The Key to Lighting Your Film

1. Intro: Hi everyone. My name is Zoe. I'm a cinematographer and a Professor of Film. I've been shooting films for many years now. And the projects I've worked on have gone on to be shown at film festivals like Sundance and Caribbean tales. As a cinematographer, I tend to focus on the camera angles and frames that compose a film. However, all of that would be useless without proper lighting. Today, we're going to talk about the key elements needed when setting up lights for filming. Throughout the course, we will be covering several essential topics, including four-point lighting, soft light versus hard light, inverse square law, and much, much more. There's a list of lessons if you want to skip over any topics that you may already be familiar with. By the end of this course, you will be able to light your own interview or film scene using any lights at your disposal from Philips household light bulbs to RACI panels. Let's get started. 2. Key + Fill: Key and fill. There are a few main lighting positions that are essential to any film set. Let's start by talking about the two most important, the key and the fill. Your key light is the light around which all other lighting decisions are made. This is the main point of lighting for your scene and can come from any source from the sun to a pen light. As long as this light is the brightest light present. Opposite the key light is the fill light. The fill light attempts to fill in the shadows created by the key light. How much the fill light actually fills in those shadows will be up to you. And you can modify it to fit your desired genre and style. We'll go into depth about different lighting for different genres a bit later in this course. Once you have your key and your fill light setup, you can get up and running and start doing some filming. But for truly professional grade for lighting, we should talk about the other essential lighting positions. 3. Kicker/Hair/Back + Background: Kicker, hair, back and background. Once you have your key light and your fill light setup, you might think you're ready to go. However, there are two other lighting positions you need to be aware of. The first of which is the kicker, back or hair light. Depending on the angle and placement of this, like the name of this light can change. However, regardless of the name, what you should generally understand is that this is a light that is set up in a different position than there are first two. Instead of pointing towards the camera facing side of the subject, usually the front, it's facing the opposite side. This light is actually angled in the general direction of the camera, lighting up a part of the outline of your subject. This has meant to give the subject a bit of definition as it will separate the outline of their hair or head and give your image that additional visual dimension. The final essential lighting position that we'll talk about in this lesson is the background light. This is a light that illuminates the area behind your subject and completes the separation of them from the background. Depending on the overall scene, without this light, your subject may appear to blend into their surroundings. Having a background light adds a final dimension that will make your work look more professional. 4. 4-Point Lighting: Four-point lighting. Most folks have heard of the traditional three-point lighting setup in which you have your key, a fill, and a backlit. Today, we're going to take this one step further and talk about four-point lighting. Four-point lighting features, the four lighting positions we spoke of before. Key, fill, kicker, backer hair, and a background light. Here's an example of what the left that would look like. As you can see, the fill light on the bottom right of the image is placed at an opposing angle to the key light. This is so that it can fill in the shadows on the front of the subject created by the key. The backlight, hair light or kicker in the upper right hand illuminates a subject from behind. Finally, the background light in the upper-left illuminates the background of the scene. As you can see, most of the lights are pointing away from the camera. As the primary concern with lighting is to ensure that what you're looking at through the camera is well lit. I know that this might seem like a rudimentary statement, but it will become much more relevant once we start talking about light meters. But now that we know where we're placing those lights, Let's discuss the quality of that light. 5. Soft vs. Hard: Soft versus hard. Generally speaking, we can categorize the quality of light into one of two areas. Soft lighting or hard. Let's take a look at this image and see if you can guess which side is showcasing soft light and which is showcasing heart. The quality of the light says a lot about the type of scene that you're shooting. Hard light is usually used to indicate that something very dramatic is going to happen. The harsh lines created by the shadows lend to this idea. Think about films like those in the Halloween series or shows like American horror story. Highlighting is usually favored when shooting horrors and thrillers. Soft lighting, on the other hand, is generally used to flatter the subjects as the shadows while still present, don't have the same harsh definition created by hard lighting. Soft lighting is typically used in other types of dramas such as romantic comedies. But for more on lighting for genre, check out the lesson on it a bit later in this course, you might be wondering how to create these different styles of lading, hard versus soft. To get that answer, we need to talk about diffusion. 