of it. So even if you don't have a camera, you understand even from your phone, you can nowadays, smartphones have different focal lengths, you know, one is like, you know, in iPhone, we have 0.5, one and two. 0.5 is what now? It's wide. One is more little bit less wide, two is portrait. So now you know what to do, where to do. So I'm teaching you in a way that you can even shoot from your smartphone, shoot from anything that you want, keeping these into perspective. There are apps that allow you to manually change your camera, um, settings as well, including aperture. So if you have that, if you have a phone, it's more than enough. Obviously, camera is a camera. Nothing can beat that, but I'm just trying to give you the concept so you guys know you guys are aware. How to do what to do. Thank you. 12. Read a Histogram: Alright, so one more thing that is super, super important is in cameras, sometimes what happens is you might not be able to understand the exposure, the brightness of the camera screen, the brightness of what you can see. Sometimes those are not enough to understand whether a camera, whether your film is properly exposed. So the way to actually know this, the way to actually do this is through a histogram. So come take a look. So over here. Alright, let me use my magical powers. Alright, there you go. Now you see a proper histogram on this wall, right? So now, basically what it does is a histogram. We have X axis like this and we have a Y axis like this, right? So basically what it does is you see something, you see that? So over here, this histogram is properly exposed. So histogram is divided into three sections. Shadows, which is the left, mid tones, which is the middle and the right side is the highlights. So now, let's say this image is overexposed. What will happen? The entire graph will. You see that? It is like, you see how that is? If you see this on your camera, this means your footage is overexposed, which means there's no shadows, nothing. Everything is just white. Now, let's bring it back. Now, see over here. The entire thing is just all the way towards the left right. There's nothing in the center or in the right side, which means the footage is underexposed, which means it is dark, it is almost black, right? Now, properly exposed the histogram. This is how a properly exposed histogram looks like. All right. So keep in mind, sometimes you cannot rely on your phones. I mean, not your phones, your cameras brightness, LCD brightness or your phones brightness. If you have a histogram, it'll just be much more easier to read. And especially even in your Edit suite in your um NLE when you go to your edit, you'll be able to see a histogram that represents that image. You can also tell at that point of time whether it is correct, properly exposed, underexposed, or overexposed. So keep these in mind, B hart this, and this will be your scientific way of always nailing down proper exposure. Thanks. And 13. Lighting: Importance: Alright, guys, so welcome to lighting. So lighting. Wow. This is, I would say, one of the most hardest, one of the most funneest things to do lighting basically directs people's attention, directs their views. That's number one. Number two, what lighting does is lighting enhances a subject. It enhances an object. No matter where it is, the way you light changes everything, literally everything. So over here we are in this beautiful set in Bombay, and what we're going to be doing is we're going to be using our actor, and he's going to be debuting his acting today. No today, but not for this lesson, but for the next lesson that you're going to see. So we're going to be talking about lighting, and so the other thing that lighting contributes is it contributes to the mood of the film, right? So if it's a horror film, the lighting is different. If it's a comedy film, the lighting is different. If it's action film, the lighting is different. So every situation, every genre, where you are, what you're doing, what the actor, what the subject is doing, all of that is different. Lighting effects, majority of what you see, of what you visualize on the camera. Alright? So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be using this little sofa set that we made. So we're going to talk about some of the main things about lighting, right? So why don't we come here? 14. 3 Point Lighting: So Ashish, he's going to be our actor. He's gonna be our model for today. He's an aspiring Zara model. So he's gonna be sitting here. So basically, what we're gonna be talking about is we're gonna be talking about lighting. So lighting in general, sorry I was falling off because we need to move sets and stuff around, so gaffing is not an option here. So the thing that we're going to be doing today is talking about lighting in terms of how many lights, where to use and what, right? So now we have lighting. The main style of lighting is called three point lighting. Now, what is the three point lighting? Number one, it consists of three lights. One is a key light, one is a fill light, and one is the hair line light, right? So basically, what these three contribute to a subject is what we will get at right now. So right now, if you see the major just house lights in general are on, right? So those lights are something that we never ever use. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be turning off all these lights, right? Once these lights are off, and now you can see in Bro that Ashish is not really lit in Broll. