Basics of Film Lighting

To most independent film-makers (including myself) lighting is one of the biggest bitches that you have to consider. Sure, none of us have any money to buy fancy, professional stage lighting so why bother at all, right?

Wrong! Put in plain and simply, unless you are working outdoors on the brightest of days you will need some form of light or else your footage will look shit. Really shit. Most camcorders will burst into grain if there is not enough light. Those that don't turn grainy will just be black. Either way, it's bad news for you.

Many first-time filmmakers don't realise why they need any extra lights. They usually think "It seems bright enough to me" - a fatal mistake! The human eyes can see much, much better in the dark than a camcorder so even when it looks bright, your camcorder will probably only see about half of the available light.

So you need extra lights. Cheap ones. This will be covered in a future tutorial because before you buy some lights, you need to understand the theory of how to light your scenes correctly.

THREE POINT LIGHTING

With a three-point lighting setup, you usually can't go wrong. It is the very basic of lighting setups which will give your images added depth and prevent that all dreaded grain from creeping into your movie. As the name suggests, you will need three sources of light:

Key Light
This is your main light. The key light is a hard light source, which is placed to one side of the camera and up high. It's light can be likened to the light from the sun on a clear day - a bright light with hard-edged shadows. It provides excellent “modeling” in that it highlights the shape and contours of the subject.

Fill Light
The fill light is a soft light source, which is usually placed on the other side of the camera from the key (but closer to the camera), and at about the camera's height. It's light can be likened to indirect sunlight reflected light from the environment. It provides the “filling in the shadows” light in that it lowers the contrast between light and dark in the image, and it casts very soft indistinct shadows.

Back Light
The back light is a hard light source like the key, but it is usually a smaller light and it is shone from behind the subject. It's light is purely for modeling effect, in that it helps overcome the two-dimensional film image and makes the subject stand out from the background. It is sometimes referred to as the “highlight” as it is often used to give a sheen or highlight to an actor's hair.

SEEING IT ALL IN ACTION:

KEY LIGHT ONLY Here is our computer generated apple. We can clearly see that the key light has been placed to the right of the camera and has created very sharp shadows. Looks okay but doesn't show any real depth.
FILL LIGHT ONLY Remember the fill light usually is on the opposite side of the camera from the key (so in this case it is on the left). As it should be a soft light (created by use of filters or diffusers) the effect is similar to the key except the shadows are less defined. Plus the apple looks flat and crap.
KEY + FILL Merging the key and fill together instantly gives us that all important depth making the image feel more three-dimensional.
BACKLIGHT ONLY The backlight, as seen here, provides very subtle highlighting to the main subject.
KEY + FILL + BACK Beautiful! What a stunning apple.

If you do you lighting correctly, no one in the audience will even notice it. Lighting is one of those thankless but essential tasks that an audience demands but they don't realise it (they will just think in the back of their minds that something doesn't look quite right). Remember, you are most likely gonna be shooting on a consumer/prosumer camcorder which by its nature looks like video so you have your work cut out for you to deceive the audience into thinking its a more expensive camera.

THE THEORY OUT THE WAY BUT NOW WHAT?

Well that's up to you. Soon I will have up a guide on purchasing cheap lighting for your own productions which should help you save a few bucks. Other than that, another essential part of film lighting is to also understand your own camcorder settings.

There are numerous controls on a camcorder that can drastically effect the final image (for the worse if you don't know what you're doing) so now is the time to dust off the manual and learn about your cameras optics.

The main areas you want to look at are: White Balance, Exposure (Iris) and Depth of Field.

Am I going to explain any of these now? NO!!!! This tutorial was just for basic lighting. Keep checking back on the website and eventually I'll put a guide up on each of them (when I find an intelligent way of explaining them!).

AND DON'T FORGET...

This is just a basic lighting setup which will create neutral results. If you were shooting a horror movie or some kind of thriller, you definitely want to experiment more with the lights. For example, if your character is looking through a window, shining a key light through some blinds onto her can create an excellent effect. But this is just one example of endless set-ups. It is really down to time and creativity.

When it all boils down to it, the audience is more concerned about a good story than anything else.