Paul’s absence meant Robin came in to give us a rundown of lighting, lighting equipment, and its effectiveness. It became apparent that regardless of having access to preofessional equipment, lighting is evident in all pieces of film. And it requires attention and understanding in order to film something that looks nice. It’s all well and good to be able to comment on how something looks but Robin’s technical proficiency with filmmaking suggests you need to be able to reason with why it looks good. This class gave me a nice technical introductory lesson into the art of lighting and how to comment on it.
Manipulation is the main word that comes to mind when I think of lighting. Rather than there being a definitive right or wrong way to light, different methods produce various results for a filmmaker.
What we focused most of our time on was the difference between hard and soft light. To steal directly from Wikipedia:
- Soft light refers to light that tends to “wrap” around objects, casting diffuse shadows with soft edges.
- Hard light sources cast shadows whose appearance of the shadow depends on the lighting instrument. For example, fresnel lights can be focused such that their shadows can be “cut” with crisp shadows.
I do understand the general gist of these definitions, but getting my head fully around the art of lighting has been difficult, particularly when at first it seemed so simple. I think it is one of those things that will take a lot of time, effort and practice to achieve technically precise results. On the other hand though I know I can put it to use in my research and exploration. The imperfections that lighting can provide will aid and add to my experiments with abstract footage, colour, rhythm and sound.
– Gabe