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to be slowly and steadily turning on the lights. The number one light is we have key light, right? So now, if you cut to the B roll at this point, we're going to say onset when you turn on a light, the verbiage is striking. So when you say striking, it immediately tells the actor to not look at that light because as soon as the light turns on, it'll just it'll affect your eyes immediately. All right? So number one, we have key light, so striking Alright, so you see over here, key light is the main light. It is the most strongest light, and it highlights most part of the face, usually for an actor, for subject, or you can say even object in this case. So over here, if you see, I'm just going to come here. If you see over here, it creates light is coming from here. So his face is mainly like getting lit up over here. So you can see over here, it creates shadows which create depth, which create depth, which create that enhancement to his jaw line. Sometimes people have like round faces and stuff. So at that point of time, that shadow basically helps create that depth. So it gives a more refining feature. Now, why did I place the light there? I will come at a later point when we talk about lighting patterns. So that's when we'll talk about it a little bit First let's go with three point lighting, the basic lighting, alright? The next light. This is key light, the most strongest light. Okay? Second one. I love how Nikola is nodding every time there. It's like I'm teaching him. And then the second one is called the fill light, right? So let's go strike that. So this is the fill light that you see over here. And if you like, come over here 1 second before you strike, you see, this is the key light that you're using. So it's a simple, um, G Dog light that we're using over here is just like nothing much, and that's what we're using to light him right now. So now we're going to go with the fill light, right? So strike fill. All right. So as you can see on the B roll, on the left side of his, um, uh, face, you can see, like, how the little bit the darker shadows got a little bit lit. Let's do it one more time. Turn it off, Santos. Saving. So when you turn off a light, you say saving. When you turn on a light, you say striking. Alright? So you see now how there's dark shadows over here. Now, strike fill. See, now that has been filled up. Now, what is happening is his face is lit. But what's happening is there's no separation between him and his background. That is where the third light comes into perspective, which is called the hairline light or the rim light because it highlights the rims of the head of a human face, not any other head, right. Alright, let's strike Rim. Alright, so you can see over here now we have a simple white light, but what you can see is now the hair is, like, completely switched. So now we see the hair is, like, completely we see like a whole lining around his head, right? So if you see him just gonna come here, you see, like this portion over here. This portion is where, like, the lining. So what this does is this separates him from the background, right? So what that does is it creates depth. It creates depth of how the object or the subject is. So in this thing, he's like a subject. Now, if you want to make it a little bit more moody, you can always do that if you wanted to. So let's try to make it like a red color or something, Santos, or make it like warmer, whatever. Now I'm gonna be logging because some so struggling or changing the life. So I'm gonna be logging right now and see whether this works or not. Okay. Thank you, Nikil. Say hi. 15. Contrast with Light & Color: Alright. So now, if you see, we have the red color. So what this does, it creates something called color contrast, right? Now, what is color contrast? Is now let me come here and let me explain something. Alright. So color contrast, color contrast is something which is basically now, think of it like this, my arm, right, my hand. Now, you're going to see a whole color wheel, right? So now you see the color wheel. Now, over here in the color wheel, you see that on one side, it is orange, then one side it is blue. One side it is, like, yellow. So you see the whole wheel over here, right? So basically what contrast is is when you use different sides of the color wheel, which creates contrast, which creates separation. Now, over here, if you see now cut to Biro, if you see, we have the main key light right. The main key light is at a lower temperature, right, which is around 3,600 kelvin. So now, if you see the light on his hairline is red light. So they're very much similar. Like the red light is much more warmer, right? It's probably like 1,000 kelvin, and the key light is like around 4,000 to 3,000 kelvin. So now, this doesn't look bad, but what makes or breaks the difference is creating color contrast. Now, if we change the hairline to something opposite, which is blue, so some thought why don't you go ahead and make it blue? So you see how Nas purple. Let's make it blue. It's green. Perfect. So you see over here, now what difference that makes. This is called color contrast, right? So now, this is the basic three point lighting. Thank you, 16. Hard Light vs Soft Light: So now what we'll be doing is now we'll come over here and if you see one more thing, actually, no, sit down. I have one more thing to explain. So if you see the light that we're using, right, is just directly from the bulb. So you can