LIGHTING & CAMERA TIPS FOR FILM & TV

LIGHTING & CAMERA TIPS FOR FILM & TV

Information for students of cinematography

General lighting tips for beginners

If you are just starting out with lighting, the best thing to do is find still images or scenes from a movie that you love - then work out how the lighting was done and try to recreate it.  Think about what feeling it gave you when you first saw the image.  A great way to start learning about lighting is to work out work out how an experienced cameraman did the job.  Looking at the reflections in peoples' eyes, is one way you can find out where lights have been placed and what sort of reflectors or diffusion were used (American cinematographer magazine often has shots from movies showing lighting setups).

www.theasc.com  

If you are dreaming of becoming a top Cameraman or Director of Photography, grab a basic camera and whatever lights you can, and practice lighting lots of different subjects, ie:  t.v.s, sterios, faces, groups of people... always look at what subtle things the lights are doing to objects and subjects in shot, and keep changing the lighting setup until you find a look you're happy with.

Less is more - viewers enjoy images more when they have to think a bit about the content.  So, when appropriate, have part of the image in darkness or out of focus; keep a bit of mood to your lighting.
Before you start a project, spend some time thinking about what "look" you would like to end up with... mean, gritty, harsh or welcoming and beautiful, this will guide you in your choice of soft, hard, warm, cool, neutral, moody or flat lighting.  (Warm and soft images often look more appealing, cooler and harder ones are often more harsh).

Remember you don't need all the big toys to light well, one person can be lit well with one lamp and a couple of reflectors.

Lighting outdoors

Lighting outdoors is as much an art as studio lighting.  To start learning how to do this with some style, try putting your subject in shadow (under a tree for example) and then providing the key light source by bouncing in some sunlight - you'll instantly find you have control and have more options to play with.
Most non professional imagemakers are taught to have any scene completely covered with light, whether that be the sun from behind the camera, or a couple of large lamps on either side in front of the subject.  This might an easy way to light, but it makes your subject uncomfortable with the light right in their eyes and it can also give a flat image.  The best way to get away from this approach, is to place your subject so that the sun is coming from behind, or over, their shoulder (like a backlight) and then fill in the face from one side with a reflector - a collapsable lite disc is the easiest to use (the professional cameraman often uses a 4 x 4ft or 12 x 12ft reflector on stands for this or an HMI lamp through diffusion).

Lighting in a studio

In a studio the world is your oyster - pick from hard, soft, warm or cool lighting or a combination of all. Here's a few suggestions to help you get a professional look when lighting an actor:

Keep the actor a few metres away from the background, that way your key light source won't wash the background out, and the depth of focus will start to drop off, giving the subject separation. Start with lighting the background first, then move to the back light; then the key and fill.

Use a blonde (2k) through a trace frame with full diffusion as your key source.
Bounce a Redhead off poly (white card) as your fill.
Use a 650 Fresnal as your back light
Use a  2k Fresnal on the background with its doors squeezed down a bit (boxed up) to give a shaft: skim the shaft of light across the background to pick out any texture, try breaking the beam up with something... a bunch of flowers, someone's hat.

One little gem that adds a lot to a studio shoot is the Dido Kit.  Dido lights are a relatively new type of lamp (very low powered: 100 to 150 watts)  but they give a lot of light in a small focussed area.  They are great for giving a slash (shaft) of light across a product, logo or across an actors face.
Keep the barn doors on your back lights boxed up a bit to stop light going down the camera lens, a matte box and flags on the camera help with this too.

Shooting Video

Video is renowned for it's raw and edgy look - a great way to minimise this is to shoot with mild filtration on the end of the lens (Tiffen pro-mist and soft fx filters are some of the most popular modern softening filters).

ND  grad (graduated) filters take the top part of the sky down in exposure, and not only help focus attention in the middle of the screen, but can give the video image a more stylish feel.

One feature of video, is that because of the small ccd chip size, there is a big depth of field (a lot of focus).  Images often look better with a low depth of field (focus only on the subject).  So, when you get more confident with focusing, dial in the cameras neutral density filters, and work with the f-stop around  2.8.

