Written by Garrett Sammons
Lighting is one of the most crucial aspects of filmmaking. Although sometimes underestimated, lighting can change the entire look and feel of a location. It can also impact the depth of the story told. As such, cinematographers, gaffers, and directors of photography (DPs) need to understand how light works and behaves.
If we do our jobs well as cinematographers, gaffers, and DPs, we can use lighting to create a world that is completely believable and similar to reality. To demonstrate the impact of lighting, we filmed three short scenes using different setups. We used the same location, set design, and subject for each scene, changing only the lighting.
Look 1: Good Morning
There are two key things to keep in mind when discussing dawn light –temperature and harshness. Light is on a color and behavior spectrum, and morning light is particularly harsh. Therefore, we used the Gemini 1×1 Hard to emulate it.
Key light setup
We put the 1×1 Hard light on the roof outside a window on the second story of the building. We tuned it to approximately 3200K. For the tight shots, we used a ¼-stop scrim to slightly cut down the harshness. But for the wide shots, it was wide open.
Our key light in this scene was sunlight, which we got using the 1×1 Hard Gemini coming through the window. This created nice, hard, long shadows, which are similar to dawn light. Make sure you use extremely accurate and bright lights that can replicate color temperature well to achieve this look.
Book light setup
On the other side, we created a book light that uses a bounce and diffusion combo to create a morning look. The booklight ensured a contrast balance between the sun coming from one side and the shadow on the other side of the room.
Our book light setup comprised of a Gemini 1×1 Soft at 20–25% put through a 4×4-foot Silk. This soft light bounced off a neutral white wall. Here, we were not trying to change the behavior of the light. Rather, the goal was to get enough light to subtly fill in the shadows so that we could alleviate that contrast ratio.
This fill is necessary, even when working with directional light sources, as it allows you to remove unwanted contrast or shadows. However, an indirect source is still preferable because you can spread the light out. Hence, we used white silk while filming this scene. Putting artificial silk on the other side diffuses the bounced light a second time, further scattering it.
Screens
For the second shot, we put a ¼-stop screen over the window to change the light intensity. Here, we did not use diffusion because we didn’t want to lose the hard light nature. Diffusing too much in this shot would have made the lighting look super soft. As such, it wouldn’t match the wider shot.
You can also use screens to adjust lighting without changing behavior. The use of a ¼-stop screen and a window here allowed us to stop that down while still maintaining the harshness.
We also used a slightly cooler color temperature for the fill. We had 3200K outside and approximately 4200K (mixed) for our diffused book light. This ensured that it wasn’t quite daylight; it was cooler. So, our fill was a bit cooler than our key.
Look 2: Goodnight
Light behavior is very different from night to daytime. There are notable differences in both the color temperature and light behavior. Morning light is very direct, hard light. In contrast, night light goes into the difference between reality and creating a new reality.
With night lighting, the aim is to create a specific overall aesthetic, not to perfectly replicate the real world. The goal is to create a believable reality our audience lives in.
The behavior of light is directly related to the perceived surface area of a source to a subject. However, the moon is so far away that the surface area of that source is perceived to be very small. As such, this primary source of nightlight emits hard light.
Key light setup
The night also doesn’t emit blue light; it is a white light. However, we have skewed light blue to represent night over the last 150 years of cinema. For this shoot, we placed a gel filter on the 1×1 Hard and repositioned it in the window.
To change the light behavior, we moved the main key from one side of the roof in and across. We then draped a full silk over the window. In this scene, the fill acted more as a wrap light than diffusion. We then flagged off some of the bounced spilled light to eliminate hot spots on the other side of the wall above the bed. This setup allowed us to get a much softer and less direct lighting source with the desired blue light.
We repositioned the Gemini 1×1 Hard outside the window to the center. Then, we put a full magic cloth underneath the curtain to scatter that light.
Book light setup
For this scene, we brought down the book light to the foot of the bed, with the Gemini 1×1 Soft projecting into a mirror. As such, the book light ‘transformed’ into a single-source diffusion instead of the bounce-and-diffusion combo we used in the morning look. This light directly went through the white silk.
In this shoot, the book light was not treated as a separate source. Rather, it was merely an extension of the existing light, sharing the same behaviour.
Practical lights
We also used a practical lamp on the nightstand next to the bed. For this, we put a practical E26 tungsten light bulb. We then put that fixture on a dimmer, which allowed us to dial in the amount of light we wanted to emit.
It’s important to note that adjusting the light intensity when using tungsten lighting results in a color change. Here, dimming the tungsten bulb warmed the light up, which made the mix of color much more exaggerated.
The other practical light we used was the phone. We wanted to keep the cell phone bright enough to illuminate the subject’s face as he was scrolling through TikTok. You can also do this by positioning small practical lights at the top of a phone if the screen is not bright enough. The phone light compensated for the very warm tungsten bulb, ensuring that our night scene did not look studio-lit.
Goodnight has a completely different light behavior than good morning, but it still creates a believable sequence that makes it feel natural.
Look 3: Goodbye
In this sequence, we used a very different series of light fixtures and colors, using a very weird mix of light to tell the story. This different lighting setup completely changed the vibe of the sequence, even though the physical space remained the same. We filmed all three sequences in quick succession. And yet, this one has a very different feeling than the first two.
Key lights
For this scene, we wanted to replicate a thriller-action vibe. To replicate David Fincher’s style using the Quasar Science Double Rainbow. We skewed that into green and bounced it off the wall and ceiling for a soft spread into the room.
We then put a negative fill on the opposite side to draw light away from the subject’s face. For the outdoor light, we used a Gemini 1×1 Soft. Finally, we placed the Lycos+ light on the backside of the bed because the back wall wasn’t illuminated enough.
Practical lights
For this setup, we turned on both bedside practical lights, adjusting their height and intensity as needed. We placed the Quasar Science Double Rainbow at the foot of the bed, pointed up at the seam where the wall meets the ceiling. That gives us a soft and greenish light you would traditionally get from a fluorescent.
We had the 4×4 frame with a duvetyn next to the subject to pull the light off his face while still allowing the practical lamp to give a soft crown light off the shadow side. In the hallway, we had a Gemini 1×1 Soft with a DoPChoice Snapbag, using a ½-stop diffusion for a more broadly cast light.
Using a negative fill is just as important as using light fixtures. It doesn’t just add more light, it also helps control the type of light we have.
These three differently lit scenes lit show how much you can do just by changing your lighting. Less is often more when it comes to lighting. If you have very bright and accurate lights, you don’t need a lot of them to generate your desired look. Hence, buying the brightest and most accurate lights your budget allows will ensure that you don’t lose intensity or spread.
This tutorial was only a snapshot of our guide to cinematic lighting principles. You can watch the full video below for a more in-depth shot-by-shot analysis. You can also DM me on Instagram if you have any questions.