VIDEO LIGHTING

1504ART Digital Video Foundations

After making sure that your actor is saying the right
lines, that the picture is in focus and the camera is
recording probably the last thing on your mind is the
way the picture is lit.

But wait, the difference between something that is well

lit and something that isn't can be the difference
between a film that's great and one that's totally pants.
Generally you want to keep your light level up.

Video cameras work best in a certain range - too bright

and whites get blasted out too dark and you get a
grainy image without much colour.

The worst part of this is that if something is ‘blown out’

the camera records no image data, so you cannot just
‘fix it in post’.

But you also want to create a play on light and shade

on the objects before you, revealing depth, form and
mood.
SO HOW DO WE LIGHT A
SCENE???
My advice, keep it simple and fast.
Work with the light that is already there.
STEP ONE
Put as many existing lights and lamps on in the
room to increase the room's overall light level.
(Techie Tip! Lights that are in the scene anyway
are called 'practicals')
STEP TWO
Replace existing lightbulbs with more powerful
lightbulbs.
STEP THREE
Use a reflector to bounce an existing light source
onto your subject.
This is all very well & good, but even after bumping all
the practicals up we don’t have a very professional
looking setup...
The Solution...
Three-Point Lighting Setup
In order to complete our three point setup we are going
to need how many lights???

OK, that wasn’t so hard, but what sort of lights do we

need?

The equipment coordinator has two different types of

lights available - the ‘redhead’ and the ‘tota’, both are
very good, very expensive lights - so what do we do in
the real world when we don’t have these lights laying
around?
THE LIFELINE LIGHT KIT
Now what I am about to show you is not good
occupational health & safety procedure, but over the
years I have developed what I like to call the ‘Lifeline
Light Kit’.
It’s not called the Lifeline Light Kit because it has saved
my life, but because it comes from Lifeline, or Vinnies
or the Salvos.
Not only is it cheap, but I’m giving something back!!!
Now that that is out of the way, we can get on with the
how-to part...

Set something up you want to light. The example that

is always used is a person.

Set up your first light and put it in front of the subject at

a 45 degree angle looking down on them a little.
This is the key light.
Our subject is now lit.
But the subject does seem to have heavy shadows on
the opposite side of their face.

Erect another redhead making this one more diffuse by

reflecting it off a wall or a reflector, or use a diffuser in
front of the light.
This is the fill light and
helps soften the
shadows.
Once the key & fill lights have been set up we need to
add a light above and behind the subject to add a
slight corona (ie. white line) around them that helps to
separate them from the background.
This is called the back
light it is also known
as a ‘hair light’.
We can see here the
effects of each of the
lights, followed by the
overall effect of the
three point lighting
setup.
The Solution...
Three-Point Lighting Setup
Lighting Considerations
Distance

Remember that the further you move a light away from

the object you are lighting the less light falls on it - not
exactly rocket science eh?
While this may seem simple, if you don’t have a
reflector, or can’t get a decent bounce off of a wall, or
the subject simply looks too bright, try moving the
lights further back!
Backlighting
This is where your subject is standing with the sky or a
window or white wall behind them.
The camera goes 'Hey, loads of white I better set my
exposure to that', so when you come to look at your
footage all you can see it a silhouette of your subject
and you can hardly see their face.
Solution - turn around, and use the light from the wall/
window to light your subject.
Colour Temperature
Light not only differs in intensity, but also in its colour.
This means that you need to be aware of what type of
lights your location has so that you can be prepared.
Sunlight - Bluey
Artificial Light - Orangey
Fluorescents - Greeny
Another problem is that sunlight will actually differ
slightly in colour throughout the day.
Colour Temperature
All light is not white...
Your eyes can sort this information out, but the camera
tends to make everything look all one colour if it’s on
the wrong setting.

The Solution: check the white balance on your

camcorder.

White balance is essentially what colour your camera

thinks is white.
Some cameras have buttons for this i.e. indoors,
outdoors etc.

Other cameras sort this out automatically (although

they can make a botch job of it) and some allow you to
set it manually (by sticking a piece of white card in front
of it and saying 'Hey, this is white you dumb camera').

The simple rule is to check & make necessary changes

everytime you change location, or the lighting
conditions change.
LIGHTING AT NIGHT

Lighting at night is no fun at all.

However much light you seem to pour onto a subject it
still looks dark and grainy, either that or your subject
looks blasted out - white and washed out, like a rabbit
caught in a car's headlights.
The best bet is to shoot all your night stuff just before
light is about to go, when it looks like night but there is
still some light on the horizon (you better be quick).

This time of day is known as ‘magic hour’. You can

help out the look of your shoot by adjusting the
aperture, or iris, of your camera, to limit the amount of
light entering the CCD.
Another option is to shoot
‘day for night’ - a cheapo
technique (found in a lot of
films from the 60s) that you
could try to replicate by
fitting a blue filter to the
front of the camera and
decrease the aperture, or
iris, of your camera.

Remember to make sure

that what is in front of the
camera looks right, so
lights in houses need to be
on and remember, no birds
flying through shot!
FOLLOWING SOURCE
Whether you are shooting at night,
simulating it or shooting during the day, the
most important thing is to ‘follow source’.
The technique of following source has now become a
standard approach in many dramatic productions.

To do this a lighting director must first determine where

the sources of illumination might be within a scene.
They may be visible, or just suggested by the setting.

