Transcripts
1. Lighting Concepts 2 INTRO: Hi, my name is Shannon and welcome to my class
on lighting basics. This is a Concepts Two class. The second part, If you
missed the first part, go back and look
at concepts one. But we will be going into lighting basics with how
light affects your ****, how F stop affects
depth of field, the amount of light
you lett blurring. Then I'm going to talk about three point and four
point lighting, which is standard lighting
in the film industry. It applies to photography
and video as well. And then in a subsequent class, I will take you into the studio. I have a little studio with my model and we'll
play with lights. Just gives you some
creative ideas to see how you might like
to light your set. Before we get started, let
me give you a little bit of my background out
of high school. I went to college and graduated with a television
broadcasting degree. I got a job in a
Northwest TV studio. We did live and
taped TV production. I ran master control,
I ran camera, and I was also assistant
lighting director. Mostly. I did photography
for lots of years, and then I got interested in basic film and video projects. In 2012, I hosted the Central
Oregon Film Festival. We did that for five
years and we brought in industry professionals to
teach the craft of filmmaking. We covered everything from
script writing to audio, you name it. We covered it. Then I did some video projects. I also did corporate
video projects. I feel like I have
a lot of years of experience to
bring to the table. And I'm so excited to
teach this class because light has always fascinated
me. Let's get started.
2. Lighting Concepts 2 CAMERAS & LIGHT: In order to fully understand the concepts of
light and lighting, you have to get
your camera off of auto exposure so you can be in total control if
you're end product. I want to start by talking about light and how it
affects your camera. Let's start with the F stop
and aperture controls, which is the front
of your camera. It's the aperture. Iris is how much light is
let in through the ****. The smaller number
is more light. It's basically like your eye. It's like the iris of your eye. And it lets in
more or less light depending on the situation. And we'll talk about
depth of field as well. This is the aperture
of the camera. It controls how much light
you let into the camera. The smaller numbers here, 3.55 0.6 those are
smaller numbers. And that's the F stop. It lets in more light. Then as you go down to
the larger numbers, it closes down that
little diaphragm and it lets in less light. 22 to 3.5 is wide
open on this ****. A lot of lenses go down to 1.8 The basics of this are the diaphragm either
closes down in the 22, that would be really small. You'd want to do that if it
was a really bright day, maybe on the beach, you wanted lots of
depth of field, which is everything before and after your subject in focus. Just a whole bunch
of stuff in focus. Big range 22 would
be closed down, letting in not very
much light then, but you have lots of depth of field or on maybe
a dark evening, you open it all the way up to 3.5 which is the
biggest on this ****. You let in as much light as
you can completely open. You're not going to have
very much depth of field. Your subject will be in focus. Whatever you focus on is
going to be in focus anyway. Whatever you focus on is going
to be the point of focus, and then everything
else is going to be blurry before and after. But that's basically the
concept of that is more light, less depth of field. Depth of field is how
much foreground and background is in focus
in a range of feet. I'd say two things affect that. That is the length of your ****, how close you are
to the subject. That can vary. Your
depth of field can vary. If you move back away
from the subject, you can get more depth of field. This is an example of
somebody who is in focus, but the background
is out of focus. It's not a lot of difference, but it is enough difference
that it separates the subject from the
background somewhat. They're using a shallow
depth of field. They have opened up their
**** and let in more light, which means they had to use a faster shutter
speed depending on whether it was cloudy
or a bright day, looks like it might have
been overcast anyway. There's a trade off there. If you want a shallow
depth of field, then you have to open
up your diaphragm, but that lets in more light, so you have to close down. You have to have a
faster shutter speed, so there's less light on that. This is an example of
what they call Boca. This is really
nice. I would say. This is probably a
very expensive **** because most lenses you
don't have that nice. Boca is probably
an overcast day. I don't see a bunch
of bright lights. But anyway, the background
is completely out of focus and is creamy and nice, and he is just separated
completely from his background. I would guess a really
good **** also. They have their iris, their aperture open really wide. Maybe like 1.8 or
2.4 or whatever. Maybe they've got like 100
or 200 millimeter **** on it and they're
a long ways away. Probably anyway. There are various factors but I really like the way
that this looks. He's just totally separated
away from his background. This one, though, for a
different application, you don't necessarily
want something separated. Everything is in focus that diaphragm and they've
let in less light. Now they have more
things in focus. They're probably focused
on one little shell, but everything before and
after is in focus because they're closed down to
maybe 16 or 22 on this one. Okay. We showed aperture. We showed a **** with the
F stops each full stop, which is 2481632, I
think is the next one. If you have a ****
with that much, each full stop change
directly changes the light. You either get one half of
light if you're closing down, or you have two
times more light. That's why those really nice, expensive lenses are worth the price if you have the money. Because they go down to maybe two or 1.8 and they let
in so much more light. I will say I got started in photography when
it was 35 millimeter. People had full frame cameras.