6. Diffusion: Diffusion. Diffusion is a type of translucent modifier placed in front of a light in order to change its quality. By placing diffusion in front of a light, you will reduce the harshness of the shadows that hit your subject as long as you are increasing the size of the light source. However, at the same time, you will lower the intensity of the resulting light that hits your subject. So why use diffusion? Diffusion allows us to create different styles of lighting by modifying the size of our light sources. Four by four frames are built for professional modelling photo shoots because they provide such a large light source to work with. These frames can either acquire either assembly or a large enough truck to carry them around pre-built. So be sure to keep that in mind if you're making the investment. You can also use smaller frames or smaller sheets of diffusion to make transport a bit easier. I've even seen students use shower curtains. However, it is important to remember that the size of the source relative to the distance it is from your subject makes all the difference. We'll talk a bit more about the science behind that when we discuss inverse square law, no matter what you're using for diffusion, just remember to be safe by keeping any flammable materials a safe distance away from the light source. But what if you don't have access to strong lights or frames of diffusion? Hop over to the next lesson where we discuss our other options. 7. Other Modifiers: Other modifiers. There are other options filmmakers have when it comes to modifiers that allow them to redirect and shape light. If you're working with a big LED panel and find the light is spilling in every direction. You might want to consider using a grid. Grids allow the powerful light coming from an LED to be suddenly focused into straight channels and prevent that light from spreading out in all directions. They're really useful if you only want the light going straight ahead rather than bouncing off other sources, like many filmmakers would, particularly in more moody or more dramatic scenes. Just an aside. Another way to do this would be to use a flag and block off whatever side of a light that you don't want bouncy, speaking of the term bounce, this is actually a word for another modifier. Bounce. Bouncing light is just what it sounds like. When you bounce light, you direct your light towards a surface and use that surface to pass on the light. I say surface because you can use anything from a white foam board to the ceiling to bounce light. Just remember that whatever your color, your bounces will affect the quality of your life. Most filmmakers further either use a piece of white foam core or a reflector, as they're both easy to use and transport. However, if your space allows for it, then if time is limited, the walls or the ceiling might also be legitimate options. Filmmakers generally choose bouncing light because it ensures that they are increasing the surface area of their life while not going over budget or spending hours on a lighting setup. If you need a quick and effective lighting setup, bouncing light might be just the way to go. 8. Booklighting: Book lading. Since we're on the topic of soft light and quality of light, I just wanted to highlight one of the best techniques in my opinion to get beautiful soft light on your subjects. It's a technique loved by professional cinematographers around the world such as Bradford Young, and is a way of creating soft light even with a small budget. This technique is called Book lighting. Book lighting involves taking a strong enough source of light and balancing that against a surface like a reflector or a foam board. And then pushing that bounced light through a large sheet of fusion and towards your subject. Simple, right? Although book lighting requires a few extra steps from what you might be used to, I can guarantee that when done correctly, the results are worthless. So give book letting a try in your next project, you might be amazed by the results you get. 9. Professional Film Lights: Professional film lights. All the techniques up until this point can be done with household items. But for the next few lessons, we're going to discuss different types of professional film lights and the other pieces of equipment that go with them. If you're just looking for techniques, go ahead and skip to the lightings on lighting ratios are lighting for genre, where we discussed the difference when setting up lights for our horror versus accommodate professional film like, what are they and what makes them professional? Well, I'll answer that in reverse. What makes them professional is the build of those lights. And generally speaking, although these lines are blurring, the amount of power required to use them. Film lights, our lives that will stand the test of time and can be used for hours and hours every day without fail. Simply put, they are reliable and well-tested. And if you're looking for the best, I'd highly recommend either investing in professional film lights or at least trying some outta your local rental house. 