– Monday Class – 

Through experience in groups, I got to know how lighting can really change the feeling/ emotion of a piece of media. We spent a long time to decide where the interviewee should sit, how to use the reflector and whether to use white or black one.

In the first shot, we place the white reflector on the left of the interviewee, which is letting the light source from the window bounce back to the subject’s face. Moving on to the second shot, we used two reflectors, both black and white reflect board. Since there is another window at subject’s right-hand corner, the light still came through. We used a black reflector to block interviewee’s left right side but we thought this is making the subject too dark, so we used a white reflector at the bottom of interviewee’s face let the light source from the window bounce back to interviewee’s face.

The first shot had a warm colour tone, the second shot was in a cold tone since we have brought the black reflector to block the light from the back corner. Other than the colour tone, using a black reflector to create shadow made my face looked smaller, the shadow helped to distinct my facial features because of the white reflector at the bottom reflect light on the other side of my face. Moreover, using reflectors also helped to express emotion to the audience. We didn’t turn the volume up when we rewound to select the best one, the first one with the warm tone seemed to be more cheerful, whereas the second tone with black reflector seemed sombre.

It was an amazing experience done by ourselves, I really like the way how we got chance to watch how Robin adjusts the lighting but also get a chance to play with the lighting ourselves.

– 1st –

– 2nd –

– Wednesday Class – 

From the first part of today’s class, the scene from the film ‘In the City of Sylvia’ really impressed me. Every single shot was so well considered and organised, the lightings were done in detailed, the choice of focal point and depth of field, everything was arranged deliberately. I am going to download the film and watch over the weekend, the details in the short clip really surprised me.

In today’s class, we spent most of our time on a lighting set-up practice, we had one key lighting, tried out different ways of fill lighting and also backlight from the top. Throughout the practice, I kept considering why are things different when we see from the camera to human eyes.

When I see through a camera lens, my first feeling was, I light what I see with naked eyes better. Secondly, the subject seemed to have a higher contrast than naked eyes, the key lighting look harder in the camera than our naked eyes. I was considering this is because a camera is more sensitive to light sources, so it caught the key light more accurately than a human eye. Moreover, I thought another reason that makes the subject seemed softer with naked eyes was that our eyes were being affected by other light sources in the classroom, whereas the camera sensed the key light as the strongest light source. At last, Robin explained the purpose of this exercise. It’s actually a further extension of week 1 class, what we see with our naked eyes is different to what we will see from a camera. So if I want to get the same lighting as what I saw with my eyes, that’s when we need lighting, lighting will be the best tool to help us represent what we want.

– Movie – 

Film <Angels Wear White>

This film was directed by Vivian Qu released in December 2017,

it’s about two teenage girls one has experienced sexual abuse and the other has witnessed the fact.

The film has shown the victim’s attitude after the heartbroken accident,

how hopeless and lonely she feels when her mother doesn’t believe her.

The scene I have chosen is after main character Mia has experienced sexual abuse, her mother didn’t even comfort or understand her but blamed Mia for wearing short skirts and pretty dresses. This hurts Mia’s heart very much, so Mia has left home and went to find her father who lives far away to where she lives. The lighting when Mia is at the gate calling ‘Dad!’ is a very soft lighting, even there is a lamp lighting from the inside of the gate, but the light isn’t straight on her face which I am guessing the lighting here means Mia is looking for the last hope who can help her, but since her parents have divorced when she was very young. Mia doesn’t know how would her father react when he sees her, the possibility is very small so the lighting is soft and gloomy.

Overall, the whole movie has rarely used a hard lit, especially in this clip. The lightings in the whole scene are in the same colour tone, colour yellow and in a grey tone from an over face lamp. These sets of lighting, either from over face or the colour are making Mia, the main character seemed to be more powerless and helpless, and also helped the audience to feel Mia’s situation more appropriately.

– Painting – 

Edward Hopper

<Girl at a sewing machine>

I have chosen Hopper’s “Girl at a sewing machine” because it has reminded me of our first class exercise, our group has placed the interviewee beside the window. The painting seemed to have soft light, but the sunlight on the orange wall is hard lit. When I really let myself into this painting for a while I found the painting very unrealistic and I cannot stop myself to imagine this scene in a real situation. I was comparing this image with my limited experience in lighting,  different to our first class exercise, the window is right in front of the subject not beside the subject, which I am guessing the light maybe harder on her face, the white fabrics will reflect the light makes her face even brighter.Comparing to our class exercise, we had soft light on the background, but hard light on the right side of her face. The girl in this facing towards the window so I imagine her face will have harder lighting in a real situation. I have also noticed the main colour tone is warm orange in this painting, the biggest colour pattern is the orange wall, but the wooden furniture is also enhancing the warm tone.

Base on the movies; dramas or in different media pieces I have seen, I have a clear idea that lighting plays an important role in most of the media piece. I am a photography lover, I carried my camera around a lot in my free time, which I am pretty sure that lighting in photography is a key element because it changes the atmosphere of a photograph. I remembered Robin has highlighted a point in both classes in our first week: there is always some lighting if you have exposure, there must be lightings. However, even though I know how important lighting is in any media productions, I didn’t really have a chance to really learn what is lighting, and how does lighting work effectively in a media production. This is one of the main reason that made me choose to participate in this course.

My aspiration for this semester first is to gain a basic understanding of lighting. Secondly, I want myself to get used to thinking about lighting no matter what I saw, I remembered in Media 1 my tutor reminded us that even we are just media students, it’s time to start to think as a media maker, and we need to get used to think as a media maker.  Furthermore, I wish what I will learn from this course can apply in my future career, based on my experience so far, I always have no idea how can I adjust the lights in my previous studio projects. Throughout this studio, I hope I will at least able adjust the lighting for my own work.

Exercise 1 review:

I actually do like the lighting of our group, the lighting of our interview was harder than rest of the groups because we let the interviewee sit right next to the window. Half of Yolanda’s face was overexposed because she sits next to the window, the hard lighting made our lighting slightly overexposed. Another thing that found interesting was most of us thought black and white look nicer than coloured, since the space was very limited so we didn’t really get any choice on choosing where to shoot at. When the subjects in a frame/ scene are looking too messy or complex, turn it into black and white will make the scene look way much better.

One thing I have learnt in the first class is natural lighting keep changes every single second. For example, if we are shooting a huge scene for the whole afternoon we will get different lighting. In order to avoid this happening and also to keep the continuity, we need to let lighting elaborate in media production. Something I would consider to change: if we can have a better choice of background I think I will let my interviewee being filmed at a simpler background, maybe with a single colour background. Second, I will move my interviewee to not sit too close to the window to avoid overexposure.