They're very expensive. I never had one but the
mirror, the new ones, they changed the amount, shoot the length of the **** away from the back
of the camera. Even when you have a ****, maybe say an old
style **** at F two, I believe it changes
the depth of field. Basically you're at four for a depth of field
even though it's letting in the same
amount of light, but you don't have as
much depth of field, which is a sad trade off
for the mirrorless cameras. Some people might
be going back to full frame because
of that course. You're getting into a lot
of money at that point. This would be an example
of a lot of light beach. The sun is reflecting
off the ocean, reflecting off of
the white sand. You just have a lot
of light there. So this would be a situation where you would probably close down your aperture to 16 or 22. And then you'd also have a
fast shutter speed, say 12, 50thone 500th of a second, maybe even more light situation. You're going to have
a hard time getting shallow depth of
field on the beach. Because of that, there are
various tricks you can do. People I think use
neutral density filters. But most of the time, in a lot of light situation, you're going to be
cranking your ISO down as far as you can, to a low number and
then high shutter speed and high number of stops. You're going to have a lot of depth of field
and range on that. Shutter speed
controls how quickly the **** is open and
closed to let in light. The faster shutter speed
means you stop the action. You would want to use these. A faster shutter speed for maybe a sports game or something where you wanted to really quick picture of
somebody mid air. They're reaching
for the ball and it just stops the
action right there. Faster shutter
speed, Stop action. Slower shutter speed
is more blurry. Um, say dusk or night time. You would open up
your shutter speed. You could, you're going to be
on a tripod at that point. Your shutter speed,
you could go down to maybe 1 second or one
tenth of a second, one 30th of a second, or maybe 10 seconds
or 30 seconds long. Your shutter just stays
open. It's recording. You don't have movement.
You're on a tripod, but anything that moves
is going to be blurry. Here's an example
of stop action, you would say 1500 or
one 1000th of a second. Real quick shutter and it's going to stop that
action right there. In order to close down, you have to have
a lot of light in order to have a shutter speed. You have to have a lot of
light and you're also going to probably not the option of
a lot of depth of field. This is an example of when you slow your
shutter way down. This is probably time
lapse photography, but you have a nice
blur, they might. They've got maybe
one or 2 seconds each time the vehicle
is coming in. It's blurring because
it's movement. Although they're on a tripod, everything else is in
focus and is not blurry. Strong lines here, but any movement is
going to be blurred. For video, you could choose
a slower frame rate. Iso controls the amount of digital manipulation
of the light setting. If you need more light,
you're going to be cranking up your ISO to hire to get more
artificial light. It's not real light, it's
a digital manipulation. However, the higher
you crank up your ISO, the more digital noise
you're going to have in your video or your photos. You just need to
be aware of that, that you're going to
be introducing noise mostly into the blacks
because the white areas, they're white or lighter because they're
getting some light, but the blacks aren't in the shadows is really where you're going to have
a problem with the noise. The basic rule of thumb
I think is 800 to 1,600 Macs from most
cameras of ISO. And if you have to
go higher than that, just be aware that
you're going to be introducing noise into the
blocks and the shadows. I found a picture that is a pretty good example of
what I call digital noise. It was really low light here, so they had to
crank up their ISO. I'm guessing this is like 6,400 This is almost dark and everybody's
got their lights on. Anyway, you can see all
the fragments into dots. You have fading in
between the light. And it's just I manipulated this picture so that you could actually
see the noise, but this is what they
used to call film grain. Now I would call it
more digital noise. Then you don't have any
Boca because these are, the lights are stark. You don't have any nice creamy. This is probably not a really
expensive **** either. The aperture exposure, ISO relationship is the wider your aperture
