Lighting workshop

 Lighting workshop:

In this lesson, we learned about how to light and set up possible different shot configurations, and what lighting could imply based on genre, tone, and style. In order to do this, we used the black magic mini URSA camera with a 50mm lens which shoots in about a mid-shot.

The house lights, these are the lights that come with the building, and as a rule of thumb, you should shout when turning them off to alert the rest of the crew. The house lights are the least you can do, and what would be considered traditionally poor lighting for a shot, as it creates zero dynamics.

To make it better, we can use a film light. The first one we first looked a red-head light, as they usually have a painted redhead. A red headlight is slightly more powerful than a regular light, and so has a protective metal netting thing on it to protect it from blowing. When it blows, as they often do, will make a loud  "banging" noise. 

Get the red headlight, stick it as close to the camera as possible, point it at the subject, this creates a sharp almost interrogating light, which creates sharp shadows and a lot of contrast. (Be sure to tell them to put their eyes down whilst turning it on. the light is quite bright) It will initially be extremely overexposed, when testing, there were particularly sharp shadows on the nose, and around the profile of the face. 

To diffuse this, we can put a film like "tracing" paper, also known as frost, over the light in order to install the frost, turn the light off, clip it over the main light, then turn the light on, and the light should be softer and more diffused. 

The most standard lighting technique, when lighting a scene or frame, is called 3 point lighting, lighting from the front, side, and back. The first light is the most important, called a key light, this is where the majority of the light will be flooding in from. In our workshop, we used the redhead light as our key light. The second light is called the fill light.  In the workshop, we used another redhead, but this one had a trace, which made the light softer. This is good lighting, as everything is visible, but this blends the background and the foreground since there is virtually no contrast, this makes it all look quite flat. 

The third light is the backlight, and we are using a blonde light, similar to the redhead, a blonde has a yellow-painted head and is significantly brighter. This light creates a sort of lighted silhouette,  that adds another dynamic by creating an edge over her shoulders and separates her from the background. This creates a more dynamic shot which is more intriguing. 

Another lighting technique often used is Beauty Lighting. In order to do this, there are two different set-ups:

The first one is colloquially called the "Bladerunner" lighting. The first one is colloquially called the "Bladerunner" lighting. For this, we turn off all the front lighting (key light and the film light) and just have the blonde light from behind, facing the camera. The objects get sharper and more in focus the more you just the exposure. You can do this manually, softening the light, by using a  large piece of polystyrene in front of the subject, since it is lightweight and white, it reflects the light back onto the subject in a much softer and diffused front light. You would then adjust the camera accordingly.

The problem is, since this is manual there can be dirty light going directly into the lens, and so you may need to use some sort of blocker over the lens itself in order to properly light the subject in the frame. When the light bounces off the white reflection,  it softens the image and creates a gentle light that gives it this "beauty" look. 

In the next lighting setup, we use a custom wooden frame with essentially, a large frosted sheet covering one side, this was originally created in order to do silhouette work. But it works similar to a large diffuser, which refracts the harsh, direct redhead light, onto an extremely vast surface area. we did this from a side angle, pointing at the subject, with every other light turned off. The quality of the light becomes extremely natural and traditional, especially if you add in the piece of polystyrene from before, however, this is not needed in order to light the subject properly.  A great thing about this technique, as opposed to the blade runner lighting, is that it does an excellent job of lighting the entire space and frame, so with this technique, it’s easier and quicker to get a very well-lit shot.

We can cover these lights with gels or sometimes called filters, and they are like a plastic sheet. All needed is just to place it over the light, and then it will give you different colors. The first one we saw was called “straw” - very orangy. 

We also have fluorescent lights “florrys”. These lights aren’t dimmable (we aren’t able to turn them down gradually like we did with the blonde light). Inside these, we have fluorescent bulbs, and we can change the color of them by putting different gels inside. Lighting with these, we should still use the same 3 point lighting technique that we would normally use, with a key light, a fill light, and a backlight, or at least just a key and a back. These lights are also referred to as dress lights, as you could put it in the shot and they still look quite cool as part of the set. 

The next light is called a FOTO-FLO. This has never been used properly on a shoot. It’s nice and soft, and quite warm. Teamed up with the left-sided red headlight (with the wooden plastic frame thing), and with this light coming from the right it looks really cool. 

The next lights are by a company called PHOTON BEARD. The one we are looking at now is called a highlight. It is very cold. Almost white.