Of Tracks, Dollies and Three-Point-Lighting

As you may have guessed by the title, our tech lesson today was filled to the brim with helpful and necessary exercises in three-point-lighting and track'n'dollies.

For the first exercise, we were set with the tasks of:

a) setting an interview scene with three-point-lighting in twenty minutes, including set dressing and positioning of actress and camera and

b) afterwards changing the whole setting to create a shallower depth of field.

With the first exercise, since I never actively used three-point-lighting, I tried to incorporate my theoretical knowledge from my alma mater in Frankfurt: That three-point-lighting requires

1. a strong key-light to light the person or object in question,

2. a filling light to counteract the shadows cast by the key-light and

3. a background light to create contrast between person/object and background and to furthermore create three-dimensionality in the two-dimensional frame.

So far, so bad. We tried incorporating these aspects and failed gloriously. In our very first attempt, we slowly increased the light intensity until we felt that the scene was adequately lit, just to realise, that the image on the camera itself was far to dark. In our second attempt then, the light was much too harsh for our model (who was most certainly blind afterwards). The light not only washed the colours off her face but also cast harsh shadows either on herself or on her background, creating a flat image.

After the help and a little adjustment of our lecturer, the scene changed tremendously. He dialled down the intensity of the key light and steered the lights slightly away from our model so that just the edge of the light beam lit her face and the main light fell on the background. The image on our camera was suddenly much smoother, more natural and three-dimensional, even without the use of depth of field.

When we were then set out to incorporate as shallow a depth of field as possible, I tried to pull focus on our model and decreasing the number of the iris to the lowest possible point. Surprisingly to me, the image itself did not gain an essential depth of field and I was seriously wondering whether I would ever truly understand the laws of optics.

At the end of our attempts (and wits) we learned, that we should have increased our and our model's distance to the background in order to enhance the effect and achieve the desired shallow depth of field.

But the greatest revelation for me was the fact that three-point-lighting should rather be seen as a mindset of how to light a certain scene instead of actually using three different lights to lighten up a set. Which is a liberating thought even though I have not yet fully wrapped my head around it.

For our second exercise, we set out to the sound stage with a complete kit, with lighting and with track and dolly. After setting together the tracks and dolly, our lecturer designated me as coordinator of sorts. My task was to come up with a viable light setting for a street set and to coordinate the crew accordingly. I was highly excited and immediately set about to think of a setting that would look intriguing on camera as well as deploy the rules I just learned in the studio.

So I decided for one redhead behind a round arch to cast a long but strong path of light onto the 'street' and opted for a Felloni 2 Dedolight to pose as a street lamp on the other end of the street to counteract the strong shadows. I furthermore asked for two minor LEDs in the fake windows behind the set to give it the impression of inhabited houses. I aimed for recreating the feel and the overall association of Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal music video.

As soon as everything was set and lit, the camera with tripod mounted onto the dolly and our actor ready, we filmed a couple of tracking shots and even experimented with trombone shots.

References:

MichaelJacksonVEVO (2010) Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal (Official Video) [online]

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