Shape
Flat front lighting does not reveal the shape and form of the subject—it tends to fl atten everything out, to make the subject almost a cartoon cutout: two-dimensional. Lighting from the side or back reveals the shape of an object—its external structure and geometric form.
This is important for the overall depth of the shot; more- over, it can reveal character, emotional values, and other clues that may have story importance. Naturally, it also makes the image more real, more palpable, more recog- nizable. Human vision relies on several cues to determine depth, shape, and distance: how light and shadow fall on an object is a signifi cant part of this.
Separation
By separation, we mean making the main subjects stand out from the background. A frequently used method for doing this is a backlight. Another way to do it is to make the area behind the main subjects signifi cantly darker or brighter than the subject. In our quest to make an image as three-dimensional as possible, we usually try to create a fore- ground, midground, and background in a shot; separation is an important part of this.
Depth
As image formats, what are fi lm, video, and HD? They are basically rectangles—fl at rectangles. Each is very much a two-dimensional medium. As lighting people, cinematographers, and directors a big part of our job is trying to make this fl at art form as three-dimensional as possible—to give it depth and shape and perspective; to bring it alive as the real world is as much as possible. Lighting plays a huge role in this. Other methods—the use of the lens, blocking, camera movement, set design, color—play a role as well, but lighting is our key player in this endeavor.
This is a big part of why fl at lighting is so frequently the enemy. Flat lighting is light that comes from very near the camera, like the fl ash mounted on a consumer still camera—it is on axis with the lens. As a result, it just fl atly illuminates the entire subject evenly. It erases the natural three-dimensional quality of the subject.
Texture
As with shape, light from the axis of the lens (fl at front lighting) tends to obscure texture. The reason is simple: we
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Fundamentals of Lighting 39 FIGURE 3.4 Lighting is your primary tool in establishing mood and tone, which add layers of meaning to the content. This eff ect was achieved in a very simple way: a 2000-watt open-face light was bounced off the fl oor.
know texture from the shadows. Light that comes from near the camera creates no shadows. The more light comes in from the side, the more it creates shadows, which is what reveals texture.
Exposure
Lighting does many jobs for us, but none of them matters if you don’t get the exposure right—incorrect exposure can ruin whatever else you have done.
In terms of lighting, just getting enough light into a scene to get an exposure is usually not diffi cult. What is critical is correct exposure. Certainly, it is a job for lighting (in addition to the iris, frame rate, processing (fi lm), gain (video), and shutter angle) but don’t forget to think of it as an important image making and storytelling tool. Most of the time we want nominally correct exposure—that is, exposure that fi ts the brightness range of the scene nicely into the exposure latitude and gamma of the fi lm stock or camera sensors.
It is important to remember in this context that exposure is about more than just “it’s too light” or “it’s too dark”— exposure for mood and tone is obvious, but there are other considerations as well. For example, proper exposure and camera settings are critical to color saturation and achieving a full range of grayscale tones.
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40 Motion Picture and Video Lighting
Directing the Eye
We normally think of composition as a function of the frame, the lens, and the arrangement of sets and props. True enough, but if you ignore lighting as an element of composition, you are missing out on one of your most valuable tools.
What are we doing with composition? What is our goal? One of the key elements is directing the eye—guiding the viewer’s eye through the frame in a meaningful manner. As you may know, the eye/brain combination does not take in an entire picture all at once. The larger the image is, the truer this becomes: we perceive a small monitor or photograph in a different way than we do a very large fl at screen moni- tor or a theater projection screen. In all cases, however, the eye scans the picture. The more organized the composition, the more the artist or cinematographer can control how the viewer takes in the image.
There are two aspects of this: composition as an organiza- tion of the elements in the frame and a subset of that — directing the eye to particularly important elements in the frame—most often, our key actor in the scene.