LIGHTING TIPS & TRICKS

“Lighting strives to bring out the following values:
Orientation – to enable the audience to see where the story is taking place.

Mood or feeling (season of year and time of day)

Pictorial beauty, aesthetic pleasure.

Depth, perspective, third dimensional illusion.”

- John Alton, “Painting with Light”


SHOOTING EXTERIORS w AVAILABLE LIGHT

RULE 1 - If you’re filming in hard sunlight, whenever possible, keep the sun behind you.

RULE 2 - If you have to shoot into the Sun (or want to for creative effect), use a flag to lose unwanted lens flares.

RULE 3 - Use a Reflector to bounce light onto your subject.

Tip:
For a silhouette shot, expose for the sky and under-expose for the subject.


SHOOTING INTERIORS w AVAILABLE LIGHT

ALWAYS WORK WITH THE LIGHT and think about:
RULE 1 - controlling the light by closing/opening blinds and curtains.
RULES 2 - utilizing whatever practical lights are in situ (table lamps, overhead lighting, monitors/TV screens).
RULE 3 - Standing your subject facing a source of light (a window for example) to illuminate him/her on screen – Avoid shooting against bright backgrounds and having to battle with your exposure.

LIGHTING STEPS –

KEY LIGHT

FILL LIGHT

BACKLIGHT



10 Tips to make your subject look great:

Hard, direct light is never very flattering:
It all depends on the look you’re going for but if I want flattering lighting, I tend to use a diffuser (scrim or spun) on the Key light as well as the Fill Light. If you do this, always make sure you still maintain that 3:1 ratio, remember the Key light always has to be stronger than the Fill. This technique is also good because with a less intense Key Light, people feel less intimidated during interviews (and it’s far more flattering, especially when lighting women).

Think about your background:
It’s not just about the person in the frame; it’s about what’s going on behind them. Obviously keep an eye out for an interesting background and, as always, be creative with your lighting. But specifically, watch out for your subject’s shadows. Try and keep the subject (interviewee) as far away from the background as possible to avoid their unsightly head/body shadow on the wall or backdrop.

Raise the lights:
If you’re filming an interview/scene in a restricted area like a small room and can’t get the interviewee far enough away from the wall or background to get rid of their shadows, raise the lights up. This will ‘drop’ their body/head shadow down the wall and out of camera shot.

Key Light Position:
For interviews, I personally prefer to key from the side of the interviewer so that the interviewee is looking towards the Key light, this avoids any unsightly nose shadows etc.

Bounce:
Another way of providing soft fill light (instead of using a fill light direct with scrim or spun) is to reflect/‘bounce’ the light off a reflector OR if you’re in a room with white walls you can bounce the fill light off the walls – it will reflect back onto the interviewee and provide a very subtle, soft Fill.

Gels:
Try using a colored gel on the backlight, but make sure its subtle: for interviews, something like a light straw (amber) works well and can give the persons hair a pleasant sheen, in drama you can go to town with different gels and can make the scene very atmospheric (Avoid purples and greens… unless of course you are making a Zombie movie!)

Reflections:
When filming people with spectacles, always try to find the optimum position for the Key and Fill Lights so as to not get lamps reflecting in the spectacle lenses.

Get to know your subject:
In drama, you’ll (hopefully) be able to direct your actor on how they should move in frame but for documentaries/interviews you don’t want to interrupt spontaneous moments. So, if possible it’s a good idea to sit the interviewees down before filming starts, that way you can see how they move as they are talking and fine tweak the lights accordingly (This isn’t always possible and it does depend on the nature of the interview).

Powder:
Always keep some neutral colored make-up powder and tissues in your kit, as people tend to sweat during filmed interviews. Sweat causes unattractive highlights and glistening, giving the skin an unpleasant shiny, greasy appearance.

Bokeh:
Keeping the subject further off the background will allow you to ‘throw‘ the background out of focus. This will mainly be noticeable on a longer focal length lens and can create some beautiful effects.