Direction Unit: Lighting Workshop

Do You See The Light? 


This week we have been looking at different skills and tools you can use in order to direct and make a piece of film, your own.


The lighting workshop was very useful. I learnt a lot of new terminology and the basics of 3 point lighting.
Using lights and a reflecter we we asked to film various scenes and create the atmosphere stated.

Lighting Workshop 5.9.11 from Johanna Coulson on Vimeo.


Natural Portrait
This portrait was created using the traditional three-point lighting arrangement. We had a key light pointing at Lauren, which was covered with two layers of scrim to make it softer. This light was also reflected by a white reflector so both sides of Lauren's face was lit up. Behind Lauren, we had a back light set up so it was high above her head and shining down onto her. This took some adjusting as it kept making her hair look unnaturally bright, but after experimenting with the barn doors we managed to get the best amount of light for the effect we wanted to achieve.




Expressive Portrait
We placed a sheet of blue gel over the key light and positioned Fran just to the side of it so it wasn't shining directly on her. Instead, it was shining onto a large foil reflector, which shone onto her face. As you can tell from Fran's reaction in the video, the light bouncing off the reflector was very bright!




Experimental Portrait
The effects in this portrait were achieved by positioning a light behind myself, just above my seated height. I was blocking the light in such a way that created a flare over my shoulder. We had to do two takes of this one, because the first time my chair was visible and it distracted from the effects.




The last two clips were very challenging! They had to have an entrance and exit, rather than being a still portrait. We kept making the mistake of focussing on performance rather than using lighting to explain who our characters were.




Introducing the Hero
We used a low camera angle for this one to show that the hero was in a position of power and someone to be admired. We used the back light to create a 'street light' effect, to give the illusion that Jo was walking down a street at night. The key light was positioned just to the right of the camera, and she stepped into the spotlight so that the focus was on me.




Introducing the Villain
We ended up with two different versions of this one. In the first clip, a shadow is cast over Lauren's face. We used the back light in the same way we did for the 'hero' clip. The key light was pointing straight at Lauren, and we used some scrim to make it softer. I wanted the light to look subtle, as if she was lit by candlelight. In the second clip, the light was much brighter and I moved across the floor as the key light and the camera followed me, putting me in the spotlight.