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Aidin Robbins
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Lighting is everything. Discover how to craft the right mood and atmosphere in every scene with professional lighting.
We’ll cover: how to shoot with natural and artificial lighting, what is hard light and soft light, how to achieve atmospheric lighting, how to get pro results with affordable gear, how to create the ultimate lighting setup.
Step into the spotlight.
There are so many different ways to light your scene and a variety of tools to affect your cinematography, that it can be quite overwhelming. Natural light, LEDs, golden hour, what on earth is a Fresnel? If you’re starting out in filmmaking, then this video is for you. I’m Tom from FXhome by Artlist, and today I’m going to show you all the types of light that you can find on a film set and the key points throughout the day that you can use for natural light.
Let’s start by talking about what’s free and always available for you. Natural light. Noon, if you’re solely relying on natural light, then noon is probably not going to be the best time for you. The light will be harsh and create shadows under the eyes and accentuate every wrinkle and blemish on the face. Not to mention, there is the possibility of overexposing different parts of your image if you’re not fully prepared. That’s not to say that you can’t film at noon. Use it to your advantage for genres such as Westerns and war films, as the midday sun could be viewed as very realistic, but you will find that you will need to diffuse that light.
Overcast. Because the sun is scattered by the clouds, the lighting is very evenly lit and just bounces everywhere. This results in a light that is soft and even with little contrast, meaning no hard shadows. It’s natural diffusion.
Sunrise and sunset. Golden Hour or Magic Hour takes place during the hour before sunset or the first hour after the sun rises, but it’s more like 20 minutes. Many photographers and filmmakers love this type of light, myself included. Gorgeous, warm, soft light is cast at these times of the day. The light is flattering in any direction you use, whether it’s by the side, used as a backlight or directly facing. The downsides are that the light doesn’t last too long. Like I said, it’s called Magic Hour, but it is more like 20 minutes. So if you’re planning to shoot during sunrise or sunset, you’re going to have to move fast because I imagine your crew won’t be thrilled if you’ve dragged them out of bed and you’ve missed the sunrise.
Right, let’s talk about the pros and cons. So the pros on natural light? Well, it’s free. It’s everywhere. The cons are it’s unpredictable. There’s always going to be a strong light direction and not to mention time restrictions. The sun is always moving and shifting, so your team is going to have to adapt in order to keep up. With that being said, how can you use natural light? Choosing the right locations and gear is going to be a huge help because preparation is key. Using solely natural light sources for your film doesn’t mean that you can’t modify the light in whatever way you want. It just means that you have to get creative with how you adapt and modify the light to your needs. Reflectors, for example, are one of the best tools that you can employ since they allow you to bounce light to exactly where you need in the frame.
Now that we’ve looked at the natural options, let’s take a look at the lamps that are available on set. I feel like a bit of a mad scientist in this environment. It’s a little, welcome to my laboratory. Let’s talk about a couple of options of different lamps that you can use for your production. HMIs are incredibly powerful, so much so that they can actually recreate daylight. They can also light huge environments in one big blast, they’re very powerful and you can feel the heat coming off them almost immediately. This, in particular, is a 1.2 K that is overkill for any small productions. This is just the Big Brother of them all. There are many other variations which come in a lower watt which are far more fitting for indie productions. They produce a near-perfect color rendition. However, the downside of it is their bulbs. These things, although powerful, are incredibly temperamental. If I was to shake this too much, it would break. So you really need to wrap these in cotton wool and avoid an earthquake.
With these types of lights I do recommend you wearing heat-resistant gloves as they get hot and these barn doors, in particular, they can hurt. Depending on how long they’ve been in the cupboard, you’ll also smell burning dust. The rigid pattern on these is called Fresnel. It kind of diffuses and distributes the light in different ways. You’ll actually see this a lot on lighthouses.
