Robin’s week six lecture on lighting was technically informative as well as brought to light (no pun intended) things to consider when selecting and creating the lighting environment for our films. I found that a lot of the points Robin made were generally about applying your common sense – which was one of the main points that I took from the lecture.

One of the topics that also involves ‘applying your common sense’ was about knowing the transit of the sun (note: rises in the East and sets in the West and t curves northerly in winter in the Southern Hemisphere). Knowing the suns transit and the direction of our location allows us to predetermine the lighting situation at out filming location e.g. where the sun will be at 4:00pm. On that note, the suns positing also brings to mind continuity within the film – being one of the reasons why we light.

Interestingly, Robin spoke of how digital technology gives us the advantage to experiment and test lighting at our location before we go to production. In doing so, we should be able to decipher what lighting may assist us in achieving our desired result or perspective as well as preparing us for the lighting obstacles we may need to prepare for. The test may reveal that the location is strongly back light and that we may need boards to block light on the day.