10. Fresnels: For nails. But what our film lens, well, popular speaking, they fit into one of two categories for nails and LEDs. Now there are others, but we're going to focus on these two for this course for now. So I've been around the longest on are actually the type of lights that you'll typically find in the theater. These lights get their name from their inventor who created them to be used in lighthouses. As you might be able to imagine, these lights are great at giving you a direct and focused beam of light. For nows are favored by many due to their consistent and strong build, as well as their ease-of-use. They're very plug-and-play for their power. For nails are definitely the cheaper option as finding an LED of the same strength will cost you significantly more. However, for all of their benefits, there are a few downsides to be aware of with these lights. As I've mentioned, for nails can be very powerful lights. These lights can be used to mimic the effects of the Sun. But with such strong light comes a lot of heat. Although for nails are built in a way that allow much of this heat to dissipate and escape their bodies. They are still built almost entirely of metal. As a result, after just a few minutes of being on, these lights become extremely hot to touch. You'll need to handle them with special gloves to avoid burning yourself. Additionally, these lights requires several amps of power to run, which in a regular house means that you can only plug a couple of them into the same circuit. It's very easy to flip your circuit breaker or to blow a fuse entirely when using too many of these. That's where LED is coming. 11. Barn Doors & C47s: Barn doors and C4, T7. Really quickly. Before we jump over to the world of LEDs, I wanted to mention a couple other pieces related to funnels that you might run into and should know the names of like barn doors, scribbles and C4, T7. You see those metal flaps that they sometimes use around a light like a for now. Those are barn doors and they allow filmmakers to adjust the direction of the light coming out on for now without setting up a whole bunch of additional equipment. Although they're not perfect, they only take seconds to adjust and allow you to get up and running as quickly as possible. Barn doors also have a slot were screams can be put in. Screams, our metal mesh circles that allow you to lower the intensity of a for now without using a dimmer. While dimmers are quite useful, dimmers can also create a noticeable audio hum, which you've picked up will show up in your final product. Finally, if someone asks you for some C4 T7, they're not looking for a complex piece of lighting technology. They're actually talking about clothespins. You'll see other filmmakers using C4, T7 is the clip gels and types of diffusions to the barn doors around for nails. This is another quick way to get you closer to your intended look without setting up a lot of additional stance, Okay? Okay. Now onto LEDs. 12. LEDs: Leds, professional LED film lights aren't amazing and versatile tool that can make getting a scene up quickly, a breeze. These lights provide a large source of light or right from the start, which in certain instances can either reduce or completely eliminate the need to set up diffusion. These lights also require much less power, as instead of a single strong bulb powering the entire light, there are dozens or hundreds of smaller lower power balls being used together. But don't be wrong, these machines still require a lot of power. So be aware of how much power your light poles and calculate accordingly. Stick around to the lesson. Watson amperage for a tutorial on how to accurately calculate the power that you're working with. Because LEDs can use less power, they can also remain much cooler than it for now. And a lot of times don't require gloves to handle even when they've been on for an extended period. Many LEDs also come with the ability to display multiple colors and color temperatures. Another time-saving bonus, some even have the ability to mimic natural light sources like a campfire. However, for all the interesting bonuses you get and the time you save, there is a cost. Professional LED film lights can be pricey and I'm talking thousands of dollars for a single light. And of course we'll probably want more than one. But if you're professional, they can certainly be worth the investment. 13. Light Stands: Light stance. So we've talked a lot about the different types of lights. Let's learn how to set them up. First of all, let's talk about light stands. Depending on the size of your light, you'll probably be using either a standard lights than a C stand, or maybe even a mambo combo. A standard light stand is fairly basic to set up. And depending on the size, they're usually pretty light. These fans aren't meant for really heavy lights. But if you've got a kid of 650 or even one k For knows, they're perfect. One thing to be aware of when raising a light stand is to start from the highest riser. That way, if the light needs to be so high that it's out of your reach and you need to raise it or lower it down. You're not struggling to bring it back down unsafely with these stands because they are so lightweight, you will need another tool to go with them. Sandbox. Sandbox are an essential safety tool to have onset because they allow you to use a variety of sand and light combinations safely. Sand bags provide weight on either the base or an opposing leg of a stand. And if placed correctly, ensure that your lighting setup is well balanced and won't accidentally fall or even tip over. With standard light stands, the sand bag or bags get placed over the lower support elements. When you're setting these sand bags, it's important to ensure that they aren't resting on the ground and this will make them ineffective. C stands, however, the sand bags are placed around the highest leg as this will ensure that they are well off the ground and supporting the weight of whatever it is carrying as the load will also be angled over this leg. But let's talk about why we even use this Easton. 