is the paint you use to make video art.
You can Actively Use light aesthetically to create a mood or feel, to control depth of field & create a sense of the 3rd dimension, the Z axis. Verisimilitude. (Artificial lighting in studio situations.)
Sometimes you Passively cope with the lighting situation you are confronted with, & you take action to compensate. (Shooting in the field.)
Basic lighting instruments:
Spot – narrow beam, harsh, strong light, deep shadows, rapid falloff
Types of spots: Fresnel, ellipsoidal (Leko)
Flood – wider, softer, more diffuse light.
These terms can also be used as a verb: You “spot” an adjustable light to make its beam narrower and more intense. You “flood” a light to make its beam wider and more diffuse.
Key light – this is the main light, the strongest light that throws most of the illumination on the subject. Typically it is a spot light at an angle of 30 - 40 degrees to the front of the subject.
Fill light – This is used to fill in the deep shadows cast by the key light. It will usually be a flood light about one half the strength of the key light and about the same angle on the opposite side of the key light.
Back Light, a.k.a. hair light – This light is above and a little behind the subject. It illuminates the hair and shoulders to give an enhanced sense of 3 dimensional depth. This is usually a spot light that is as strong or stronger than the key light.
Outdoors the sun can be the key light, you can use a reflector as fill.
Other lights:
Background lights – this is light thrown on the background curtain or wall to add another plane of interest to contribute to the sense of depth in the picture. Sometimes a gobo or cookie is used on this light to create an interesting pattern or texture.
Rim light -- This is pretty much the same thing as a back light, except that it is very hard and intense, and positioned directly opposite of the key light so that it creates a very sharp rim of light on the shoulders, hair, or hat of the subject. This would be a high key situation.
Kicker – You'll hear this word used frequently, but it is not a very precise term. It is a small light used to fill in miscellaneous areas. It might be used as a fill light in outdoors or bright rooms where natural light is the main light and you are only using one artificial light as a supplement. It might be an additional back light used as a rim light. It is just something used to add a little extra "kick" to the scene.
How do you measure light?
>>Light meters:
In the film world light meters are used to set up lighting and determine the exposure of the film. On the set you can recognize the cinematographer and lighting director by the light meters hanging in holsters on their belts and hanging from cords around their necks.
In this realm light is measured in F-stops, T-stops, candlepower, or EV units.
There are two kinds of light meters:
Reflective meters measure the light reflected off of the scene. To use a reflective meter you stand back in the camera position and point the meter toward the scene.
A specialized type of reflective meter is a spot meter. This kind of meter measures the light in a narrow area, typically about 1 degree, so you can make judgments about the difference between the highlights and the blacks.
Incident meters measure the light falling on the scene. To use an incident meter you stand in the scene on the mark you are trying to light, and measure the light falling on the scene. You can often recognize an incident meter by the little white plastic hemisphere that covers the light sensor -- this diffuses the light that the meter sees, so its reading is not distorted by bright points of light or large patches of black. (An incident meter is always an averaging meter.)
>>Electronic light measurement:
In the video world, light meters work just as well, but video technology offers some other alternative ways of measuring exposure, and usually the speedy pace of video productions makes these methods more practical.
The Waveform monitor -- that's the little green screen you see in the studio control room. There are also portable waveform monitors that can be used on field shoots, and you can open up waveform monitor windows in your digital editors such as Final Cut Pro or Avid Express to measure the exposure quality of the video you are editing.
The waveform monitor has a scale on its screen that measures the exposure of the video scene in IRE units or percentages. The brightest areas in the scene should not exceed 100 IRE or 100%. The darkest areas of the scene should be at 7.5 IRE or 7.5%.
Zebra pattern: on professional cameras you have the option to switch in zebra patterns which will be visible in your viewfinder as white diagonal lines. The zebras show up in areas of the scene which exceed a certain level. This gives you a clue about what areas of the picture are overexposed. You have to read the camera manual to know what that level is. In some cameras the zebras are fixed at one level, usually 100%. In other cameras you can switch the zebra setting from 100% to 80% or . . .?
Down & dirty Camcorder technique: With consumer level camcorders you can rely on auto-exposure to guide you most of the time, but sometimes you might want more information. You can use the LCD screen on the camera to give you a clue. If you turn down the brightness on the screen and watch the highlights as the brightness is going down, you can judge whether there are overexposed areas in the picture. If you turn the screen brightnesss way down and you still cannot see any detail in the bright areas, then you know you are overexposed -- you can then go into manual exposure on the camera and reduce the exposure.
Scrims |
Color of light: Sunlight = 5600K, incandescent = 3200K, | |
| Silks | Fluorescent, sodium vapor streetlights, etc. | |
| Gels - diffusion, correction, color | Gels & filters to balance: amber & blue | |
| Flags, cutters, C-stands | blackwrap | |
| Practicals = existing house lamps | Examples: |
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Some ways you can control the amount of light from a lighting instrument:
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