Softboxes are incredibly easy to come by, and for the low-budget filmmaker, you can find them very, very cheap. Inside the softbox is a reflective material, which is then covered up by diffusion. Their whole purpose is to evenly diffuse the light. I’m actually using one right now to light my face, it’s very pretty. You’ll often see these with vlogs and interviews because they distribute the light evenly. The downside is they’re not very powerful. You can’t exactly light a room with them. So you need the light to be as close to your subject as possible.
LEDs are probably the most common on set. LEDs are a collection of small individual bulbs that collectively create a powerful source of light. You can use batteries to power them, which makes them portable and slick, so there are no hazardous, messy cables on your production, coming in a different range of styles, sizes, and colors, these lights are versatile as they come. No matter what you need, LEDs definitely have a solution. There are so many options for LEDs that you can definitely find one to work within your space.
So now that we’ve gone through the types of lamps, let’s talk about the pros and cons. Pro is, of course, going to be the fact that you can control the light within your environment. Even the setup I’m in right now, these colors and tones are completely possible thanks to these lights, and I can sit here for hours if I really wanted to. I won’t because I need to finish this video. All of these lights are to assist with your cinematography and improve your scene.
The cons really come down to the type of light that you are after. Many of these are quite expensive, they can require a lot of power and be hazardous on set. There are so many ways for you to light your scene, but, at the end of the day, you need to do what’s right for your budget and what is going to affect your atmosphere. You can create a beautiful image using just natural daylight, as shown in things like The Revenant, or you can go completely the other way and add neon color and lights and vibrance with the support of LEDs, or maybe even an HMI. I can even attach a light to a light. They’re so versatile. This one is magnetic. Oh no, I broke it. I really enjoyed making this episode, and I will see you next time.
Lighting creates a visual mood. Whether you’re making films or taking pictures, there are two important types of lighting that you need to consider. Hard light and soft light. Experienced photographers and cinematographers need to know the difference between hard and soft light. How to make them. And the best type of light for each shot. Hey guys, I’m Oli from FXhome by Artlist. And if you’re new to cinematography and content creation, this video is for you.
Let’s get started with hard light. Hard lights are created by a single point of light that casts very crisp shadows and gives the shot a high contrast look with a sharp gradient between the lights. It’s often seen as a cinematic look, so this might be a type of lighting that you want to go for, for those intense scenes. It’s really good for picking out wrinkles and showing how old people are, like me. Hard lights are focused, often bright lights that cast harsh shadows and draw attention to specific parts of the figure.
And what is soft light? As you might have guessed, soft light is the opposite of hard light. Soft light is the type of light that is bright but evenly balanced. To create a soft light, set up your light and bounce it off a reflector or shoot through a diffuser. You can get a little twisty diffuser or it’s the thing that’s on the front of a softbox. If you don’t have any lighting equipment, natural light or window light can serve as a really good soft light source, think of soft light as how things look on a cloudy day. The clouds actually diffuse the sunlight, making everything look evenly lit. It’s a type of lighting that you’ll often see in interviews or vlogs and you see the little ring lights that vloggers use, that is actually the purpose of those, to make sure that they look nice and pretty. Ring lights often come with a little diffuser attached to them so that when the little LEDs light you up, it is a nice soft light. Now that we know both, let’s figure out when we should be using them.
You want to be using hard light when you’re trying to create a dramatic scene. The high contrast nature creates a strong sense of drama and gives your image an edgy, gritty look, making subjects appear strong and serious. You’ll see these types of lights used in mystery, film noir, drama, and action movies. On the other hand, soft light is a lot more flattering than hard light. It’s more natural looking and makes your subject appear more warm, welcoming, and friendly. Soft light is more forgiving than hard light, bringing out the light in someone’s eyes and making them seem more human. You’ll see soft light commonly used in natural scenes, documentaries, and interviews, as well as some heartwarming comedies. If you’re just starting out, plenty of practice and a lot of patience will make you a master of light. Oh, at least I make myself laugh.
Thanks for watching, guys. We’ve had so much fun making this episode today. We look forward to seeing you in the next video.
