Lighting Basics - Evening Studio: How to Create Attractive Lighting for Models + 3-Point Lighting

1. Lighting Basics - In the Studio: CLASS INTRO: Hi and welcome to my class. My name is Shannon Winiger and today we're going into the studio. This will be a nighttime studio, so we'll have total control over the light, no light spillage. Basically, we're just going to play in the studio and come up with different lighting scenarios that you might like for your podcast. Your photo, whatever you're working on. I'll show you my lights, the kinds that I'm using and where they're set up. And then what what I feel like is the best lighting for my model that I brought into the studio. The classes that I'm posting, I'm working on stuff all the time and I'm just working on editing and shooting and all of that. If you want to keep up on what I'm doing, my latest posting, please subscribe share with your friends if you feel like you're getting value, I'd really appreciate it. Some of the subjects that I'm going to be covering is how to improve your podcast. So like ten basic tips to improve your podcast. I'm also going to include one on why you should never use a ring light. So let's go into my studio and we'll see what we can come up with. Let's dive right in. 2. Lighting Basics - In the Studio: My Lighting Equipment: Let me show you my lighting equipment and how I have it set up. Then I will show you how I set it up for each scene, different scene with my model, so that you can reproduce that if you'd like in lighting. All of the same rules would apply to anything that you're doing with the camera. It would apply to all of those video podcasting, photography in a studio or elsewhere, and then also cinema. I started out with two fluorescent lights on their own stands. They really put out quite a bit of light as far as lumens, pretty bright because they have reflective inside. Then I usually run them with a diffuser panel on the front and all show the difference. The fluorescence were bought as a kit. You can get them for around $100 or so. It's a fairly inexpensive way to come up with two bright lights that you can use for both sides. And then really all you need is a back light to do a fairly complete three point lighting. The back light, which I would recommend a boom arm and a light stand for, but I didn't have a boom arm. I just set up behind the model, which you can do behind. But then if the person moves, then you have what I had, which was a little bit of light picking out behind the shoulder. But you can do that in a pinch. If you don't have a boom arm and a light stand, you can telescope up a little bit. Also, I have fairly inexpensive three LED set. These are really handy. You can just set them on a shelf or on a light stand. The downside of those is they're not very bright, they don't throw light very far, and they have to be fairly close to your model or your subject that you're lighting. They're really handy to just stick in a corner when you need a little extra light. I also have a tungsten scoop and it's I think 600 or 650 watt. It really throws the light. I don't think they make that one anymore, but they do have flood lights that you can get that are tungsten. I mentioned the problems that I have with it in matching color because it runs so hot that it burns my gels. I also have a low total light that throws 750 watts. That would be a good option if you are in a big room or something that just needs a lot of light thrown at it. Those two would be a warmer light. And you can tell once I fire those up. Also, I have some light stands and then I've got a tripod for my camera. I have a bounce and a stand and an arm for the bounce that holds the bounce. Then in my little studio, I have a black sheet. I'm going to take you in and show you how I set up everything so that you'll know exactly how to do it yourself. If you see something that you like here, we go into the studio. 3. Lighting Basics - In the Studio: Light Placement, Setups & Diagrams: This is at nighttime. I wanted to come into the studio with Landon again at nighttime and show you how I would like his face. So I'm just going to mess around a little bit. Turn lights on and off, let you see. We've got we have the one what's the set that I showed you the set earlier? That's a pretty bright light, so I'm going to turn it on and off and let you see what it does. All right. And then I'm also going to put a diffuser on it and let you see what happens then. Okay, A little bit. So, All right. I'm going to turn on the second one that looks exactly like that and it's on the side, pretty bright side light. If I had a bigger room, I would move this farther away. But this is what we're getting that is a standard podcast lighting. You pretty much see everybody do that, one on one side, one on the other. Equally bright, and it is okay. Everything's lighted up, but it's not the most attractive lighting. I will add one of these little tiny lights I showed you earlier on his back just to give him some definition. Yeah, we're lighting up right here. We're not really getting much up here to separate his hair from the black background. Later on, I will show you what a white background looks like, that we're just talking about black right now. I have a little room to maneuver since I'm behind him, so I can get up a little bit higher. And then maybe light more of the back of his head, although you want a little bit on his shoulders too. Still not totally happy with the top of his head, but you get the idea. Okay, so what we got is a side light and a back light. Actually that right there doesn't look too bad because we have this. It's bouncing the side light over onto that side of his face. I actually like that better than the two straight, really hot lights on him. As far as men, like I said earlier, I like the definition of the side of the face. That is probably how I would light landing. I'm going to bring another one over on the side to just play with a little bit, but I actually like that for him. Okay. So we have a little bit from this bounce here. Not too much though. He really needs a hair light, he needs something. If we had a bar, a drop down bar, I would bring one a little bit closer to him to light up the hair like this. Then we could possibly even do this. So really bring in the side of his face and the chin, chin line. That would probably be about right, right there. All right. So he moved and now we can see our back light just a little bit. Okay, I'm going to play around a little bit because I told you earlier I liked the scoop. Although this is a yellowish light, it's incandescin, it's an old one. I'm just going to bounce the light off the ceiling right here. So we got a little bit of yellowish light in here. Okay. I think I like that. So obviously you'd have to get a little further away, but it's called a Clint Eastwood lighting and that's always my favorite for a guy. So you have an extreme side light and then a soft fill a little bit of shadows under the brow. I don't think that looks bad because we have a balance over here as we like that. Sure. Okay. So I like the set up. The set up for him is nice. I would probably tweak it a little bit, but I'll show you what I have here. I like a lot better than the lighting we had at the very beginning When I turned all these lights on. What we have here is a strong side light for his jaw. Obviously, you'd have to have a stronger light probably if you needed to place it farther away, not to be in your shot. Then we have the light behind him, which is one of the little lights I showed you earlier, little LED's. It's lighting up. You can tell the back, hair and shoulders. I probably need a little bit more on the top of his head too, so that would need to come down from up above. Okay, we have a little bit of bounce on this side of his face because it's coming from this light here, which I did put a diffuser on. These are the ones I showed you earlier. It has a nice diffusion on that side of his face from the reflector. Then I just added a little bit of ambient light with my beloved scoop that is shining up on the ceiling, which is white. And it just gives a little bit more light everywhere. You can tell where the lights are, the location of the lights by looking in his eyes, you see a lot of light in his eyes. This is how I would light. Landon, thank you so much for joining my class. I hope to encourage you to post one of your things that you're working on that you have maybe taken some of the concepts that we taught in this class work to improve your craft. Let's give each other feedback. I will give you feedback if you post a video or photo or whatever of a project that you're working on where you implemented what I was teaching here today. Keep our feedback encouraging folks and because we're all just learning together, we'll have lots of new content coming. So in order to keep posted with what I'm doing, please subscribe share with your friends. I look forward to seeing you in my classes. Thank you so much for attending.