14. C-Stands: C stand a Seasat or a century stand is one of, if not the most universal film tool on a set. They got their name because it is said that they can be used in more than a 100 effective configurations. Personally, if I had a choice between a light stand and a C stand, I choose a C stand simply because of its versatility. There are two types of c stands for the Standard 40 inch and the baby 20 inch. Baby stands are useful if you don't have a lot of room to carry, stage your setup equipment, but they can't be broken down as easily necessarily. So I actually find little bit harder to transport. I find standards, the staff, particularly those with turtle basis, these are a type of base that can come off really easily to be much more versatile, the head of a C stand can be removed to place a light on it. So in essence, it's like carrying a light stand as well as assistant. If you don't want to use it in this way, not to worry, there are at least 99 other options. You can arm out your tool like your lighter, your flag to taking everything off, removing everything but the base, and just using that for a lower position. A few more tips as far as safety goes, as we discussed previously. We want to make sure that we place a heavy enough sand back on the highest leg and that if we're using the arm, we angle are tools out over that leg. This will ensure that our C standard is properly balanced. We also need to remember the right-hand or right side rule. This is a rule that applies to the arm and the global head. When we're using these tools, we want to make sure that their knuckles now these are the knobs that allow us to tighten and to loosen them. Their knuckles are facing right? We're standing behind RC state and facing in the same direction. Like most things, these heads are engineered to tighten and loosen left. And that's an easy way of remembering the right hand rule. If the head is replaced on the left and a heavy load was armed out, it might hold for awhile, but over time and with natural movement, it would loosen and fall to the ground. Not only is this potentially costly, but it's very dangerous. But just remember the right-hand rule and you'll be all good to go. 15. Grip Lingo: Mombo Combos, Duckbills & Cardellinis: Grip lingo, mambo combos, duck bills and cartilage. If you're running your own setup or just starting out in the industry, you'll primarily work with light stands and C stands. But as you scale the size of your production and your lights, there are a few other pieces of equipment, so you'll want to be aware of Mambo combos are massive stands meant for large and heavy lights like Ari Skype and align. These stands can go up over 20 feet in the air and require a large vehicle for transport. A good time to use. These would be when pushing light through a second floor window, for instance. But be prepared. Mumble con both weigh a ton and cost way more than ceased. And so it would be a really, really good idea to go check them out in person before committing to buying or even renting them. On the other side of the size spectrum, there are carton Laney May for Pony and duck-billed platypus glimpse. These clamps can be used in a variety of scenarios, from grabbing onto Polls and mounting lights onto them to connecting with C stands to hold an angle flat surfaces like bounce boards and reflectors. If you're interested in working with bounce and have a C stand, I'd recommend picking up a couple of duck-billed platypus clips. 16. Light Meters: Light meters. We've talked about everything from basic lighting setups to the equipment you need to make them possible. Now, let's talk about getting some control and accuracy with what we're doing. Let's learn how to correctly set of lights day in and day out consistently, how to live for a comedy or a thriller. Now to do that, we'll need to talk about math and science behind lighting. But don't worry, we're going to walk through this together. Let's start with light meters. Light meters are small hand-held tools that allow you to measure the amount of light hitting your subject. These tools then calculate the aperture. You'll have to set your legs too in order to get a well exposed image. Now for more on aperture, check out my video on taking control of your cinematography. A quick intro into the essential topics you'll need to know how to operate a camera. Typically with a professional light meter, legacy iconic, you'll be using it as an incident light meter and that white ball on top of it, we'll help you determine your reading. This meter actually gets its readings by measuring how much light falls on that white ball and then does its own calculation. However, and as with any tool you use, be short and cooperate your best judgment when using light meters. If a light meter tells you you only need an f-stop of four, but your subject is still underexposed in an unpleasant way. First, double-check the settings for your camera and your monitors and make sure that those are both reading accurately. But then feel free to make the necessary adjustments to your lighting setup. Most light meters, although very accurate, are calibrated for people with light skin, which is just one thing to be aware of when using these tools. However, on the flip side, these meters are really just a guide. Sometimes you'll want your subject to be underexposed for a desired dramatic effect. The light