see the shadows are extremely, extremely harsh. Like, you see, like, right over here on his nose, like over here, like, the shadows very, very harsh. So this type of lighting is called hard light. Alright? That is what it means. Usually, the key light is never hard. The reason why I'm showing you this is because I want to see I want you to show the shadows. I want to show you how the shadows are. Usually what you do is you use something like this. Come over here. Let me show you. So now you see hard light, right? So now what this does now key light, like I said, is supposed to be either mostly soft light. So if you see over here, this is softer, hard light, soft light, hard light, right? So now, usually key light is usually used in soft light. And when you do soft light, basically what happens is it diminishes the brightness a little bit, so you have to make it a little bit more bright in order for it to work. 17. Lighting Patterns: What we will be talking about right now is lighting patterns. Now, if you just turn around and show the set, this is the fill light. That's the hairline, and that's the key. Now, why did I place where I placed it? Right? We're going to be talking about that. We're going to be talking about lighting patterns, right? So now we'll just talk about the key light and because that's the main source of light. So we're going to be talking about that and how we're going to be creating lighting patterns. So, number one, sometimes I'm going to take that handheld, that will be the easiest for you. Now, if you got to B roll, now, if you see if I bring now the light straight in front of him, right? You see how that is creating the light. Basically, be right in front of him. You can come more close. You can come more closer. No, that's, yeah, like that. Keep it, like, right here, yeah. So look at that. So this lighting is called flat lighting, right? If you see on Bal, this is called flat lighting. This is where the light is literally placed right in front of the subject. What this usually when you see this, you see this in commercials, TV shows, Master Chef, India, Master Chef, UK, master chef, Australia, is where everything is flat. So you see the shadows are very, very minimalistic. So you don't really see much shadows. This is called flat lighting. Alright. Moving on to the next one, we call the paramount lighting. We take the same light and you move it upwards, move it upwards, upwards, upwards, keep moving up. And you move closer, but put it straight, a little bit on this side. No, no, no, come here. Like like from here. Yeah. Yeah, like that. Yeah, that's fine. So you see right over here, what this creates. This creates, if you see roll right now, so you see now what this does. This creates a small little thing on his nose, which is called butterfly or it's called paramount lighting. So what this does, why it's called paramount is because it's literally comes from the paramount pictures. This is their signature lighting, right? And this is what is called paramount lighting. You see a little butterfly. Now, if you move the light a little bit to the side, that's it. Now you see how it creates like this little loop on the side of his nose. So that this right here is called loop lighting. All right? Loop lighting is also very, very common. It is used a lot in people who have round faces, right? So this is something that is used in loop lighting. Now, if you place the camera, I mean, if you place the light right back on the um, thingy, when you move further away at around 45 degrees from a loop lighting, you see where it creates. This is called the Rembrandt lighting. So if you see what this does is it creates like a small little triangle, right? So what this triangle is basically what a Rembrandt lighting is. This is the most popular lighting in cinema as of today in 2024. It comes from this Dutch painter. His name is Rembrandt, so it comes from that where all of his paintings have this inverse triangle. That is something that we use, right? Now, before we go to another type of lighting, since Rembrandt is the one that we will mostly be using for our lights, let me show you how to shoot and in Rembrandt lighting. So if you see Rembrandt lighting over here, we're now shooting straight, right? So always remember when you're shooting light in cinema, you should always shoot from the dark side. I'll tell you why. Imagine now this is a scene, right? So imagine you're having a conversation here, okay, Ashish. And I shoot from here. See how this doesn't look bad, right? This doesn't look bad, but this is something pretend to have a conversation, Ash. Yeah. So you see, this is not bad, but this is flat. This is not cinematic. So when you're using lighting, make sure you always shoot from the dark side. Now let's flip. Now you see, look at that. You see the triangle on his face and you see how the dark side, how it is much more cinematic. This is why shooting from the dark side is the most important. All right? So this is called Rembrandt lighting and how you use this pattern to create basically cinema. Alright. Now, the last type of lighting that we will be talking about is called split lighting. Alright? So now how split lighting works is now will not use a big key light. We will use this small little fill light, right. So why don't we will create split lighting Sankoh. So let's just save key, and now you see everything is dark again. So now what we'll be creating is we'll be creating split lighting with this one. So split