Lighting Techniques

Film Production - Lighting Equipment & Techniques
Filmmaking is all about capturing light. A bright light draws the viewers eye. A scene can be
lit by available light (the sun, moon or existing light sources) or using powerful and
expensive artifical light. The way a scene is lit influences how the audience will react
emotionally to your movie.
The angle and direction of light gives your audience clues about where and what time of day
the scene is taking place. Painters have long understood that the quality of light in a scene
can hide or reveal things and influences the viewer's reaction.
In feature films the lighting is a high priority because how well the movie is lit influences
how the audience perceives the production values of the movie and therefore the quality of
the movie. Badly lit images can do more to make a film look amateuric than any with the
possible exception of bad sound.
In documentary films the light is given much less consideration because it often isn't
possible to control the light and audiences are used to documentary movies having a "news
footage" look. A feature filmmaker can choose to use documentary lighting to create a
sense of realism.
Quality of light
Light can be classified in several ways including:
 How sharp is the shadow?

 What is the angle of the light?
 How bright is the light?
 What color is the light?
 How many lights are there and how do they contrast in all the ways just listed?
A hard light, coming from a single small source such as the sun or a spotlight, creates a
harsh appearance. They also create harsh shadows on the background as well as on the
face and features of your actors. The prettiest actress can look homely in hard light.
A soft light, coming from a large area of lighting or many small lights, creates a soft, gentle
or romantic look. It generally takes much more power to create the same amount of soft
light compared to hard light. Many old films had to use hard lighting because the film was
so insensitive to light.
The direction of light effects the audiences perception of the subject.
A film is rarely lit with a single light source. There are usually a minimum of four sources in
a professionally shot film.There is a key light that provides most of the illumination on the
subject and is typically at a 3/4 position. Next a fill light from the side fills in the shadows to
soften them.
The relative brightness of these lights is referred to as the contrast ratio of the lighting. Low
contrast, where the two light are close to equally bright is a soft light. High contrast where
the shadow fill light is much dimmer creates a harsh, hard light that is appropriate for
villains and used much in film noir.
A third small, direction light illuminates the back of the actor. The light may be to the side
or above. This light outlines the actors form giving a some three-dimensional appearance. It
also puts a gleam on the actors hair and is therefore sometimes called the hair light. If the
back light is the brightest light you get a dramatic silhouetted look which makes a great
dramatic entrance for the hero or villain, or a very romantic look for the leading lady.
These first three lights--key, fill and back--are sometimes referred to as three-point
lighting. It consitutes the most pleasing and common way that people are lit, whether for
films or formal portraits. Having an understanding and mastory of this three light
combination will handle about 95% of the artificial lighting situations you encounter.
At least a fourth light source is usually aimed at the background behind the actor to
illuminate the setting. Otherwise the actors might look like they are floating in space.
You can also change the vertical angle of the light. Normally the key and fill lights are
slightly above eye height. The back light in a studio would be above and behind the actor as
they face the camera.
Top light creates deep eye shadows and is almost always unattractive. Unfortuneately that
is often the only existing light angle you will find in many locations such as offices and
stores. Low light creates the classic, and overused, monster lighting.
The lighting contrast ratio can be very misleading if you try to judge it visually. Both film
and video cameras can't see the range of brightness in a scene that the human eye can see.
The contrast ratio that is recorded on film or video always appears much higher than what
you eye will tell you. You need to get very good with an exposure meter for film, or use a
good video monitor when working in video to see what the lighting is really going to look
like in the final image.
Shadows that appear to have detail to the eye will end up as totally black. Highlights will
completely wash out, especially with video, to a very ugly, detail-less blob like glaring snow.

Lighting Techniques

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Film Production - Lighting Equipment & Techniques

 How sharp is the shadow?

The direction of light effects the audiences perception of the subject.

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