meter is just meant to help you measure it accurately reproduce these results each time. 17. Lighting Ratios: Lighting ratios. Now that we've talked about how to measure light, we can start using these calculations to get the type of genre that we want. Let's talk about lighting ratios. Remember the key and the film that we've talked about a while ago? Well, a lighting ratio is just the representation of a difference in strength between them. And a light meter helps you calculate this. Let's walk through how we do this. Again, if you're unfamiliar with aperture, I'd recommend checking out that lesson in my video on taking control of your cinematography as you'll want some basic understanding of it to go along with the rest of this lesson. To measure the strength of each light. Take your light meter and get close to your subject. Then they'll simply point your light meter towards the light and take note of the reading. Move on to the next slide. If you set up your lights correctly. And we'll assume that correctly in this instance, is your key being significantly stronger than your fill, then the f-stop on your key should be higher than the f-stop on your field. That's the reading that you get when you take it with your light meter. The meter reading of your key light recommended an f-stop of 2.8 for your lens. Hopefully, the meter reading of the Phil was somewhere around an f-stop of two. Now because we know that an f-stop of 2.8 is actually twice as strong as an f-stop of two. We can determine that we have a two to one ratio or that the key light is twice as strong as our Philip. And that's it. That's how you get your lighting ratio. 18. Lighting for Genre: Lighting for a genre. Now to use this knowledge to light for a genre, we just need to be aware of the standard conventions. You should note that these aren't rules that are set in stone. They're more like guidelines. If you're lighting for a comedy, you'll want to use a low lighting ratio, something that has been termed high key lighting. This just means that your key and fill are at the same or almost at the same levels. Generally speaking, you'll be looking to achieve a one-to-one ratio. Moving onto romantic comedies and dramas and some documentaries. For these, you'll actually want to adopt a slightly higher lighting ratio of two to one or even four to one. Higher contrast between the two lights will give your images and edgier field than if they were shot with a low contrast lighting ratio like one-to-one and help reinforce the work of the subjects are your actors. Finally, let's talk about crime, horror, thrillers. For these types of films, you'll want anything from an eight to one ratio and beyond. These films live on low key, high contrast ratio, as our film brains have been conditioned to associate shadows with danger and suspense to be fair, the scores and sound effects in these films play a massive role, but I'd like to thank the high contrast lighting ratios definitely helped. 19. Inverse Square Law: Inverse square law, as you've been working with your lights, moving them around and taking meter readings, you may have started to notice something. As you move the light further away from a subject, it gets weaker. As you move it closer, it gets stronger. That is an example of inverse square law. One of the laws that once you have a grasp of it, it will make your lighting work even easier. As it relates to lighting. Inverse square law simply states that each time you double the distance from the light to the subject, you only have 25% of the light that you previously had. So if I start with a light one meter from the subject, we'll call this position 100%. And you double the distance moving it. So that is now two meters away from the subject. At two meters, you will only have 25% of the intensity that you had when the light was at one meter. Now feel free to replay that as much as you need because it can be a challenging concept to wrap your head around. But once you get it, moving, lights to adjust for intensity will be a breeze. 20. Watts & Amperage: Watts and amperes it. We've talked a lot about how to set up lights, but let's talk about how to keep everyone safe and how to keep the power on when we're working with them. Remember how I said that some lights consume a lot of power, and as a result, you might only be able to use a few of them at a time. Well, this is the lesson on y. Let's use a standard 650 watt for now as our example, let's say you have four of these lights. I'm want to shoot a film in your house. Before you go plugging in everything, you want to do two things. First, you should calculate how many amps of powers these lights will take to run. Now the formula to figure out amperage is watts divided by voltage. In North America, we can assume a 110 volt power supply, or we can even round it to 100 to do some quick math when we're onset. So we'll have a 650 watt light divided by a 100 volt power source, giving us roughly 6.5 amps per light. Then, since we have four lights together, we can figure it out that these would consume about 26 amps of power. Great, we have our total amperage. Second step. Now, we have to check out your home circuit breaker or fuse box. Do not skip this step. It is essential. Looking at the tips of the switches in the box, you'll notice that they have little numbers carved into them, usually a 15 or 20. These are the number of amps in each circuit. Depending on where in the house you're shooting. You might only have one circuit running in that room. So based on our math, you actually won't be