lighting is basically what is basically when you light half of your face, literally half of your face. Alright, strike it up. All right. Now look at that. Now, this, my friend. This right here, you see the contours of his face. I literally splits a part over here, right? So it cuts his face in half. This type of lighting is used for extreme drama, extreme action. Ahi automatically he saw the light on one side, he became angry, right? Because he knows acting, so he understands that this is a dramatic thing. Now imagine this, right? Now, Santos what we do is we'll create contrast with these two lights, right? So what I'll do is I'll move this light over here, right? And you move that light on this side, and we'll create contrast. Alright. So we have one split over here. Okay, now, now watch. This is at a little warmer temperature. Now, let's change the color of that Santos. Now, look at that, my friend. That got to be rolled right now. You're gonna be missing out on real good stuff. Look at that. This my friend is called split lighting. Now, see, here is purple. It can be orange. It could be red. See the drama that is being created. This, my friend is to create drama. This my friend is to create amazing, amazing movies. A lot of movies use split lighting to cause the person, the murderer, the horror film, something like that. Alright? So this is something which is super, super important. This is the last lighting pattern. So what did we talk about? We talked about Flat lighting. We talked about paramount lighting. We talked about loop lighting. We talked about the most popular one, the Rembrandt lighting, and we talked about over here this one called the split lighting. All right. So these are basically the lighting patterns that you use. 18. Two Point Lighting & Practicals: Over here, it depends. Now the hairline and the fil is something that you can choose to do. Like, for example, in this particular case, plate lighting doesn't really need hairline because it's already so much going on, hairline would destroy the whole drama of it. Now, sometimes what happens is sometimes you might not want to use three point lighting. Sometimes you want to use two point lighting. So what is two point lighting? That is when you only use the key and the hairline. All right. So let's do that real quick. So I'm going to take the fill bring it up over here. Move it aside. I want to say fill. I want to strike. Striking. Now we just have two point lighting, right? So sometimes this helps create cinema. Sometimes the three point lighting, if you switch it on, you see the field light, it might look good, but it's not cinematic, right? So I want to turn this off, and then I want to do something like a crazy, nice little movement, nice little dolly movement like this, going out, little handheld shot like this. This creates lighting. This creates cinema with only two point lighting. So think of it like this. Lighting creates a lot of beautiful, beautiful cinema. Now, why do you think orange and teal is very popular? Is because of the color wheel, right? See the color wheel, how orange and blue are opposite spectrums of the color wheel. Do you see that? That, my friend, is called color contrast. That's why orange and teal are very, very beautiful, and it's extremely, extremely something that people enjoy visually seeing, right? So that is what orange and teal is. Now, the one thing, so with two point lighting, what happens is sometimes you want to enhance this, right? Like, if you see over here, Ahi is looking beautiful. There's a nice two point lighting. There's nice hairline, there's a key light, but how can we change this? How can we spice it up? Sometimes, what happens is you want to use practicals. So the way practicals work is practical. Sometimes you want to place a lamp, you want to place anything there like a candle or anything that you want. So if that is there, then it can just enhance the background. Right now, these practicals don't really have any lights, so we can't show practicals, but a simple lamp, a simple just LED thing that you can show. Here's an example of one thing that I shot for, um, the academy, on my set, you can see, like, over here that we have those LED lights how we are using them as practicals and the lamp behind, as you can see over here, we're using them as practicals. So this is something that you can use to enhance the background. 19. How to NOT Light: Alright. Now, one thing which you should never, ever, ever do, alright? Let's get the light handheld. You should never, ever, ever do. I'm gonna turn off the hairline. Lighting. This is I'm going to show you what bad lighting is, okay? Now, look at that. This is lighting that you should not do. Look at how he's holding the lighting. So this is something that you should not do. What this does, this creates shadows, like riot on his eyes because this is much more higher, right? These two positions are higher. So this creates like whole shadows over here, and it gives dark circles which nobody wants. And these are called basically raccoon eyes. That's what they're called. Here's a picture of a raccoon. This is how his eyes look. So this is one lighting you should not do. And then do one from below. And I'll look at that. This is your classic horror film. You can see this is something that people you can see it's like in the campfire, you know, like in a full tent and stuff like that. The people have, like, the torch light. Like over here, they say, like those horror films. This is something