Experimenting with Lighting

As our group has such conflicting ideas, we have decided to not work as a full group for this lesson. Instead, Alex and Holly have looked into lighting and how it can affect a character's mood/settings. Using our own knowledge of lighting from previous lessons (e.g. importance of lowkey/highkey lighting, softboxes etc.), we have devised a small run down of where we were successful and unsuccessful with our lighting. I have also made some notes on how we can improve when it comes to filming our short.

Starting with low key lighting:

• This shot only used one light
• The actor is placed in front of the light to highlight their shoulders/back of their head.
• This can create a very tense, mysterious mood.
• We can improve this shot by removing all other lighting (we had used a dark corridor for these experiments and had to keep a light on outside of the doors)
• The light can also be seen reflecting on the wall to the left, and could light up our actor.
• I can see this being successful in a Thriller. 

• This shot only used one light
• The light is positioned to the right of the actor, and scaled up slightly taller than the actor.
• The light is quite harsh on the actors face, and really brings out the shadows beneath the eyes, lips and nose.
• As the light is so harsh, the contrast can be lost here. This is something to consider if we decide to use this in our film.
• Again, this would fit the conventions of a Thriller.

• This shot only used one light
• The light is positioned in front and below the actors face.
• The lights the whole face up this time, but shows harsh shadows around the actor's eyes, nose and mouth again.
• This shot is great at casting a menacing shadow behind the actor
• We could control the shadows with a second light, but would consider using a filter to soften the glare.

• This shot only used one light 
• The actor stands in front of the light, and a light stand is used above the actor's head.
• This casts a harsh light on the top of the actors head, and highlights one half of the body (predominantly the actor's shoulder)
• There is just enough light to see the actor's facial expressions as they look up
• However, a very heavy shadow would be cast if the actor looked straight on
• This shot would be perfect for a reveal.
• This also lights up the setting a bit more  
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• This shot used two lights
• The actor is seated, with one light on the right, above their head.
• The other light is used at slightly lower than eye-level  to remove shadows.
• The actor's head is slightly tilted, so half of the face is still covered.
• This shot comes across as very emotive as it highlights the character's facial expressions.
• The background is also lit, only casting a minor shadow to the left of the actor. 

 Examples of high key lighting:

• This shot used two lights
• The actor is positioned in front of one light at eye level, the other is used to highlight the background. 
• When it comes to filming, we will be sure to remove any lights from the frame. This was one of our errors!
• The whole face is lit, with no shadows hiding the actor's face. A soft shadow is cast behind the actor. This would be great for conversations at night (e.g. impersonating a streetlamp, car headlights etc.)

• This shot used one light
• This shot is similar to the shot before, but the actor is positioned slightly further away from the main light in front.
• The back light has also been switched off to create a sharper shadow behind the actor.
• The framing is also better in this shot as we were critiqued last year for chopping off foreheads during production.

One of our main problems in our Foundation Portfolio was lighting, we were uneducated on it and went in blindly. We set ourselves a big goal in our last task by filming in the dark, and the results weren't that impressive. 

Personally, this is something I want to perfect by the end of the year. 

I have also watched a very helpful video on the basics of Cinematography; the section on night filming will come in handy for further experimenting. Click here to watch the video!

I also plan on watching this 'Quick Tips: DIY Lighting Kit' tutorial. If we were to find ourselves in a situation that required lighting, some DIY tips would come in handy. Click here to watch that video!