0:01 [music]
0:03 One aspect of lighting that I often
0:05 overlook and still to this day I have to
0:08 remind myself about is how am I lighting
0:10 a space?
0:12 This is a mistake a lot of us make. We
0:14 think about lighting our subject first
0:16 and not about the actual environment
0:19 that the shot is, which arguably is more
0:20 important than even just the light
0:22 hitting your character cuz it is
0:24 actually in fact more of your shot. It's
0:25 more of your painting. It's more of what
0:27 you're creating. And so today I want to
0:29 go over four different aspects of how
0:32 you can approach lighting a space and
0:36 we'll get into some real practical tips.
0:37 [music] And this video is sponsored by Sennheiser.
0:42 The first aspect of lighting a space I
0:44 want to talk about is practicals. And
0:46 this is essentially just bringing lamps
0:49 into a space. It's hiding lights or
0:51 switching out bulbs. Practicals are just
0:53 essentially any light that you could
0:56 justify being in that space. And you can
0:57 kind of begin to push this and have a
0:59 lot of fun with it. Like some of these
1:01 lights in the space I've added, but some
1:02 of them are just the lamps I have. And a
1:04 few quick tips for you as a
1:07 cinematographer. Everyone should have a
1:09 couple lamps in their car at all times.
1:11 And also a set of light bulbs. Whether
1:12 it just be some light bulbs that you've
1:14 gotten from the hardware store that are
1:16 very warm, in some cases cool, but I
1:17 tend to really like warm lamps. Or you
1:19 can even get something better like the
1:22 Aperture B7C lights. Those are light
1:23 bulbs that you can screw into any sort
1:25 of fixture. and the control with the app
1:27 so you have full control of the color
1:29 temperature. And I really recommend if
1:30 you're going to be going to set, don't
1:32 just think about having like a big 150 C
1:34 softbox like I have here or a couple
1:36 even just tube lights. Bring a few lamps
1:38 and bring a few bulbs that you can swap
1:40 out. And this is where too is once you
1:42 begin to create these pool lights, you
1:44 can begin to justify hiding some other
1:45 lights. Like I'll I'll actually just
1:47 take you through the space here. Right
1:50 now in this space, I have this lamp here
1:52 on a dimmer. highly recommend having
1:53 your lights on a dimmer so you can
1:55 change them unless you have one of those
1:56 like aperture bulbs because then you can
1:58 just do that from the app. Then I also
2:01 have a little aperture MC light hanging
2:03 back here and then I can control that
2:04 and I have that to the warmest
2:06 temperature setting I have. And then
2:10 this LED light here, this is genuinely
2:13 turn down my ISO so you can see it. It's
2:15 genuinely one of the warmest light bulbs
2:18 I think I own. Claims 1,800. Not quite
2:19 sure. Sometimes when you buy it online
2:21 they're very cheap. But then what we've
2:23 also done here is just added a couple
2:25 LED lights on here. This is nothing
2:28 special. The key is that we've added
2:30 some tape along the edge here so that it
2:32 pulls the light down rather than shining
2:35 off the side cuz that little LED there
2:37 actually the light will come off the
2:38 edge here. So we've just put this white
2:41 tape on here and it's created the pools
2:43 of light. So that way when we come back
2:46 to our shot over here can see it's much
2:48 softer. It doesn't just shine directly
2:50 into the light. It creates that little
2:51 pocket. As you can see from the shoot we
2:53 did for our course cinnipath pro. We
2:55 just put the twinkle lights in the
2:57 background and that just again adds a
2:58 little more visual interest, a little
3:00 more texture to the space. And and you
3:02 can even just begin to use candles as
3:03 practical lighting. We did this in the
3:05 basement over at Evil Empire Studio so
3:08 that the space wasn't just one big black
3:10 void. We went and we put candles all
3:12 along the side there and then turned off
3:14 a few of the work lights but left a few
3:16 of them on the wall. Again, one of the
3:17 easiest ways to make an environment look
3:19 interesting is block as much light as
3:21 you can. I have a skylight in this room.
3:23 And then just begin to add pockets of
3:26 different color temperatures or like I
3:34 One quick piece of advice, too, when
3:36 you're lighting your subject, the closer
3:38 you can get your key light to them, like
3:40 I have here, I think I only have this.
3:41 This [music] is a 150. I think I have
3:44 this just down at like maybe 7%. Oh, no.