you This is what it creates. So what does why this doesn't look pleasing to the eye, is because it enhances the contours of a face which are the most unpleasing. Number one is this side of his chin. This is lit now. Usually, this is supposed to be dark. This is now completely lit. His nostrils, now, everybody knows what's inside his nose, right? So that is lit completely. Like, over here, like this part, his eyebrows, the insides of his eyebrows, that is completely lit. So the parts of the face which are not really that, like, visually appealing of a human face, that becomes lid. Alright, so let's remove it. Put it back on stand. So this is how we do lighting, uh, Ravi on 20. Overall Tips of Lighting: Alright, so thank you, Ashish, for being the model and getting your eyes spoiled because of us. So do you guys have any other tips that you want to share with the students for lighting? Something that I have not covered. If there's anything for window light, you can sometime, what happens? Giv us lightning. So you can use your window light. Like directly, use your sunlight or outdoor jackey you can do things. But basically indoor Apco kernel lighting. That time Losito windows a arc you can use split light for windows and outside k or for cinematic shot kill Blow use corset window light. It's the best lighting part. And what the best part of lighting is even without the dialogues or any, uh, you know, music, you can, uh, you know, create the emotions with the help of lighting. So use it creatively and just use it so that you can enhance your film. Yeah. Like mode banana. Red light, yellow light exactly. ModingFlm maybe they go bar lot of light set up with that according to emotions. Yes we've see ga, lighting, which is Asta, so just No, these are good points. And also, so like I said, like, you know, how shooting over here is not good. So what does that tell you? Do not shoot at 12:00 P.M. In the afternoon outside, right? Because that time the sun is right up there. So there are apps which you can use. So I'm going to link some of the apps for the Playstore on Google and the app store below in this course description, which you can use to see the sunrise sunset and calculate the sun's position. It's like you use this augmented reality. You can check the position of the sun in the moon and you can use that to plan your shoots accordingly, alright? So that's something very, very useful. Then one of the beautiful times to shoot if you don't have lights and if you're just relying on daylight, one of the beautiful times to shoot is if it's cloudy, you can shoot whenever you want, right? So imagine this. Remember this thing. So imagine this. This is the sun, right? This right here. This is the cloud, right? So if it's a cloudy day, you have a natural soft box. So you'll have just one plain light throughout. Now, if it's clear skies and you want to shoot at a good time, obviously not 12:00, not 2:00, not 3:00. Choose a time when the sun is at a 45 degree like how we did with this light, the sun will go like this, right? So choose a time which is around 45 degrees. Now, what is that called in film? That's called my friends golden hour. That's when the sun is setting or the sun is rising. That's when the temperature of the sun is very, very low. It's like 3,600 Kelvin, 4,000 Kelvin, and that gives beautiful beautiful golden light vibes. Here are some examples that you can see on screen, as over here, you can see the subjects are lit with that golden light glow, which is why a lot of influencers on Instagram and stuff, they usually post stories when the sun is about to set or when the sun is rising, right? Sets more because rising, you have to wake up for that. Even I don't see sun rises, so it's okay. And that's called the Golden Hour. After the sun sets till the time it gets dark, that area, that time is called Twilight. Alright? So Twilight is also a moody type of lighting which you can use if you don't have like, for example, it can be like something sometimes they want to be, um, just an action film when they're getting ready to go out for, like, a shootout, go out for, like, a movies. So Twilight is something which is, like, around, like, not 5,600 Kelvin, but around 6,000 to 7,000 Kelvin is when you have that flat lighting, and you can use that and, um, Okay. To your advantage, right? So that covers lighting. If there's anything you guys want us to capture in lighting that you did not understand, please let us know on the comments or let us know on discord, then we can make a course. We can make a lesson based on your needs as well. This is something that this type of lighting, this theory, not only applies to live action, this applies to animation, CG as well. Even when you're in the CG platform, when you're in Maya or blender or cinema fody whatever you use during that time, you use the same concept, right, of lights where it can be 45 degrees up, not up, not down, flat lighting, you use the same concept, right? Hairline, three point lighting, use the same concept. So keep that in mind, and I wish you guys all the best. Now what I want you guys to do is when you are planning your shots, planning your film, at that point of time, think of the lighting that you're going to be using. Think of whether there's going to be daylight or if it's a simple I'll also link a couple of, um, very cheap Amazon lights that you can buy, which is like I don't remember the price, but very very cheap Amazon lights, which you can literally just start off if