While film looks great when shot with a neutral colour cast, video tape often looks plain.  Pushing the white balance one way or the other, is one of the main tools the professional video cameraman use for producing a better image on tape.  The most popular way to do this, is balancing through quarter or half blue gel to warm up the image, or half or full orange gel to cool it down. Many other gels and combinations work well, for a punchy look with lots of magenta try peacock blue, but a subtle shift is usually best.

Adjusting the in-camera menu on the modern cameras is a must when trying to get a distinctive look, here are some guidelines:

Dropping the black level between 3 and 20 percent can add some nice contrast to the image.
Taking the gamma level down a similar amount can add to the picture.

Decreasing the detail level down 10 to 30 percent helps reduce the edginess and gives a slightly more film-like look.
The only thing that should go up is the saturation, maybe 5%.

Check it all out on the monitor first, and if you are going to go radical, run it by the director at the beginning of the job to make sure it is what he or she is looking for.

Shooting Film

There are a lot of extra considerations when shooting film - lens type, frame rate, film speed and film type.  Keep it simple if you are starting out - experiment with one film stock at a time until you are happy with it, and always make sure you have a good camera assistant and loader who will be checking exposure settings, focus, shutter and film stock types.

Again, you will get the best result sitting down beforehand and working out with the director the look you are trying to achieve, this will give you parameters to work within, then from there choose your lenses, film stock and any special effects.  Remember that in telecine / grading you can radically change the look of you production, so drop into the grading facility beforehand to see samples of what look they can do, also the colour grader will do a much better job if you can give them specific directions.
Two excellent New Zealand grading facilities are:

  Digital Post  

Park Road Post

 

A lot of the same rules apply when shooting film - careful use of filters, grads and dropping out the depth of field can add to the look of your image.  The added bonus of shooting film, is that you can easily come up with a great look by going up to 50 or 100 fps (slow motion) or by shooting one frame at a time (time lapse)

The faster a film (the higher the ASA rating) the grainier it gets, although now with modern stocks the grain is lower and nicer, so  shooting fast film is the norm.  Many feature films are shot on 35mm with 320, 500, ASA films.  With the 16mm format it is best to stick to slower stock (50 to 250).

There are 4 film formats to choose from - Super 8, 16mm, 35mm and 65mm or Imax Format.  The bigger the film stock the better the resolution but the higher the costs, so choose the one that best suits your budget (16mm is the most commonly used in lower budget jobs, but still has a great film look).

Each different film manufacturer has a different look for their product, so experiment to find the look you like, Kodak are now putting out soft looking 500asa films - both Kodak and Fuji will sell film cheaply to students if it is for experimentation purposes.

For more detail and discussion on shooting film and video, visit:

cinematography.com

 

Career paths

Many people start by getting a few days work experience at a production company; you can try this if you are a student or just your everyday person looking for a career change.  If you are doing work experience, it's important to be as helpful as possible and listen carefully, and then - hopefully - you'll be asked back!  Try to refrain from making suggestions - taking it in by watching and asking questions later is by far the best way go.

It's important to remember when starting out that there's a lot to learn all at once - this can seem daunting - it's the same for everyone though, and a Cameraman / Director of Photography is always learning, even after being in the film or television business for many years.

The ultimate way to learn about lighting and camera work is working on the set; the easiest place to start is probably as a video cameraman's assistant, film loader for a focuss puller or a lighting assistant for a gaffer.  Working like this you can glean information everyday, especially if you are working with many different crews and directors of photography.  Once you're established, don't launch into being a cameraman / director of photography too quickly 'cos once you do, you'll be competing with your former teachers and your assisting work may dry up.  Suddenly your free-flow of information will stop.

If you want to end up working on features and film commercials, try and start in the film side as a clapper loader or lighting assist, if you want to work on television programs or drama start there, if you start in the video side it can be difficult to move over to film, and vice versa.

