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During this third week of the Film Light studio, for me, it was all about getting in front and behind the camera, and putting the information and techniques discusses and documented in week 2 into practice.
We had a few planned group members not show up, so Tash and I teamed up with Jagger, Elenor and Noah on exercise 3, which was great! They are lovely and talented people. Tash and I acted (born to be stars) in the dramatic telling of Barney and Rachel’s dinner plans. Being in front of the camera was a lot of fun, and whilst it wasn’t as technically involving (definitely want to be behind the camera next exercise, just so I can continue to familiarise myself with these depth of field and camera lighting techniques, we were both still very much involved in how it all looked. Below is a cut of what we did.
We wanted to really play around with a greater depth of field, making the shot more dynamic and interesting than a basic two-shot. The location we shot at serendipitously helped out with this, as there was a window behind the railing in which we could capture myself walking past clearly, as to notice Barney, and approach her. I feel like this worked really well, however, if this had been a professional shoot / if we had lighting kits, I would have suggested we light Rachel (myself) with a light panel or dido (not a Fresnel light though, way too much wattage). This way, I would be more visible, and my facial expressions of interest would have been clearer.
We used a white coreboard to bounce light onto Tash and I, and whilst it could have used a few more light sources to bounce off (just something that was out of our hands at the time), it worked way better than without, which has really given me a lot faith in white cardboard.
As stated before, being an actor was lots of fun, but I am very keen to get behind that camera or do something that gets me directly involved in the action!
Oliver Jeffers is an NYC based visual artist whose primary medium is illustration, collage and sculpture. He is author to many successful picture books, and his work is well received both physically and over his various social media accounts, such as his Instagram.
The above image, titled Happy Hour, was published on July 25th, 2019. I am a big fan of this painting. I like the mood, the shading and style of the picture., However, I think the use of lighting and how it operates within the world of the image is really detailed, with lots to describe.
The painting is set during what I would consider dusk. There is a slight glow dimming behind the mounds of dirt and grass of the landscape. The lighting is soft, with no hard shadows anywhere. This could either be the sun, or light sources from the place that has the happy hour.
The overall place is quite dark. This might be because the whole place is shadowed by the light source, meaning that the lighting is quite hard. However, I believe this is just because the light is not hitting the surface at all.
The text of the happy hour sign is lit by neon lights, giving off a slight glow in the dark sky. These lights do not affect much if any of the environment around it, besides the lit letters themselves. The structure the neon letter are held up by do not receive any residual glow from the letters.
Nightcrawler (Gilroy, D. 2014) is one of my favourite films of all time. I am the biggest Jake Gyllenhaal fan, so I am slightly biased, but I love the way this film manipulates tension, making you fear the psychological power the main character of Lou has. I love every aspect of this film, and the lighting is no exception. In the short scene below, I will describe the lighting to the best of my abilities, and try my hardest not to analyse it!
Besides loving this scene for the raw emotion, power and fear Gyllenhaal instils in this scene, once returning to it with more technical and theoretical knowledge, there is a lot going on here lighting wise (check this sentence).
From the first few frames, the highting is reasonably soft, with some soft shadows coming down from Gyllenhaal’s brows and chin, shadowing his eyes and neck. The lighting is reasonably detailed on his face, with his cheekbones and facial features being quite distinct in the frame. The light itself its probably at about 60% capacity, being slightly dim overall
The lighting seems to be overhead, with the reflection from his forehead indicating so. There is the perception of outside light, which is soft, coming through the window and curtains, seen behind him in the mirror. I doubt this is having much of a practical effect on how the scene is lit. Furthermore, there is a TV behind him, which is the blue light just behind his right ear. Again, probably more for mise en scene and context than anything else.
In this split-second scene, just before the mirror is shattered, we see a light coming from inside the cabinet. It is lit from the top, and most likely an LED or something that was built into the cabinet when it was put into the set. Its inclusion is to give real context to the cabinet.
In the last few seconds of the scene, out view of Gyllenhaal’s character changes slightly, as we see more of his shirt. The white surface of his shirt and the mirror reflects and bounces light off each other, filling the scene with a little harder light, not too much. This is seen through the darker shadows on his shirt collar and buttons.
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!
Looking over what we shot during the first class, with a better understanding of lighting terms and types from the second class, it is easy to see that exposure was a big issue with how our interviews turned out. Whilst preparing for the interview to be shot, I thought the exposure was fine, a little overexposed, but it looked nice in the viewfinder to me. However, once assessing this both in class together, and outside of class to write this, it’s easy to see how overexposed it actually is. This has now made me more aware and hopefully more cautious about how an exposure can look through a viewfinder compared to when seen on a more dynamic and rich screen, and not to underestimate the soft lighting power of a flat, overcast day.
Robyn also suggested we take this newfound knowledge, and observe, whether it be with the world around us, or the media we engage with. Similarly to how I know notice when audio is slightly out of sync because of a bad merge in movies and television, this information can and has come as a burden on my viewing experiences. For example, whilst watching some casual television with a friend, I found myself constantly and subtly analysing the lighting in shots. Whether it was a hard or soft lighting set up, where the artificial light sources are and what is natural lighting (as the show was not always shot in a studio), and of course, which side of their face is lit (which Paul has ingrained in my brain eternally.
I am really excited to see where this course goes, because the more classes we have, the more I realise how much lighting theory I have barely scratched the surface of, and how much that theory gets me excited to put it into practice!