you have that minimum budget, and you can use that to immediately get good lighting for your film that you're making. All right? So in the next course, we'll be talking about, I think, directing, right? Directing, where I will be talking about what a director does and what is the job of a director, mostly speaking about that and how when on set, how to talk to an actor is what I will be covering. Thank you. I love record Mako question A Mind M. M love Joe. Audience Samara B watch Sym ke Mind M. Why don't we use normal Joe lights, Lambs go? Yeah. Why Lkight? Yeah. Why do we need professional lights or cinematic lights? No, I think it's a very good question. This is what I want, you know? I want conversations. This is what makes our things different. So I think, um, the reason why number one, you don't use house lights, right, is because I would say, number one, same rule, lights are uptop, right? Lights are uptop, so most of the shadows that you will find are going to be like over here. So they're not really pleasing to a person's facial structure. That's why you don't use house lights. That's why I would rather have you open the window and turn on these lights as well. Because first, number one, this is hard light. There's no softness, so it gives dark shadows, harsh shadows. Secondly, they're right on top. So they will only light up the eye socket, and that is not pleasing as you saw in this example, right? So if you don't want you don't have lights, open a window, go outside anytime other than 12:00 A.M. 12:00 P.M. To, like, 3:00 P.M. Try to avoid that that time. And also Jez lights. We continuously July. I mean, Yamai Akobo Patanh that lights, was the blink or eyes. Love. Huh. Camera Ao flicker normalized semi legal light, but cameras shoot light speed come on professional light lame, manga. What other fast speed blink for there. And then because of that, fill your camera flicker na. Yeah that goes back to the frame rate in which you are shooting in. So it's like from your phone, if you're shooting in DSA is 24 frans per second, sometimes a lot of times you'll see like when you shoot car lights and stuff or just regular lights, you'll see flicker. So at that point of time, you need to switch to pal because in India, we use Pal, right? So when you use Pal, that flicker goes away because you're shooting at 25 FPS, and the resolution lines are much more than the flicker goes away, which is why what Lucki Right you said, lights are expensive, which is why because it avoids these particular things because your eyes are magic cameras, magic lenses. It fixes everything, whether you're in Antarctica or in To, it doesn't matter, right? Hey, there will be no flicker in your eye. If you see a flicker in your eyes, go show a doctor. I cannot fix that. I'll be a film doctor, but not your eye, doctor. Alright. Alright. Anything else that you have? That's it. I think that's the best advice to use natural lights because by spending so much, we try to recreate the natural lights, 5,600 Kelvin, and God has gifted us the big bulb. So use it bub thanhank you guys. Thank you. See you guys next lesson. 21. Directing: Introduction: Alright, guys, welcome to the last lesson of live action. So as you guys know, to start off, you will have to direct your own film. So there are a couple of things that you need to keep in mind when it comes to directing. Directing means basically to direct the film. Now obviously, that's very obvious. I don't expect you guys to just, like, there you go. That's the lessons over, guys. The lessons over. Now, I'm just kidding. A lot goes behind directing. So there are some directors which don't really know the technicalities of each part of a film. And then there's some directors who know most of the things of a film, and there are some directors who know certain aspects of it. Right? So the reason why you're in this film journey is you will know every aspect of the film. So as a director, you will really know what to say, especially when you're working with the crew, especially when you're working with bunch of people. It's very, very easy to understand and to know what to say, when to say it. Alright? So there are various various aspects of directing. Number one, it's your vision. It is your baby. It might not be your story, but it is still your vision. For example, there might be people who come with a story like, Hey, I have this beautiful script, I have this beautiful screenplay. I have this thing that I want to create. I have these beautiful characters that I have. I want to be able to tell that story. Now, they might not be a filmmaker, but they might be a person who might be interested in showcasing that through film. You as director will bring that aspect into this particular realm of film. So the way you do it is you start thinking about the story. Is it something funny? Is it something? Is it a horror? Is it action, is there a lot of sequences where people fight. So you will start thinking about those aspects which will give you a creative boost as to what type of genre this film is going to be. So that is what the number one job of a director is to think from the creative aspect as to the vision, the mission of this story, and to be able to do justice to the story of the film, whether it is your own story or whether it is somebody else's story. Because a lot of times, what happens is somebody writes a script, somebody has a story, but they don't necessarily know how to say it through the medium of film. 22. Handling