You’re filming on set, but something is off. Composition looks good, but the color is all weird. Maybe it’s the screen or your camera. No, it’s likely going to be your white balance. Understanding what color temperature is incredibly important to your cinematography. Your eyes automatically adjust whereas your camera has to manually be told the white balance of any given scene. While you can fix this in post and we will be going over a few things later in HitFilm, it’s best to get your white balance as close to accurate in-camera as possible, especially if your camera doesn’t support RAW or LOG formatting. Understanding white balance will save you a lot of time in the long run and also ensures that your footage has the correct visual data for you to edit in post. I’m Tom from FXhome by Artlist and let’s jump into today’s video.
We measure color temperature in Kelvin or K, usually in figures between 1,500 to 10,000 Kelvin. And if you’re new to filmmaking and white balance, here’s a quick rundown of that range. Starting off around 1,900 to 2,000 Kelvin is candlelight and flames giving off a very warm orange light. 2,700 to 3,300 Kelvin is the usual range for interior indoor lighting. Fluorescent lights give off a temperature that is seen as natural white. Daylight can be between 5,000 to 6,000 Kelvin, but is usually sitting at 5,600 Kelvin. Cloudy, overcast days are around 6,500 Kelvin. Anything over 8,000 Kelvin is seen as cold and blue and can often be associated with moonlight.
The easiest thing to remember is that the lower the value, the warmer the color, higher the value, the bluer the color. White balancing is simply telling the camera what to see as white. Once you’ve chosen a value for your white balance, anything above that range will be colder and anything below will be warmer. This is why you need to set your white balance to the right tone. Otherwise, it can look very weird.
Now, let’s talk solutions. The first step of solving any white balance issue is to understand the correct environments and the color temperatures. Done. Though unless you work in an environment where you can control the color temperature of your lights. You’re going to need to familiarize yourself with a couple of standard scenarios that you’ll find yourself in. Most cameras come with presets for the usual cases that can work nicely as a baseline. There is no shame at all in using the auto white balance, especially if you are a beginner. Your camera is probably really good at picking up the ambient lighting, that is dancing around the room and able to make its own adjustments. They have been known to change and make these adjustments without prompting, potentially ruining a shot.
If you’re a more seasoned camera operator, consider switching to custom white balance and setting your own on set. You’ll also want to set the white balance yourself in tricky lighting environments that can confuse the camera’s judgment. All you need is a simple white piece of paper or card, hold it in front of the camera dead in the center of the sensor, and even take a photo or set it to the new white balance. You’ll want to do this every time you start a new scene or the light has shifted. Remember that your eye automatically adjusts, so it’s really good to get a friend or crew member, or just set a reminder to give yourself a prompt to update the white balance. You will thank them in the long run.
And last but not least, we can fix it in post. No matter what editor you’re using, there will be some form of white balance tool in the color correction features. But HitFilm is free for you to use and also comes with an actual white balance tool. So let’s figure this out. In HitFilm all I’m going to do is go over to the effects panel and type in white balance. You’ll see that I already have this saved as a favorite. I’ll apply this onto my footage. It’s already set to white, but not my white. I’ll disable this layer for the time being as it is already adjusting my footage. I’ll head on up to the eyedrop picker, choose my white. In this case, I could even use my T-shirt if I wanted to. Switch back on the white balance effect, and by looking at the scopes, you can see that it’s changed our values. From here we have a nice foundation for our color grading. From production to post-production, white balance is paramount to any filmmaker.
If you don’t know how to fine-tune your white balance, start off with the auto and learn the basics with the presets. These days, RAW files provide a lot of leeway and ability to adapt and amend after you’ve shot. Never give yourself a hard time if the white balance has shifted. But understanding white balance is going to drastically improve your cinematography and understanding of light. I really hope that you’ve enjoyed this video, so we’ll see you in the next video.
We all know that lighting is a big contributor to making a shot look cinematic. But how do you achieve that movie-like lighting when you’re filming with little or no budget? I’m Tom from FXhome by Artlist, and in this video, I’m going to show you some items that you can find around the household or that are incredibly cheap to help craft and shape your lighting and improve your overall image quality.
