LAUAN601 LIGHTING TECHNIQUES

'13 Film Lightening Techniques Every Filmmaker Should know' 

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This website published by Jason Hellerman explains the different light techniques that directors may or have used when filmmaking. By reading this article I have learned that light plays an important role when setting the tone of a scene, character or environment. As well as learning the importance of lightening within films, I also learned the different types of lightening that exist and the ways to use these techniques when deciding what lightening is the most effective when considering the mood of the scene, colour schemes, and the emotional effect this would have on the audience. 

The techniques that I learned were: 

Natural lightening: 

Natural lightening is when you use the environment or objects that you have around you to create light.

Key Lighting 

Key lighting aims to be a light source that casts light on the form of an subject, object or character.

High Key Lighting 

High key lighting is used to brighten the mood in a scene by showing the audience a more positive and buoyant mood by using white tones and bright lights as the dominate lighting.

Low Key Lighting

Low key lighting is a tool used by directors to cast shadows mainly by using a hard source to create dark tones.

Fill Lighting 

A fill light is used when a director wants to cast out the shadows in the scene. This is created by placing the fill lighting opposite to the key light.

The Three-Point Lighting Setup

The three-point lightening set up is a technique used by a director to have control over how the subject or character is lighten up. By placing the key light, backlight and fill light gives the director full control on how the subject is illuminated and being able to control the shadows surrounding it.

Backlighting 

Backlighting is used to enhance the character or subject to separate them from the background. As well as, making the the scene feel and look three-dimensional.

Practical Light

Practical lighting is used to light the corners and faces in the scene; you mainly find practical light sources from candles, lamps, or it could even be from the light of a television and so on. 

Hard Lighting 

Hard lighting is a direct beam that appears to appear as if it is from a light source or from sunlight. This is used by directors to create shadows and harsh lines to gain attention from the audience to look at the subject in the scene.

Soft Light 

Soft lighting is a method used by directors to create an aesthetic by remove shadows but leave subtle shades of light. As well as creating an aesthetic it can also give an illusion of the light coming from practical sources. 

Bounce Lighting

Bounce lighting is creating by using a white board or white card to bounce light from a light source to indirectly highlight a subject in the scene. This leaves an evenly spread of light and creates a soft lightening from any direction.

Side lightening 

Side lighting is used to add drama or a certain mood to the scene by highlighting both sides of the frame.

Motivated Lighting 

Motivated lighting is a technique used by directors to create an illusion of natural light sources such as, moonlight, sunlight, street lights, car headlights and so on. This helps the scene to appear more natural. 

Information learned from: https://nofilmschool.com/film-lighting-techniques-and-examples written by Jason Hellerman, May 13th, 2019