Lighting is important in film because without light, you can’t see shit (obviously). A camera works like an eye, in that it reads light, and so there are so many ways to manipulate what the camera sees just by playing around with the illumination of the set and direction of lights. The aim of this in-class task was to do just that. As a group, we set up a three-point lighting plan, and again, used it to then play with focal lengths. (Three-point consists of a key light, a fill light, and a backlight).

Now, according to Paul, three-point lighting is just a myth, but what he means by that is that it’s not a rule, it’s more of a guideline. Basically, it’s less about understanding that it works, and more about understanding how it works. The key light is there to illuminate the main subject, sort of as the main light. The fill light is there to fill in the shadows on his face. The backlight is there to illuminate the background, and give the scene a bit of depth. So, knowing this, we can mess around with the set up to get what we specifically want. For example, if we want the main subject to look more ominous, we need to get rid of, or lessen the fill light to exaggerate the shadows on their face a bit more (and it would also help if the key light was a hard light). Coming from the Live Production course, I already had a decent understanding of lighting in general, but now, in my final project, I want to focus more on having exaggerated lighting ques and effects.