Week 3.

Lighting

On the 3rd week, I studied about Lighting.

Lighting in filmmaking is important because it can create different moods, giving meanings to the scenes and effectiveness. It can also create effects like if moving the position of the lights, adding gels or working on shadows and lights together.

Three point lighting

This is the main part of lighting. The three points give the scenes light, but depends what kind of effects the director wants, it can vary of more or less lights. This method started in Hollywood during the 1930.

Key light

This is the main light on set, it's usually the brightest light on set because it highlights the subject. However, the key light can be omitted to give the scene a silhouette effect, also there can be even more than one Key if the subject is in movement.

Fill light

The fill light is a complimentary of the Key light because it fills up the shadows that the main light can cause.

In the first picture, there is just the key light, in fact we can see that just one side of the face is highlighted and the other one is really dark.

In the second one, the photographer added the fill light. Although it's still shadowy, now at least we can see the other side of his face.

Back light

The back light is the one that stays on the background, so it illuminates the subject from the back. It can be both natural or artificial. When artificial, the light is places right back the subject.

This picture shows how the key and fill light are missing, so having just the Back light creates this kind of silhouette.

This is my short about Three Points lighting and Green Screen, as I worked with it too. This video explains where I positioned the key,fill and back light. I added three arrows for each light and my classmate's voice explaining what we were doing during shooting.

The green screen is really simple, I just added a tube background and then I tried to fit my classmate to it, fixing the edges.

Also, when there is to analyse the light, in filmmaking there's to talk about:

-Quality

this refers to the intensity of the image. The are two types: Hard light, which creates dark shadows and also make the image detailed, and Soft light, which creates evenly lit scene and character.

-Direction

there are different directions and they all mean something. Here some:

~Overhead lighting, creates a sinister look or can be used as spot light.

~Under lighting, used in horror movies.

~Side lighting, creates a shadow on a side of the face, very mystery.

~Back lighting, creates a halo or silhouette.

-Source

Refers to actual light in the scene. However, can be added some Lighting.

-Colour

To create some effects using gels and filter. Some colours have as well meanings, for example the yellow gel can be for a scene about the past or the blue can be used for a night scene.

Some directors tend to use the three points lighting to remove at all the shadows, others use instead the shadows to create effects.

Film Noir

"Film Noir" are all those Hollywood crime movies from 1940's and 1950's. In those movies, there is a low-key light so that darkness and shadows are created and most of the time the face of the character was partially or totally obscured by darkness. These kind of movies are also famous for the use of Dutch angle, Low-angle shots and Wide-angle lenses.