In our week seven lecture on lighting, Robin provided the class with a run down on how to apply lighting as well as useful information on the lighting environment in relation to filming. An important note that I took away from the lecture was to know your lighting environment. This could include knowing the transit of the sun in relation to the shoot location as well as being aware of the lighting situation that the location entails. Robin also advised for us to “choose the relationship between the lighting situation and the subject”. Although applying lighting can give us some control over how the subject may appear, we also have the ability to select where to place the subject in comparison to the natural light. This also brings us back to Robin’s initial point – know the lighting situation at the shoot location.

After considering the information Robin provided, our group mapped out the transit of the sun at our location and came up with an assumption of when the sun would be at its strongest and where it would appear. This also provided us with an idea of what lighting complications may occur. From there, we arranged our shot schedule to avoid some of the difficulties we envisioned and also chose our lighting equipment around the lighting situation and affect of the sun’s transit on our shoot location and time frame.

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.