If none is obvious within the scene—such as a visible

window, or lighting fixture—it becomes a matter of
determining where a logical source of illumination might
be.
In a poolroom scene, for example, the light source
might be a light above the pool table—although it might
not be visible in the scene.

It then becomes a matter of keying important camera

close up positions so that they are consistent with this
suggested source of illumination.
Zodiac
Watch for the subtle differences in lighting
between night and day & also different interiors.
Other Lighting Styles
The three point lighting setup is only one basic
technique in the field of lighting.

While it may not be the most fancy of styles, once

mastered it allows the filmmaker to understand more
advanced or stylised techniques.

The two most prominent styles of lighting are known as

‘high-key’ and ‘low-key’ lighting.
High-Key Lighting
High-key lighting is a style of lighting for film, television,
or photography that aims to reduce the contrast ratio
present in the scene, it is therefore also known as ‘low-
contrast lighting’.
This was originally done partly for technological
reasons, since early film and television did not deal well
with high contrast ratios, but now is used to create an
upbeat mood.
It is often used in sitcoms and comedies. High-key
lighting is usually homogenous and free from dark
shadows.
In the 50s and 60s, high-key lighting was achieved
through multiple light sources lighting the stage -
usually using three fixtures per person (left, right, and
central) which results in a uniform lighting pattern with
very little modeling of the face.

The advantage to high-key lighting is that it doesn't

require adjustment for each scene which allows the
production to complete the shooting in hours instead of
days.
The primary drawback
is that high-key lighting
fails to add meaning or
drama by lighting
certain parts more
prominently than
others.
Low-Key Lighting

Low-key light shows the contours of an object by

throwing areas into light or shadow while the fill light
provides partial illumination in the shadow areas to
prevent a distracting contrast between bright and dark.
Therefore low-key lighting can also be known as ‘high-
contrast lighting’.
For dramatic effects, one may wish the contrast to be
high — to emphasize the brightness of the sun in a
desert scene, to make a face look rugged, seamed,
and old, or to isolate details in a mass of surrounding
shadow.

Low-key lighting makes use of a very strong key light,

while other lights are often kept to a minimum.
Low-key lighting is also knows as ‘mood lighting’
because the use of light to illuminate an object or
background in a deliberate manner can help to evoke a
certain mood or emotion.
This highly skilled
lighting technique is
very subtle but
nevertheless can
achieve highly effective
outcomes.
The majority of films today will use a combination of
high & low key lighting to achieve a balance between
emotion and narrative.

Low-key lighting, while the most difficult to achieve,

often yields the most powerful emotive effects.

While modern day film does not use low-key lighting as

extensively as films from the past the following are
some good examples.
Lighting Instruments
QUARTZ LAMPS

Almost all incandescent lamps used in TV production

are tungsten-halogen lamps (commonly called quartz
lamps). They normally range from 500 to 2,000 watts in
intensity.
Quartz lamps get extremely hot, which makes
ventilation important. Because of the great heat
associated with tungsten-halogen lighting instruments,
burnt fingers are a hazard for the unwary.
Special care must be taken
when these lamps are
changed (in addition to
unplugging the lights and
letting them cool down) to
make sure that oil or dirt
from fingers is not
deposited on the outer
glass (quartz) envelope of
the lamp.
HMI LAMPS

HMI, which stands for Hydrargyrum Medium Arc-length

Iodide, is a type of lighting element that emits an
intense light that's the same color temperature as
sunlight.
HMI lights are much more efficient than tungsten-
halogen lamps and they generate less heat (an
important consideration when shooting inside in a
confined space).
The main disadvantage of the HMI light is the large,
costly, high-voltage power supply that's needed.

Even so, because their colour temperature, efficiency,

and high light output, HMI lights are often used for on-
location production—especially for filling shadows
created by sunlight.

Now that we've covered the lamps used in lighting

instruments, we can turn to the lighting instruments
that house these lamps.
FRESNELS

For several decades

the Fresnel
(pronounced fra-nell)
light has been the
primary source of
illumination in most film
and TV studio
productions.
ELLIPSOIDAL SPOT

The ellipsoidal spot

produces a hard, focused
beam of light.
Used with gels, they can
project colored pools of
light on a background.
There are also number of other types of studio lights in
use, including

Broads (for broad-beamed lights),

Background lights (designed especially to illuminate

backgrounds), and

Beam-spot projectors (a spotlight-like device that

creates sharply defined shadows and can simulate
sunlight coming through a window). 
CAMERA LIGHTS
In ENG (electronic
newsgathering) work
where quality is often
secondary to getting a
story, camera-
mounted, tungsten-
halogen or HMI lights
(often called sun-guns)
are sometimes used as
a sole source of
illumination.
As a result of the straight-on angle involved, picture
detail and depth are sacrificed.

Because of the relationship between distance and light

intensity, the detail and colour of foreground objects
often becomes washed out, and objects in the
distance typically go completely dark.

For these reasons a camera light works best if

important subject matter is all at about the same
distance from the camera.
In describing the basic techniques for lighting in we've
covered approaches that will provide good results for
most studio and field work.

The lighting required for sophisticated, multiple-camera

dramatic productions requires the skill and artistic
ability of an experienced lighting director. At this level of
sophistication lighting moves into the realm of a true art
form.