Hi, for sure you have seen or worked with a backlight scheme before.
Agree, this lighting technique looks pretty cool.
To make this video useful to you, I will share five helpful tips on how to work with backlight
to make it look cinematic and realistic.
As an example, I will show you some lighting schemes from my last project.
Begin the light scheme installation with backlight first.
I love this lighting technique as by placing the light behind the character we get a nice
outline on him.
Backlight is often the most powerful light source on set and has the highest exposure.
And I advise you to start any lighting setup with the powerful light, in this case we are
talking about the backlight.
If you start putting the weakest light sources first for example, practical light, any front
light, reflexes, etc.
And then powerful backlight.
In this case, the exposure of the light setup can change dramatically.
A strong light flow can obscure weak sources and break your camera exposure setup.
In order not to remake the light scheme, I recommend starting the setup with a powerful
backlight and make exposure on this stage, and then complementing the scene with additional
light sources, which can be less powerful.
This is not a rule, just friendly advice.
By the way, when I'm talking about powerful light sources, I don’t mean some burning
out bright light, no, we are talking about a powerful source relative to other sources.
For example, you have 3 LED sources, one of them for 30W, the second for 100W, the third
for 300W.
The most powerful light here is at 300 W, and it is better to use it for backlight.
The power of the light source will depend on the exposure of your image, in some situations
(in the night for example) the 30W can be considered a quite powerful light source,
if the other two have a power below 30, for example 10 and 15.
By the way, the natural sunlight can be used as a key and backlight.
By reflexing it from the 12ft grip frame with silver material, we got a huge backlight flow.
It is very difficult and expensive to repeat the same flow with powerful light sources
like the Arri 20 KW for example.
This sunlight flow is similar to 200 KW of light, or even more.
If the weather gives you opportunity to work with sun, then you can easily repeat the same
light setup.
It’s not necessary to use a large grip construction.
You can use a simple 1ft / 1ft size mirror.
Or any bounce board with silver coating for reflection.
The larger reflection source is, the bigger area you can illuminate.
This video is sponsored by my online course, if you want to learn more about a professional
lighting working and set design to create a beautiful and cinematic videos, follow the
link in the description.
Contrast ratio of backlight.
When you make the backlight, don't forget about the ratio of dark and light areas in the frame
You will have a risk to get a very high contrast image
It's possible to smooth out such a high light contrast with additional light sources of
less power.
It can be a front light, fill, reflex or a side light etc
The backlight will look different depending on the lens that you use.
One of the indicators of the quality of lens is how it conveys the backlight.
One lens can show you the backlight with a little glowing and a dream look effect, this
is most often seen on vintage optics or using soft filters.
Other lenses can be sensitive to the backlight and show specific flue effects.
What I want to say - is that if you are working with a powerful backlight, the image from
different lenses can be completely different, just remember this when you choose a lens.
I most often pay attention to how flu looks on one or another optics.
I think that the backlight as a source of powerful light should be motivated.
It looks strange when the backlight has a fictional source, which we don't see in the
scene, or which comes from nowhere.
This is a powerful light, it should have some kind of confirmation.
When the viewer sees a powerful backlight, then most likely he will think where such
a light flow comes from.
Ideally, this source of backlight is best to show in the frame.
For example, here we see that the source of the backlight is a window.
This is the perfect situation to motivate light.
Also, the source can be anything but the windows, the main idea is that you show this source
in the frame.
Fire, sun, cloud, practical etc
Don't overdo it with the backlight.
This scheme is cool and cinematic, I know that this is seductive feeling to use it all
the time.
But don't do that.
The video doesn't have to consist of the same light scheme, it will look very unprofessional.
Imagine that you are preparing a dish with several ingredients.
Backlight is one of the components that should be added moderately, without fanaticism.
A very approximate composition of the backlight in my work is about 20% for the entire video.
Someone has this percentage less, someone more.
Just don't overdo it.
So, there are 5 tips for working with backlighting
That's all, thanks for watching, see you!