able to plug all of your lights in, in the same room without overloading that circuit. Now, to get around this issue, you'll want to figure out which other circuits you can access and spread out your lights accordingly. Now I don't mean literally spread out your lights, like moving them around. You can actually just write extension cords or stingers as filmmakers like to call them from these other circuits back to your legs. That way you don't actually have to change their physical positions, just the position of their power sources. Once you've successfully done that, you're good to go. I'd always recommend getting several stingers when you're renting lighting equipment, as you never know when you'll run into issues like this. As far as checking circuits, hopefully if they're really clearly labeled. But if not, you'll want to test them by turning them on and off to see what they're powering. A quick tip. If you get a few low-power things that light up, like lamps, or things that make noise like radio. And plug those into your desired test flows. You should be able to figure out pretty quickly which plugs are part of which circuits. 21. Color Temperature: Color, temperature. Have you ever noticed that all light bulbs aren't the same color? For instance, the overhead lights in the kitchen might see more blue than the light coming from a light bulb or a lamp. This is due to color temperature. Color temperature is how we describe the difference in these lights, and it is measured in Kelvin. Color temperature starts at around a thousand Kelvin on the low-end. Lights with color temperatures in this range generally include natural flames like a lit match or a candle. Between twenty five hundred and thirty two hundred is where you'll find those more yellow household bulbs. This is also the range in which you'll find Cornell light bulbs. As these are traditionally tungsten bulbs, which have a color temperature of 3200 Kelvin. Moving along to the forty two hundred, fifty five hundred range. Here, you'll find fluorescent light bulbs and the general noon daylight. And you'll find that as far as yellows and blues go, these both how a much more balanced color compared to the rest. Finally, we reached the opposite end of the range, 6600 Kelvin. And up, as you go further up in this range, you'll find the light's getting bluer and bluer ranging from a cloudy day on the low end to the color of moonlight on the high end. Now you may remember me saying when we were talking about LEDs that some LEDs have the ability to change color temperature. They can represent a tungsten bulb or a much bluer daylight. But what if you don't have access to these LEDs? All you've got to work with this tungsten or you do have LED's, but they're only one color temperature. That's where color correction comes in. 22. Color Correction & Color Modification: Color correction and color modification. When you're shooting onset, you'll want to have control over the color and the color temperature of your lights. If you're shooting a realistic film, you'll want your light sources to seem realistic, like having bluer lights coming through the windows if a scene is set in the middle of the day, even if you're actually shooting at night. This is where you take advantage of color correction. Let's talk about color correction gels. These gels are actually colorful and thin sheets of plastic that represent a very specific color modification. Typically, if you're looking to change a warm 3200 Kelvin light or a tungsten bulb to a cooler 5600 Kelvin daylight. You'll want to use a sheet of full color temperature blue or see TB. Whether for now, this will mean that you'll clip the sheet of Cdb to the barn doors using C 47. This will allow you to ensure that all the light hitting your subject is properly corrected. Now this is what you do if you'd wanted to take 3200 Kelvin all the way to 5600 Kelvin. However, if you want it to reach somewhere in the middle of that, rather than using full of CTP, you could try half or quarter sheets instead. Now, half and Corridor doesn't mean that these sheets or any difference inside there physically the same size, but they are lighter in color and in strength proportionate to their titles. Different bulbs may also require different levels of correction. So it's a good idea to have different strengths of leaves on hand in case you need them. Now, on the opposite end of color correction is CTO or color temperature orange. You use these sheets if you're trying to get a light more like an LED or an HMI to display a warmer color temperature. But the principles are exactly the same. But what if you're not looking for a slight modification but something more dramatic? Sometimes you'll want to light that isn't a standard bulb color. You'll want to light your scene with red or green or with purple. That's where color modification gels come in. These operate just like color correction gels. There are so many different shades of color gels that you can use that it's worth taking some time and testing them out if possible, to see which one will give you the best colors for your project. 23. Conclusion: Conclusion. We've talked about a lot in this video from lighting positions to see stance, the inverse square law. I hope that some, if not all of it will be useful to you in your film-making career. I have a few other videos on how to work with cameras and lenses. So be sure to check those out. And as always, let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about anything I shared today and I'd be more than happy to address them.