3:46 We're up at 10%. See, I just like bring
3:47 my lights in so close. I can't believe
3:49 how many people don't do this. They
3:51 don't just have their light super close.
3:52 So, when you look at the shot here, it's
3:55 very, very soft. Which, while I'm here,
3:57 spin this back over, talk about today's
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5:49 The next way to light a space is
5:51 actually lighting it from the outside.
5:52 This is where you're going to bring a
5:54 much larger light and you want to have
5:57 it closer to 5600 or even cooler
5:59 depending the time of day to recreate
6:01 daylight coming through those windows.
6:02 Now, if you want to make it more of like
6:04 a golden hour, you can warm up the light
6:06 or you can change your white balance in
6:08 your camera, but I love to light from
6:10 outside spaces cuz for me as a
6:12 documentary filmmaker or someone trying
6:14 to adjust my cameras when I'm doing
6:16 interviews is there's more flexibility
6:17 when the light's just coming in through
6:19 a window because we now no longer have
6:22 fixtures in the space. And sometimes you
6:23 get lucky where if you're lighting from
6:25 the outside in, you can actually use
6:27 that light for your shot. Again, coming
6:28 back to Evil Empire, you can see the
6:30 shot with Elisha. We had been creating
6:32 moonlight from the space and in turn
6:34 that moonlight that was just supposed to
6:36 be a pool of really really cold light in
6:38 the background. We actually put her in
6:39 that and that could have been in one of
6:42 our shots there using that lighting from
6:44 the outside of the environment to create
6:46 that look coming in. And once you've
6:49 established one real window with a light
6:51 coming through, you can begin to bring
6:53 other lights then into the space to
6:55 recreate the repetition. What I mean is
6:56 again coming back to the shot with
6:59 Elisha here, we had that pool of cold
7:01 light down at the far end, but then we
7:03 put tube lights at different stages down
7:05 the hallway to repeat the idea that
7:07 there is a skylight. Going back to a
7:09 film I shot many years ago, Beauty and
7:11 the Battle, we actually lit that entire
7:14 environment by just punching in huge 18K
7:16 lights through the ceiling, through the
7:19 skylights. Cuz of course you can use
7:21 sunlight, available light. Like this
7:23 doorway here, that is just sunlight
7:24 coming through the windows back there.
7:25 But every once in a while, you're going
7:27 to see a truck go by and it'll change
7:29 and that's interesting. But if I didn't
7:31 have to shoot this in just 20 minutes
7:33 here, if I was [snorts] shooting this
7:35 interview over a few hours, this would
7:36 become a problem because that light
7:38 wouldn't be consistent. So I could
7:39 actually set up another light in that
7:41 space. But then also too, you don't want
7:44 to just shine one big block through a
7:45 window. You want to think about breaking
7:47 it up. So you see me do it all the time
7:49 on many shoots from the Chris Williamson
7:50 interview to some of our stuff in
7:53 cinematic IR course. And this breaks it
7:55 up so that it's not just one big white
7:57 square on the background. Now one other
8:00 really cool approach to lighting outside
8:02 of an environment into a room is you
8:04 should go watch the video I did with
8:06 Stephano Ferrari. He's one of the best
8:08 documentary DPS on the face of the
8:09 planet. Most Netflix series right now
8:11 have been shot by him. him and I spoke
8:13 about his approach and he will actually
8:16 create a white cove using a tent and
8:18 fire lights reflected into the space and
8:20 this is how he'll actually light big
8:22 chunks of his interview. He'll use that
8:24 light coming off onto his subject's face
8:25 and then you'll add a couple other
8:26 lights inside the house.
8:28 >> There's been instances where I put
8:31 branches of trees and stuff to give you
8:34 the the sense that there there is stuff
8:36 behind in in in that window and it's not
8:42 The third way to approach lighting a
8:44 room is what I'm calling slashes. This
8:46 is where you bring in slashes of light
8:49 from with inside the space. One of the
8:51 easiest ways to do this, and I have a
8:52 whole video on it, is using something
8:54 called an e-lect. This is just like a
8:56 flat disco ball because this gives you
8:58 lots of specular highlights, lots of
9:01 little reflections all across big blank
9:03 surfaces. I love using the e-lect when I
9:05 have a big white wall as it does break
9:07 it up. And having those speckles across
9:08 there just makes it way more interesting
9:10 to look at. And it's really fun too if
9:11 you have the shallow depth of field as
9:13 it's kind of like a double bouquet.
