Taming the Beast: Light and Lighting Scenarios

I still struggle with lighting.

There, I said it.

I still struggle with lighting. I don't quite seem to get it right, since it's either blinding the actor in real life, but still too underexposed on camera, or it's really REALLY blinding the actor but overexposed on camera creating a flat, washed-out image without any depth whatsoever.

What do I do? And what can I sensibly do in the means and time given regarding our client project?

I read into matters more to get a grip of the situation and to improve upon it. And while I'm aware that theoretical knowledge of lighting and the practical application of it are two different pairs of shoes, I feel that I need to understand more in order to learn how to combine the two elements.

So what do I want to achieve?

For our film project, we need two different types of lighting, broadly speaking. Since we have two characters with different moods and perspectives on life, I wanted to create a sombre, darker, depressing lighting tone for Christina, while I want a lighter, positive, even enthusiastic atmosphere for Chris' character.

When our client joined both our ideas, Lynley and I quickly realised that we envisioned the same colour schemes, so I was able to keep to them as I envisioned them in the first place. It would have been difficult enough since I wanted to give a different dominant colour to each of Chris' scenes, underlining the vibrant life he leads via colours.

However, real life quickly invaded our production and it was obvious that I had to cater for one more aspect I did not think of before: Mocking up a lighting scenario entirely.

For our nightly pub scene, after talking to the owner, can only be shot starting noon. I will have to mock up night time while the sun is high in the sky and casting harsh light. So how do I light a bar scene?

Well, this is going to be interesting.

Which is why I started rereading and relearning and adding to my previous knowledge of lighting in order to be ready to cope with the situation in the best way possible. And this also entails learning the lingo surrounding lighting. While I will not yet claim that I know the TECH lingo of lighting (which is a major endeavour already on its own), I will concentrate on the basics first and steadily build my way up:

In the beginning, there was light. And then there was hard lighting and soft lighting. While hard lighting creates harsh shadows with edges and strong contrasts to the light, soft lighting is more subtle, creating soft shadows or sometimes no shadows at all, thus providing weak contrasts.

Soft lighting usually tends less attention than harsh lighting, as our eyes are usually drawn to points of high contrast. Soft lighting is furthermore rather flattering since it glosses over wrinkles and spots (which explains the visual quality of a lot of Youtube makeup tutorials...).

But the distinction between hard and soft lighting has another key point that was interesting to me: While soft, diffused light, is far more spreading around the room, it allows the actor to roam the set without changing much of the light quality falling onto him. Hard light is usually strongly directed and concentrated, which can heavily restrict the actor in his actions.

Hard light can be diffused by a variety of measures and equipments (umbrellas, silks, scrims or 'diffusion papers', soft boxes, reflectors, shades, or even walls and windows). I was surprised to learn that, but since the size of the light source and its distance to the object are directly correlating with the intensity of the light (hard or soft), it is only natural that bouncing or diffusing light can turn hard light into soft.

This direct correlation between distance and intensity of the light is dominated by what is called the 'inverse square law': For every fraction of the distance you move farther away or closer to the object, the intensity of the light is changing. And it escalates quickly: If you move in half way to the object, the light levels are FOUR times higher. And if you double the distance, the light levels are FOUR times lower. Which means that you can quickly and easily create an extremely dramatic effect.

Furthermore, there is motivated lighting (when your lighting setup imitates a natural source and either replicates or enhances it), practical lighting (active light sources in the scene that cast light on their own to enhance a certain flair), and available light (as on location). Knowing the least tiny bit of the film industry, there is certainly much, much more to distinguish, than what my research has come up with so far.

Although I already learned about key lights, fill lights and background lights in the three-point-lighting system, there was still much to be learned for me. Which is why I found it helpful to learn that key lights are not supposed to be too close to the camera since they flatten the image and wash out textures (that was, when I really grasped the concept of inverse square law!), that the fill light needs to be indistinctive and may not create shadows on its own at all (this, I realised, has hitherto been a major mistake of mine) and that the backlight can create the most drastic effects (it serves as a so-called 'kicker' if it also lights parts of the face and not only silhouettes).

And then there are also the terms high key and low key, which is, firstly, bright and shadowless with lots of fill lights (like I envisioned the scenes with Chris), or, secondly, lowly lit scenes with little to no fill light (like film noir).

So, what did I come up with after reading all this?

I finally decided that I wanted to go with a mixture of enhanced natural lighting for Christina and rather high-key lighting for Chris. Since I already want to enhance Chris' lifestyle by the use of brightness and thus make it rather hyperreal, I opted for natural lighting for Christina to counterbalance these two characters and their respective moods.

Compared to high-key lighting, natural lighting can already look paler and more sombre and I did not want to use low-key lighting since this was a bit too dramatic for me in contrast. I furthermore figured, that both the natural setting of Christina and the high-key lighting for Chris would pose a good base later on in the colour correction stage of editing.

Which is why I will definitely take out two Felloni 2 Dedo-lights to supplement the lighting for Chris and a reflector to not only enhance the natural lighting for Christina, but also to have the three-point-lighting system for Chris completed. I figured this would be a viable compromise, also regarding the fact that we need to carry and set up this amount of equipment in the time we are given.

For the bar scene and after the location recce I did last Saturday, I decided that I will be blocking out the natural light and light the scene with a red key light and a green fill and bounce. Since the location only allows so much for creating artificial nightly light scenarios, I decided that I will go with this colour combination I know from many pubs back home. While most modern bars in Frankfurt currently sport rather neon-lit, cold colours, I realised that this will not do in a convincing way with a British pub at hand. So I opted for the cozy red and green solution that I have seen in many German, Swedish and even Japanese pubs.

Which is why I also took out a gel package by the company LEE after going through one of their sample swatches in order to be able to experiment with different colour variations on set. I will still need to learn - and EXPERIMENT - a lot to get a profound grasp on what I have learned on lighting so far, but now, I feel much more equipped to deal with the challenges that lie ahead of us in this production and I am confident that I will find a solution even within the limited knowledge of a first-year student.

By the way, I desperately need to get hold of one of this Designer's Edition LEE filter swatches. They are so handy, helpful, and quick to use if you need to get a good first impression and/or overview.

References:

Box, H. (2010) Chapter 5: Lighting objectives and methods in Box, H. (ed.) Set Lighting Technician's Handbook. Film Lighting Equipment, Practice, and Electrical Distribution. Fourth Edition New York and London: Focal Press, pp.91-118

Box, H. (2010) Chapter 6: Manipulating light: Tools, techniques, and the behaviour of light in Box, H. (ed.) Set Lighting Technician's Handbook. Film Lighting Equipment, Practice, and Electrical Distribution. Fourth Edition New York and London: Focal Press, pp.119-149

Film Riot (2017) Basic Lighting Techniques [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y6bB86HmdA [Accessed on 21 February 2018]

McGregor, L. (2016) Lighting 101: A Quick Guide for Lighting Film [online] http://bit.ly/2FMLjyg [Accessed on 21 February 2018]

Musburger, R. and Ogden, M. (2016) Set Lighting Fundamentals [online] http://www.masteringfilm.com/set-lighting-fundamentals/ [Accessed on 21 February 2018]

Renée, V. (2016) How to Make Your Film Look Cinematic When Your Lighting Setup is Less Than Ideal [online] http://bit.ly/2FTdyac [Accessed on 21 February 2018]

Ward, C. (2015) Cinematography Tip: How to Create Soft Diffused Light [online] http://bit.ly/2Iz0loJ [Accessed on 21 February 2018]