This Wednesday is a practical lesson where teachers and students work together to create a scene. I think that practical lessons are very necessary because when I got the script, I didn’t know what to do. Even if I know how to set the position of the light and the camera, but how to merge individual things into a whole, I have no idea. This lesson taught me how to prepare as a director and how to use lighting to create facial features. Robin led us to choose the background and set the lights. I can learn from his actions and constantly adjusting the lighting to the factors that need attention. For example, when Robin chooses the background of the scene, he needs to consider that the reflection of light cannot appear in the background. In order to create a dark environment, we set a black cardboard behind the characters to shield the reflected light.
We have a table lamp that is not bright enough, so there is not much of a character’s face. Then we set a dito light to increase the brightness of the light on the left side of the character and placed a white book card to reflect the light back, this light source combined with the light source of the desk lamp. Throughout the shooting process I think cutting is the most important thing. In general, light reflects off the ceiling and walls. So we used more black cardboard to limit the spread of light. This reduces a lot of unnecessary light, highlights the subject, places more focus on the subject, and creates a unique shot.
I think setting up lights is a very interesting thing because there is no standard. We are constantly observing and learning during the shooting process, and more is learning how robin sets the light step by step. Of course, this does not mean that only this method, but for me, I am more aware of how each step is produced. Of particular interest is how we approach the results we want, removing the extra light step by step.