Some of the best ways to begin lighting your scene is to start off in darkness and window light can make that incredibly difficult for you. Depending on what sort of curtains you have, light is going to seep in, which means there’ll be an ambient light bouncing around the room. in order to block out that light bin bags are incredibly helpful. You can, of course, buy them incredibly cheap, and all you need to do is get one out, tear down the seams so it’s completely opened up, and then tape it to a window. You may need to add multiple bags to layer up, as some can be translucent.
Next up, paper, card, and foam board. You can get these in a range of sizes for your needs, but this material is great. Not only can you bend and shape it into different props for outfits and costumes, and cosplay, this reflective material because of its whiteness can actually bounce the light. So when I bring it here, you have a reflector coming down that’s bouncing off the light.
Or alternatively, with a stand, you could block out the light completely, and because they usually come in a pack you can even tape them together and have a much bigger reflector.
Next up, I’m going to make sure that I get my pronunciation right. Aluminum foil. I hope I made you very proud. If the foam board reflection wasn’t enough, then aluminum foil attached to that foam board can really help. That is… That’s doing quite a lot. All it takes is one sheet wrapped around the foam board and you now have a DIY reflector. And as you can see, this reflects a fair amount of light. It’s pretty good. I’d use this and then bake some cookies afterwards.
Reflectors aren’t usually that expensive, but if you’re working to no budget, this does help quite a lot. If you don’t have access to many lights, using a reflector is a great way to bounce the ambient light at your actor. By doing this, you can actually soften the shadows or accentuate some of the light that is going onto your actor. So the foam board and aluminum tin, aluminum — the foam board and aluminum foil is a great combination for you to create your own DIY reflector.
Now, let’s move on to something for diffusion — a shower curtain. The material on shower curtains is great for diffusion. All you need to do is place your light. Hang the shower curtain above your light and then you automatically have a wonderful diffusion sheet. This diffusion will soften the light that is coming through. So if like before, you can’t block out the light, with bin bags, for example, you can definitely soften the light that is coming into the room. You can also use this while you’re outside as well, hanging it over your subject like butterfly diffusion. This will break the natural daylight that is going onto your subject, and particularly on a sunny day, something like this is going to be a huge help for making sure that your image is correctly exposed. And in case it rains, it’s already waterproof.
This one is a gaffer’s friend and my personal favorite – tape. Masking tape and duct tape are huge additions to your tool belt. If your light source doesn’t come with barn doors, then you can use tape to create your own and help shape and direct that light source. It’s not just for the light source as well, it’s also for your camera. Lens hoods help shield the light from the camera so you don’t get any crazy flares or overexposure.
Lens hoods keep additional light out of the lens, so by creating your own out of tape, you’re helping the camera understand and expose correctly to your scene, avoiding the ambient light that is dancing around the room and just focusing strictly on your subject. And while traveling to the location, you’ve realized that you’ve forgotten your lens hoods, guess what? You’ve now got a solution. You’re welcome.
Not only that, but you can use the tape for being tape. You can use it for the bin bags that we mentioned earlier, sticking those foam board cards together. On set, tape is everyone’s best friend. Maybe that one is not a particular light tip, but it’s definitely something that you can find around the house that will help your cinematography in the future.
Our last tip for you should only be used on lights that are unable to overheat, such as LEDs or softbox lights. Gels can be quite expensive, and in some cases, depending on the light you’re using, they can melt and stick to the light. However, using a material like a T-shirt can actually help change the tone of your lights. Throwing a simple T-shirt over a light can change the color completely, and depending on your wardrobe, will provide you a complete rainbow of colors. With a T-shirt being quite thick, it will diffuse the light ever so slightly. But overall, you’ll have a wonderfully toned light that you can’t often get with most gels.