9:15 Another way to do slashes is getting
9:17 like a gobo like this. And you can add
9:19 in you can actually just like Can we see
9:21 through this? There we go. Let's just
9:22 leave a little slash light. Oh, there's
9:24 my lips. Hi. Hi. Oh, this is like that
9:28 uh craft dinner commercial. [music]
9:30 And that would come through. If I set
9:32 this up with the other Juan light, you
9:33 would see it would just be like a little
9:34 hack of light. The flashes of light's
9:36 cool. The issue I have with it is
9:38 sometimes it just looks like that.
9:40 Slashes of light. You can tell I really
9:42 love realism in my shots. Probably being
9:44 a doc filmmaker, I like things looking
9:46 at least semi-natural. But the slashes
9:47 begin to feel, like I said, just like
9:49 you set up a light and out of this hack.
9:52 But you can get creative with the goos.
9:54 Or you can make it feel like just like
9:55 this, like you have a little bit of
9:57 light coming in through a window. One of
9:59 my favorite shots from Killer Be Killed
10:00 was when Joel was sitting on that bed
10:02 and we just serendipitously had hard
10:04 sunlight coming through. You'll see some
10:05 directors doing this sometimes where
10:07 they'll just have a slash light across
10:09 their character's face or across their
10:10 mouth highlighting different things.
10:12 Just think about contrast. That's one of
10:13 your best friends in post-prouction [snorts]
10:14 [snorts]
10:16 as well as color temperature
10:18 differences. Just a whole video about
10:20 having color temperatures in your shots.
10:27 One other bonus piece of advice is I
10:28 really love that Nick Plucky does this
10:30 on set is when we get there he'll have
10:32 an iPad with a bunch of references. This
10:34 does two things. one, we're able to both
10:36 be discussing about the same idea
10:38 because if he's describing something and
10:39 I am and I can't picture what he's
10:41 saying, we might be actually achieving
10:43 something completely different. And then
10:44 also two, it kind of sparks my
10:46 creativity. I might just be looking at a
10:47 space saying, "Yeah, this is good
10:49 enough." But if I've seen what another
10:50 cinematographer has done and how much
10:52 they've pushed and crafted and
10:54 meticulously manipulated the space that
10:56 they've been shooting in, that might
11:03 Now, the last way to light a space is my
11:05 least favorite. It's something I used to
11:06 just always do because it was the only
11:08 thing I knew how to do. And I call this
11:09 just ambience. This is just where you
11:12 punch a light into the ceiling to add
11:15 some more overall light into the space.
11:17 Typically, lighting things just from
11:19 above is one of the least interesting
11:21 ways to approach lighting because we
11:23 don't get to see the shadows. Now, one
11:25 way to do this effectively, and I did
11:28 this on the shoot for a VR company, is
11:30 we pointed the light into the far
11:32 corner. Now, what this does is it
11:35 reflects back onto your subjects and it
11:38 begins to act as a big backlight, and
11:39 that's how we're actually able to
11:42 achieve this silhouetty, edge lighty
11:43 look on all the characters running
11:48 Thanks for watching this. Thank you,
11:50 Synheiser, for sponsoring this. I don't
11:52 know if we'll be putting out another
11:54 video before Christmas. I am going on a
11:58 65day honeymoon. It's about time that I
12:00 go away for a while and I just got
12:02 married in September. So, me and my wife
12:04 are looking forward to spending some
12:06 time overseas. We'll be Australia, New
12:09 Zealand, China, Japan. It's going to be
12:11 a wild trip. And uh I will film a little
12:12 bit of it. I mean, we should. We're
12:14 going to be seeing some insane stuff,
12:16 but for the most part, we're going to be
12:18 trying to unplug, just be a human for a
12:20 little while. So, the YouTube channel
12:22 might get a little bit thin on videos
12:23 there for a bit.
12:24 >> I didn't make an I'm quitting YouTube video.
12:25 video.
12:27 >> Don't worry, I'm not doing one of those
12:28 YouTube things of I quit and oh, I'm
12:31 feeling burnt out. That's not me. But I
12:32 do look forward to getting some time to
12:34 recharge. Awesome. I'll see you guys on