on your camera. You remember we talked about iris diaphragm opening
and closing on the ****. The wider the aperture, which means the lower
number you downed. Maybe four or two
lets in more light. You have less depth of field. Sometimes you might
want depth of field, sometimes you want
less depth of field. The slower shutter, that's how quickly it closes and opens. Again, I'd say frame rate more light, but it's less sharp. You introduce more blur. The higher ISO also
lets in more light, but you have less sharp blacks and you're introducing
more noise. There's a trade off there. Shutter speed, frame rate, faster shutter on video. In film is stop action, but it's an aggressive look. Slower shutter speed. I think the film industry
prefers 24 frames per second. Most video is done at 24 frames per second
is just a slower look. It's a Hollywood look. A slower shutter is
more blurry, dreamy. The thing about
faster frame rates is if you have any action, you want to run on a faster
frame rate so that you can slow it down for
more smooth slow motion. You say biking contest, and there are bikes
out there and they're going and doing their
loops and stuff like that. Faster frame rate, you say 120, maybe they've got 240. I don't know, 120
frames per second would give you a lot more
frames to slow that down. If say you had 24
frames a second, that's not very many
frames and it's going to be more jerky. If you have slow motion, it's going to be really
jerky in video and film. Your shutter speed should
be double your frame rate. If you're shooting at
24 frames per second, you should have a minimum
of one 50th shutter speed. Going down lower, you're going to probably introduce
quite a bit of blur, which you don't necessarily want unless you're
doing it on purpose. But this would be
an amateur mistake. Probably you're not doing it
on purpose unless you know the rule and then you
break it successfully.
3. Lighting Concepts 2 STUDIO LIGHTING BASICS: Let's introduce three
point lighting, which is a common
term in the industry. I am going to introduce it, I think as a horror flick, just because I have a
quirky sense of humor. Here we are three
point lighting. There's a guy out
in the middle of nowhere and he's being
surrounded by cars. In the front of him is
one. It's pulled up there. This is called your key light. You big spot light there. He's going to be one
dimensional for one thing and it's going to
be really bright. Then you introduce
your second light, maybe you have another
car pulled up on the side and it's back a little bit
farther than the first one. You have one really bright
one on the side and one that's back a little bit
farther and not so bright. That's two D, which is
what you have here. She has one on this
side, one on this side. She's even lighting there,
and none on the back. She will probably fade into the background
unless they have a lighted curtain
or something key. One is going straight on the person number two that
fills in the shadows. Because this one is so bright, then it just makes it
a little bit less. But you fade into the background unless you
have your back light. Number three, you need
to light your hair, you need to light
your shoulders, and most people miss this one. This is common out there. People might have one key, they might have a fill, but they rarely have a back
light then they're trying to run green screen
for goodness sake. Anyway, okay, this is an example of the three
point lighting right here. Obviously you can
see the back light. She has a really bright
back light and it lights up her hair like
crazy and it looks good. Obviously has a main key light. She's using the
Hollywood lighting. It's not very high up from
her because you can see in her eyes right there. She doesn't have much shadow. It's a diffused light and she doesn't have much
shadow anywhere. Just a little hint of
shadow then on the side. Her key light is
lighting up the side of her face and her hair. Back here, she's
got two of them, then she's got one on the side. Her fill is not actually
really filling, it's more like illuminating
the side of her face, and neck, and shoulder there. This is called classic
Clint Eastwood lighting. It's usually used for men because it highlights
their chin. The strong masculine
jaw, it looks okay on. I don't know that this is really enhancing
her right there. But anyway, that's a classic example
of three point lighting, although they moved the fill
way off to the side here. If you turned these two lights off and you just