We use this quite a lot when we’re doing green screen stuff, we have a green morph suit that we throw over the top of an LED, and that just helps pop the green screen ever so slightly. So the light that’s going on the green screen is also green and helping us key out our footage later when we’re in HitFilm. It also helps us avoid hot spots during exposure, you know, intense white light.
I’ve had a great time making this video, so I hope to see you in the next video.
Lighting your shots correctly is one of the most basic but often overlooked things you can do to make your videos look better. It doesn’t matter what type of video you are making, all cameras require light to function, and knowing how to use it makes for a better-looking film. Let’s take a quick look at how to set up a three-point lighting.
Take this shot, for example. Let’s turn all the lights off and see how they work. First, the key light. The key light is the main source of light for your talent and is typically put at an angle next to the camera. The next type of light you’ll need to know is a fill light. This goes at about the same angle as the key, but on the opposite side of the camera. The purpose of this light is to fill in the dark areas of your subject so that one-half of their face isn’t in complete darkness.
You’ll probably want to set your fill light to about 50% intensity as your key light. Also, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be an actual light. It could be a reflector, as long as it fills in those dark shadows. And finally, the backlight which separates your subject from the background and gives them a more visible edge. You can double up on these. One on each side for a more dramatic effect.
If you have a light to spare, shine one on the background as well so that it doesn’t appear too dark. We really hope this video helps you. Join us for more tips and tricks on creating a successful YouTube channel.
Hey guys, it’s Yuval here, and welcome back to our channel. In today’s video, I want to show you guys a few creative lighting setups that you can use for your music videos, fashion shoots, or even commercials. So for this tutorial, we’re shooting in a studio. But of course, these lighting techniques can be applied in any location or any scenario that you have and in many different ways.
The main piece of gear we’re going to use is the aperture spotlight. We could also use lekolite, which is fairly popular. And the main thing we’re going to get is a very directional and easy-to-control light beam that’s going to allow us to create some very cool and creative effects with the light, which is something that is harder to do with just a normal light. Since you just don’t have the same control. And the other light we’re going to use is a RGB tube from nanlite.
In this first example, we’re starting off simple with just this beautiful circle of light and our model against the dark background. This is what the spotlight mount gives you right off the bat. You can also play around with the focus of the beam to make the edges of it softer or harder, as well as move the light closer or farther away to control the size of the circle. Another thing we can do is play with the color of the light by either adjusting our light source color temperature or by using colored gels. In this example, I decided to set my lights to a cooler temperature.
For all of these shots, I’m using a quarter pro-mist filter to help soften up the skin of my model and just give the highlights that kind of glow since we are using a very directional and hard source of light. I think even a more extreme filter would have looked great for something like a music video.
To make things a little more interesting, we introduced the nanlite RGB tubes into the scene just to add another source of light and play around with color contrast. We changed the main light’s color temperature to a more golden orange color and set the RGB tube to blue. Then we tried another variation with a cooler, key light, and red on the RGB tube. The next thing we did was cut down the light to only have a thin line going across our model’s eye line. We gelled the spotlight with a blue gel and kept the RGB tube red. Creating these kind of light shots could be used for things like replicating the sun coming through a door crack or for a million other scenarios. The possibilities are really endless.
Another really cool thing we can do with the spotlight mount or with a leko, is use gobos. And gobos are essentially a cutout circle with different shapes and textures that you can put in front of the light to have it project the shape you want. And of course, we can make it out of focus or have harder edges to achieve our desired effect. This gobo, for example, could be used to maybe replicate sunlight going through tree branches and coming into a room. Or you could completely sell the look of a window with blinds on a makeshift set, or maybe a location that doesn’t have windows. And of course, it can be used to just add texture and depth to something like this, which can maybe be a scene in a music video or a commercial.
So I hope this video helps inspire you and maybe spark some creative ideas for your next project. And until the next time. Stay creative.
Lighting is an essential part of content creation. It’s what takes your shot from basic to professional, adding a certain mood and atmosphere to every scene. Discover how to craft excellent lighting, whether you’re filming a YouTube tutorial, dance routine or short film.
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