Working Safely

Not only is the safety of the crew and the talent or actor on the line when you are working, but so is your credibility as a crew member - your reputation is at stake here.  There are a few basic things you can do to add to the safety of a film crew:

Sand Bags must be on lamps especially when placed outside or when the stands are raised up high.
RCD or transformer when using mains cables outside.
When rigging lamps from a lighting grid use safety cables.
Use road cones and high visibility vests for working in busy areas or near roads.
Use the appropriately skilled person for each job, grip for dollying and jibbing and gaffer for lighting, etc.
Always check that there is a first aid kit available on each shoot.

When shooting in New Zealand, consult the Code of Practice hand-book for safety and health issues - available from the New Zealand film and video technicians guild. Their website is:

www.nzfvtg.org.nz/  

Definitions of some terms used in Film and Television production:

  Crew:   

Grip  

Looks after general camera support and movement using jibs, dollies and cranes

Gaffer

Rigs and points the different lamps, diffusion and reflectors.  The gaffer can sometimes take a large             role in deciding on the type set lighting

Director of Photography /

 Cinematographer              

 Also known as lighting cameraman (or just cameraman).  After discussion with the director about the style of the project the D. P. directs the lighting setup on the shoot, decides on the type of camera moves, lenses and filters used.  The D. P. will sometimes operate the camera too

Cameraman

Can be used to describe the D. P. (or D.O.P.) camera operator or someone who covers news or sports

Camera operator 

When the D. P. is not hands on with the camera; the camera operator pans and tilts the camera and operates the zoom

Focus puller

Responsible for ensuring the image is always in focus ( in the right place) and handles the lenses with the help of the loader

Clapper Loader

Loads the film into a film camera, changes batteries and hard drive or memeory card media and fills out the slate that identifies each shot

Camera assistant

On video shoots and smaller film jobs often this person will replace the clapper loader and focus puller

Director

After getting the theme and style of the production from the writer and producer (or advertising agency) this person directs the talent, crew and post production

Producer

Liaises with the client or the group funding the project, organises crew and budget for the job, oversees payment

Writer

Comes up with the original script and often the original concept - if the writing is good then chances are the production will work out well, if the writing is not then virtually nothing the crew can do will make up for it

Runner

A person who is there to do those tasks that no-one else has time to do (usually someone very new to the business)

Gofer

Another word for runner

Sound recordist / Sound designer

Looks after the placement of microphones and controls the sound level coming from each actor

Boom operator or boom swinger

Has the microphone on the end of a pole (boom) and points it at the action

Make up

One of the cameraman's best friends because they create a look for the talent (and fix a myriad of blemishes) which  the cameraman can work with

Camera Equipment:   

Monitor

A television with no tuner, for viewing footage on the shoot day or in post production

Sticks

Camera tripod  

Matte Box

Fits over the end of the lens to stop light from hitting the lens (flares) and to hold camera filters

Steadycam

The camera sits on this floating rig which is harnessed to the operators body.  It gives  smooth, flowing movements even over rough terrain and is used sometimes just for the distinctive look of the camera movements

Chroma Key background

A blue or green background.  When people or objects are recorded in front of a chroma key background they can be later (in post production) put in front of any scene

   

Jib

A small crane rig to move the camera up and down

Dolly

The dolly is a wheeled platform which runs on tracks to smoothly move the camera

Lighting:

   

Diffusion

Fire proof material which goes in front of a lamp to soften the light, the most commonly used type is called trace

Hard

Direct light from a lamp straight on to the subject, lamps with lenses (Fresnal or spot) make an even harder source

Soft

Light that is diffused or bounced off a white surface

Key
The main light source in a scene

Fill
Usually a soft source which fills in the shadow side

Back light
A lamp right behind the subject, pointing toward to camera , usually up high and off to one side (used to define the subject and pick it out from the background)

Kicker
A low back light that usually skims the side of the face, this can be hard or soft

Silk
A large piece of diffusion on a frame

Grifflon
A large white surface on a frame for bouncing in soft light

HMI
Daylight colour temperature lamps (cool)

Tungsten
Studio colour temperature lamps (warm)

Gel
Fire proof material which goes in front of a lamp to change the colour temperature or add a specific colour to a scene

Trace fame
A 4x4 ft frame for diffusion or gels

Keep in mind that all of these terms and uses of equipment may vary from country to country and from shoot to shoot