Friday’s tutorial was primarily dedicated to the learning of the basics of white-balance, and putting our learnings into practice for the second half of the lesson.

Paul explained that its important to understand that a more accurate title for white-balance would be “colour-balance”, yet white is referred to due to it being a main reference for all colour balances. An high or low key light in a room can cause some colours to be more visible on the camera than others. What we may see with out naked eye, is an example of our ability to quickly and immediately process colours for what they actually are despite any sunlight interference. A camera, as Paul explained, does not have this immediate ability. Therefore white balance must be adjusted to achieve a shot that is reminiscent of what we see with our own eyes.

This is primarily done by the camera measuring the colour levels (using white as a reference) to see which colours are more visible in the frame than others. Once noticing this, the camera will then “pump” in the opposite colour, to balance out the frame.

 

The above image is a great example, showing different colours being injected into the frame, measured in kelvin temperature. In the first image, we see intense sunlight allowing the colour of blue to dominate the frame, creating an unrealistic look to what we see with the naked eye. In this case, the camera’s white-balance feature has injected yellow (the opposite colour to blue on a white-balance scale), into the frame. As the level of yellow increases across each frame, we can see a more realistic frame being progressively created from left to right.

Importantly, it was discussed by the class that due to being unable to adjust exposure levels mid-shot, it’s important that the lighting is equal for the entirety of the shot. This means that if you were to do, say, an interior tracking shot, you would need to light the scene at an equal level throughout, that way the white-balance adjusted level will be ideally creating a realistic frame for the entirety of the shot.

As we have finally learnt white-balance, this completes our learning of the basic elements of filmmaking.

The “A.P.O.W.F.E.R.” list is now complete.

For reference:

A: Audio

P: Power

O: On

W: White-Balance

F: Frame focus/focal length

E: Exposure

R: Record