Learning From Classic Films

Part 1: Lighting

Wedding film lighting techniques are essential in creating stylized and natural-looking film scenes. This is why film sets always seem to be overly lit or packed with many different light sources that serve different purposes. This requires technical knowledge in cinematography, which means using the most appropriate cinematic shots and film lighting techniques to get your message across perfectly in each and every scene. If you’re aiming to become a wedding videographer or any other person who holds a creative role in a film crew, you’ll need to learn some of the basic lighting techniques and types of lighting used in filmmaking.

Cinematography and film lighting is closely similar to photography lighting. You’ve probably heard many of these techniques, especially if you’ve done some studio photography in the past, but it helps to learn how they can uniquely benefit wedding filmmakers in creating different moods and atmospheres in every scene. It’s also important to note that these techniques are not clear-cut, so many of them can actually take the form of several other film lighting techniques. What matters is that you learn what each is good for and are able to make the best use of them for achieving your cinematic goals.

The following are all the different types of lighting in film:

1.Back lighting

Backlighting is used to create a three-dimensional scene, which is why it is also the last to be added in a three-point lighting setup. This also faces your subject—a little higher from behind so as to separate your subject from the background. As with fill lighting, you’ll want to also diffuse your backlight so it becomes less intense and covers a wider area of your subject. For example, for subject mid-shots, you’ll want to also light up the shoulders and base of the person’s neck instead of just the top of their head. This technique can also be used on its own, without the key and fill lights if you’re aiming for a silhouette. Use backlight to accentuate the silhouette of a subject, whether it’s a person or an object. Backlighting creates a halo effect for increased impact.

2. Side Lighting

Needless to say, side lighting is for illuminating your scene from the side, parallel to your subject. It is often used on its own or with just a faint fill light to give your scene a dramatic mood or what’s referred to as “chiaroscuro” lighting. To really achieve this effect, your side light should be strong so as to create strong contrast and low-key lighting that reveals the texture and accentuates the contours of your subject. When used with a fill light, it’s advisable to lessen the fill light’s intensity down to 1/8 of that of the side light to keep the dramatic look and feel of a scene. Side lighting brings out the textures or edges in a scene. Using side lighting creates a better sense of depth in a location. It can make subjects seem farther off by accentuating the space between them.

3. Bounce Lighting

Bounce lighting is about literally bouncing the light from a strong light source towards your subject or scene using a reflector or any light-colored surface, such as walls and ceilings. Doing so creates a bigger area of light that is more evenly spread out. If executed properly, bounce lights can be used to create a much softer key, fill, top, side, or backlighting, especially if you don’t have a diffuser or soft-box. Bouncing light off the ceiling creates more diffuse illumination and results in even, soft light. When you need more ambient light across a whole environment, bounce light is a great choice.

4. Soft Lighting

Soft light doesn’t refer to any lighting direction, but it’s a technique nonetheless. Cinematographers make use of soft lighting (even when creating directional lighting with the techniques above) for both aesthetic and situational reasons: to reduce or eliminate harsh shadows, create drama, replicate subtle lighting coming from outside, or all of the above. Soft lighting is more flattering on human subjects. The soft quality of the light minimizes the appearance of shadows, wrinkles, and blemishes. Use soft lighting for beautification.

5. Hard Lighting

Hard light can be sunlight or a strong light source. It’s usually unwanted, but it certainly has cinematic benefits. You can create hard lighting with direct sunlight or a small, powerful light source. Despite it creating harsh shadows, hard lighting is great for drawing attention to your main subject or to an area of the scene, highlighting your subject’s contour, and creating a strong silhouette. Hard lighting emphasizes changes in contour, shape, and texture. Use hard lighting to create a more intense look.

6. Practical film light or ambient light:

How about the light sources already in the scene? Excellent point! It's rare to go into a restaurant, an airport or even Hogwarts – without some sort of light already present. While you might not have magical lighting sources, you'll most likely have something like a lamp, candle, or television. These lighting sources, we refer to as practical film lighting.