Pipeline & Technicalities: Two is to manage the technical details of the film. Now, what do I mean by technical details? The things that I talked about the pre production, the short list. Now, think about it. It goes back to the things I talked about way in the creative grammar. In this particular shot, I want the character to feel inferior. What would I do in that? I would make sure to use a high angle to make sure that the person seems inferior. So that is something as a director, you need to be aware and be cognizant about that. Now, usually, this is the job of a cinematographer where you work with the person, and like, Hey, DOP director of photography or cinematographer, whatever. There's a slight difference. A director of photography is the boss of a cinematographer. A cinematographer is a person who uses the camera. A director of photography is the person who directs the cinematographer. Hence it's called director of photography. There's no DOV. It's just called photography because you use a camera. So nowadays, both of them are combined, and a lot of people think DOP cinematographer is the same thing, but it's actually not. It's when you have a small crew is when you kind of mix and mix both of them. So if I'm the director, I have somebody with me who is my DOP, I tell them, Hey, listen, Mr. DOP, I have to create this moody scene. What does a DOP do? The DOP immediately thinks, Alright, let's talk about this angle. Let's talk about a Dutch angle. Let's dolly in a little bit. Let's, um, do this, let's do this movement. Let's track this. Let's not keep it static. So this is the discussion that you'll have. So when the DOP talks these terminologies with you as a director, you're supposed to be aware of what he's saying. It should not be like, Oh, he's speaking a complete different language. So that's something that's very important, which is why I'm here teaching you all of this, because this is regardless of live action, animation, whatever you do, these are important conversations you will have with your team, with your crew, with yourself if you're the only person shooting it. Then we have a CLT, who you'll be working with, which is the chief lighting technician. So this person is basically helps you create the mood using the lights, right? If you want something dramatic, let's say you have a CLT who is like, Oh, you have a drama, you want to do drama. Let's put the light in front of the face. Right? So that means you should fire that CLT, because that means he doesn't know what he's doing, right? So this is where I'm teaching you what I'm teaching you so that you know that nobody can take advantage of you as a director. So if it's drama, you know, now you know, if you go back to my lighting course, you know which one creates the most drama, which is the split lighting, right? It's more masculine. If you're shooting a nice, beautiful female model and you're trying to showcase her feminine side, you use the paramount pictures, right? Paramount lighting. It showcases her nice cheekbones. So this is something as a director. As in when you're using it, you start understanding what exactly is used moving on to the next one, which obviously I've not covered it yet, but you will cover in the editing suite is called the style of editing. So based on the story, you will try to understand whether this is going to be fast paced, is going to be slow paced, how the edit should be. So you sit with your editor, you sit with them like This is the vision that I am creating. So director oversees every single technical aspects, including color grading. Color grading is one of the important aspects of a film because the thing that you see, for example, now, this is no color grade. Now, you see this color graded. Now, this is Color grid. Now, this is just a simple colour grid that I've put, right? Now, if you want to add drama, if you want to do, let's say, an action film, this is how it will look. If you want to do a comedy film, this is how it will look. If you want to do a horror film, this is how it will look. So you see these different things, these different looks are what makes or breaks a film. And that as a director, you have to keep in mind that the color is most important because it adds texture, it adds composition, it adds depth in whatever you do. So keep that in mind, guys, and you will learn more about how to create these looks in the next module in the editing suite, where I will be talking about diving deep into the basics of color grading. 23. Directing the Performance: Alright, last but not the least, you will be working with actors, right? So one of the most important things that you might hear in Bollywood and Hollywood is that actors love working with directors. Some actors don't like working with directors. Now, let's use this thing as an example. Alright, so we will use somebody who is not an actor to try and teach them how to act. So we have Santosh over here, Ashish has shaved his hair and worn a new t shirt, and he's going to be sitting down. Just see whether it looks fine. Alright, so now as you can see, we have Santos over here. So now, basically, as a director, will I do? He's the actor. His scene. This is going to be his scene. His scene is going to be drinking. Water, please hold drinking water, and his scene is gonna be drinking water and thinking about his marriage tomorrow. Okay? He's gonna be thinking about his marriage tomorrow that he has to go attend his marriage, and a lot of things are tending. So now if I say, so