I felt a lot more comfortable and at home with week 2’s Film Light classes. I was more used to the early wake-up times, started sitting with old and new faces, but most importantly, I am getting more and more involved in lighting thought and theory.

Some of the most useful information I gathered from these classes was the terminology. While not always directly relevant to the physical and practical aspects of lighting,  actually having more than a base understanding of camera and lighting terms and tools such as International Standards Organisation (ISO) and how it determines and can influence exposure is now integral information to me. Heck, even knowing that ISO stands for International Standards Organisation is a feat in itself. This and relatively in-depth looks at how shutter speeds and the size of the iris (known as the aperture of the lens for all us smarties over here) is information I’ve always wanted but never been motivated to learn. I am really glad we are getting into all of this stuff, because it’s definitely going to help my filmmaking, no matter what position I hold.

However, I am not a fan of how these terms are often calculated in opposite ways, such as how the higher the f-stop, the less light is able to enter the lens. It completely throws my prior knowledge of bigger and smaller numbers out the window!

I also enjoyed learning about more adjustable camera features, and how they can affect lighting a scene, such as focal length, depth of field and the surprise underdog, ensuring your viewfinder is set at the ideal settings so what you see on there is what you get in post-production. This is something I had never thought of, but will now always be cautious (more like paranoid) about it before a shoot.

I’m interested to see where this class goes, and very excited to start lighting scenes, with both natural and artificial light!