In today’s class, we were introduced to a typical three point lighting setup, and various lighting equipment. As usual the massive pile of equipment seemed overwhelming at first but by the end of the class I felt a lot better about my understanding of lighting setups. I’ll summarise dot points that I thought was important/interesting:
- An actor’s face is always lit from the offside – i.e. the side that faces away from the camera
- If there’s a window in a scene, you would always shoot in front of the window, not against it
- Three point lighting: key light (strongest source of light) // back light (diagonally opposite key light) // fill light (to even out the shadows from the key light, usually at a 90 degree angle from the key light)
- Can be sure of the correct lighting setup if the situation follows the CIK order – camera, interviewee/Ian the actor, key light
- C stands are useful for holding up various equipment e.g. lights, reflectors, boom mics that can be still throughout a scene
- Dedo lights can change colour tint, focus (spotlight vs more spread out), and brightness/hardness
- Use diffusers to soften lights, use gels to change light colour e.g. if you need to mimic sunlight but had a warm coloured light, you would put blue gels over it to balance it out
- Use a separate power board to connect to lighting equipment so it doesn’t stop the whole circuit if too many lights are plugged in
- Be aware of hot lights in relation to smoke detectors/sprinklers on the roof, although most lights now are LED so don’t get too hot
This is a video I found that demonstrates the power of lighting, and how much a character can be changed by simple adjustments to do with shadow and dynamics.