this is the scene, okay? You're drinking water, and you're supposed to be thinking about, and you're gonna get married tomorrow, alright? Now, as a director, I have given him the direction, right? So now I say action got to. Okay. Alright, cut. Alright, so now you see not bad, not bad, right? He tried his best. He tried his best. He didn't do a half bad job. He tried his best. Now, what I did, this is what a rookie director does. A rookie director does exactly this. He tells, Alright, actor, act. That's something which you should never do. The most important thing for a director to do is to get your actor into a headspace, right? So when you get your actor into a headspace, you talk to the actor. The most important part of being a director of being in the scene is to understand what happens before the scene, what happens after the scene, right? And when you have before the scene and after the scene, then the acting of that particular scene is enhanced much, much more. So you need to get that aspect, get that actor into the headspace. Now, this is how real directing is done, and this is how you should direct yourself or direct your actors. Alright. Santos. So now what has happened with you is, um, today, you had a fight with your fiancee. Alright? You had a fight with your fiancee. She you found her phone and there was somebody texting, texting her. And what was weird was Wo message, Delete Togeta. TT Anaga Whats up Mv Arch Otana WhatsAp archive Ogata. So now what has happened is ApcaKll appointment TakziGiha Malm appointment Tak sigiha but W Huane Kunki Aki wife, she didn't show up. Now, tomorrow Upca Shade. So you have to go there to discuss many things with your wife. But now, phone a phone Kit's phone Dict archived kola Archive kola. Then you see, like, a lot of messages are deleted and just, hey, hi. Hey, what are you doing? Most of my baggies are deleted messages. Tik tab k Wife ku Busta, haga Hoge, haga Okay or Niko Jata. Tika Fed now, you come and sit over here, and now you're drinking water. And then tomorrow, now you're not going to see your wife directly see her at the manda. And this has happened right before. So now you have preparations to do. You have to go shopping. You have to finish your work at your office, and you have to do many things over there. So now you finally got a breather to actually drink some water and think cut to A. Remember, seeing those texts, you've been dating her for over a year now. You have been dating her for one year. And suddenly Ausca phone phone Diani chat there. Abuse, phone Kai Tata phone messaga Dia. What? Watani y. Apps intentions in yai phone check on there. Up's intention Gygi haka message. Hi, Baby Apo message upca Messaga. So how will you feel if after a whole relationship, one year, you're gonna get married tomorrow and you see deleted messages, you see hey, and tomorrow you're getting you're not gonna see her before. You won't have a chance to, um, talk with her. You won't have a chance to see her. Uk cousins Kapepurk cousin, you're busy environment. And this is the only time you 2 minutes to drink water by yourself. Three, two, one action. Got. I see you guys. You see his pupils dilated. You see how everything the way his expressions are, everything changed. Everything became different. Before you saw how it was, and now you see how it is. Everything has completely changed. Everything has completely changed. Even the people around me, everybody is quiet now because **** is getting serious. That is what my friend is real directing is you take the situation, the scene. You speak about what happened before, and you speak about what will happen after. That is what creates the drama creates real acting. Keep that in mind, and that is the basics of directing. There's much, much, much more stuff which is there. But I will talk about that in the advanced directing course. This is to start off, this is more than enough, especially if you're talking to an actor. All right? Thank you, guys for your time and the Intro to live action. I will see you guys in the Edit suite, where we take every single phase that we have. Make sure you wear glasses, anti glare glasses because you're going to be spend a lot of time in the next two modules in front of a computer. Me, too, as well, because I'll be screen recording. So see you guys there. Sotos feel better. This is not real acting. So cheers. Thanks. 24. Thank You!: Alright, so hope you guys had a wonderful learning from this live action essentials in filmmaking. Keep in mind that all of this that I have said also translates to CG, as well. So with virtual cameras, it could be after effects. It could be in Maya, it could be blender, Cinema 40, whatever, have you. All of these translate into those particular softwares as well. This theory is crucial for you because when you adjust parameters, you're not just going to be flicking buttons, you're going to be making a directional change. So regardless of what camera you use, whether it's actual or virtual, ready. And if you want to get into post production, make sure to check out my other classes where I teach editing, color grading, color correction, animation, and a little bit of the ACS workflow. If you have any questions, please comment below. Let's start a discussion. In one of the discussions, I have posted a link to my Discord channel, so you can use that link to kind of join, and we can have discussions over there, calls over there. I'm available for you guys. And thank you once again. See you.