had a back light, it would be like your car. You're out in the middle of nowhere again and
there are cars. I seem to be stuck on cars. You have a car right behind you, that's your back light,
just to reinforce that this is what
it would look like. This guy has a light. It's up at an angle. It's lighting up the
top of his head, in the top of his shoulders, but just a back light. He's a silhouette with nothing on the side or
nothing on the face. Okay. To continue with
the creepy horror, you can have your key here. You fill here back light on
the shoulders and the hair. Then if you want to
continue with the set, you would start lighting
things on the set. They would need to
be important to your story or your
scene or your setting. Something that you
wanted to highlight. I've seen people in
political podcasts, they will maybe have a lighted
up poster behind them. Or maybe an American flag or a statue or something
that is important to them. Or they're in, they're in a library and they have a book lighted or
something like that. But that's what four
point lighting would be, is something in the
background is lighted that tells a little
bit more of the story. You can have your key, your fill your back light, your background
light on something. And then you're also
highlighting something over here that adds to the
background number five. Obviously, you can have
the whole entire set lighted up with lights all over. People will put in lamps behind them just to make it
more of a home look. They've got lights in the
background, different places. Also you can put different colored lights
in to affect mood. I will have a class on this one, because this one is, it's
worthy of a whole entire class. But you could have a different colored light
on this guy over here. You could have a
different background light on this guy
over here to make it look like a green or
blue. To highlight him. You could cut these two lights out and have just him
outlined in blue. Or you could just
have the key as a bright yellow on one
side with lots of shadow. You could take out the fill and then have him limbed
in a bright light. His shoulders, in the
back of his head. You could have maybe spooky, light orange lighting
on this house. There's any number of
things you can do, just opening your mind
to possibilities here.
4. Lighting Concepts 2 CLASS PROJECT / UPCOMING: All right, so for
a class project, why don't you take something
that I talked about today and practice with it. And then post to our
gallery either a link or maybe a little short clip or just a photo so that we
can all talk about it, discuss what you're doing
and give you feedback. Please keep your feedback
mostly positive. I just want to keep it
encouraging environment here since we're all just
doing crazy stuff, artistic, and just
getting started. Some of us are farther along. If you're going to critique, post a positive and
then a negative, just do that for me, please. Because I want to be
supportive of everybody. Also, I think art is such a creative endeavor and you're imparting
part of your soul. You just don't want to shut people down when
they're indulging in their creativity and doing something wild and
crazy or really cool, whatever it is, I would love to see your
stuff and please post. And then we'll talk about it and talk about
what is successful and what maybe wasn't
successful, in your opinion. Upcoming classes, color,
temperature for mood. I want to talk about that and that is worth a whole class. I'll tackle that subject. I'm also going to get my
model back into the studio. I have a little studio and we're going to play with
lights and just put a bunch of lights together
and see how you think, what works, what doesn't work, what might work for you. I'll show you what
lights I have. We'll just have fun.
Then another class. I'm also going to talk
about group lighting, how to light more
than one model. Then we're going to go into a video session that I did of my daughter who
recorded a new single. She's a Nashville artist. Her name is Asia Dawn. I set up some lights
and we videotaped. And I'll take you in there and let you hear
what they were doing. Her and her fellow musicians, you can learn about
group lighting. I want to thank you for
joining this class. I appreciate it so much for
notifications of new classes, just follow like
subscribe, comment, and you'll get notifications of any new content
that I am posting. So thank you so much and
we'll see you next time.
Shannon Wine, Video/Film/Photography Techniques