Practical light can be pretty helpful when you need to reveal wide portions of the set or move around in longer takes. Take, for example, the movie Children of Men. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki uses natural lighting to construct an increasingly paranoid and fragile sense of the first world on the verge of collapse.

So, not only is ambient film light nice to use, as it's already there – it can also help establish the mood and atmosphere you'd want in your film. However, be mindful when using practical film lighting. It often requires swapping the bulb in the light source with a bulb using a different wattage to match the colour temperature. The common practice for practical lighting is for the lights to have a dimmer of some sort.

However, if that's not available to you, you can cut some diffusion gel and place it around the bulb.

7. High key lighting

High key lighting reduces the lighting ratio in the scene, keeping your lighting bright and balanced, creating next to no shadows. You'll achieve a high key light by heightening the key light and using fill lights generously.

In the prime of Hollywood life, obviously the 1930s and 40s, the high key light was particular used for comedies and musicals. And today the high key light is used for…. comedies and musicals. High key lighting is a classic for film lighting – and it fits perfectly with comedies, sitcoms and such. It creates a bright, happy look in the film and sets more of an optimistic and hopeful tone – and now, who doesn't want that in their comedy film?

Although, high key lighting has found its place in more drama based cinema. For example, in the James Bond franchise… ever wondered how you somehow always notice when he's got a Vodka Martini "shaken not stirred" in his hand?

High key lighting is primarily white tones from bright lights. It has minimal use of blacks and mid-range tones. It's usually produced from frontal lighting, and it will have a low lighting ratio. However, you need to be mindful of high key lighting because it can tend to overexpose some areas of the image.

8. Low key lighting

To much surprise, low key film light is the opposite of high key lighting (mind-twister). It's a film lighting style that uses a hard source to encase your scene in dark tones and black shadows. This type of cinematography lighting refers to minimizing or sometimes eliminating the fill light, creating dramatic, suspicious or even scary effects. It's commonly used throughout horror and thriller films. You'll often achieve low key lighting by using just one single lighting source. A good thing to note about low key film lighting is that it works best when using a hard light source, and unlike the high key light, it will have a high lighting ratio. I know; could it be more paradoxically?

9. Motivated lighting

Let's pretend you're on set, but there's no available natural or practical lighting sources. Who you're gonna call? Motivated-lighting-busters. Motivated cinematography lighting seeks to imitate natural lighting sources. So, you don't have access to the sun, street lights or anything of the sorts – find a stand-in. You can use flags or bounces to help create a more natural appearance. For example, imagine you're filming in Azkaban (yes, big Harry Potter fan), so you only have the moon as a lighting source. In that case, you can enhance it with motivated lighting using another lighting source that gives off the same color.

10. Natural lighting

Natural film lighting is one of the best and most used lighting techniques in the filming industry today. It refers to the use and modification of light available at the location where the film is happening. Often, the shoot will occur on a location scout before the actual shoot is done. It's also vital that you consider the time of the day that you are at those locations. You can take out your camera and attempt to take a shoot to check how natural light holds up. From there, you can now tell which additional lights you will need to ensure you capture the best shots.

It seems natural for me (pun very much intended) to start with the lighting that you already have in the image. Natural lighting changes every hour of the day, and you can't move it. Working with this type of film lighting sounds difficult; the whole "change every hour and can't move it-part" understandably, will create some challenges. You have to be aware of location, weather changes, and so on. The fact is, a cinematographer controls a lot, but mother earth? Not sure that's included (yet). Before you shoot with natural lighting, a good idea is to head out on the location with your camera to test how well the natural light holds up. From there, you can decide if and what additional lights you might need. Since natural film lighting can't be manipulated, bounce cards or flags can help you alter the natural light. Potentially, you can use black flags to block it completely.