Hi.
I have a few useful cinematic tutorials and lighting breakdowns for you.
In this video, using my shots and behind the scenes, I will show you a few tips:
How to make a cinematic soft light scheme for close up shots.
What tools to use, how to control softness of light sources.
How to make a dark key and deep shadows in an interior scene.
How to create a silhouette scheme without light sources.
And how to make an accent in the frame using a few low budget light sources.
It was an art short film, where I worked with limited light tools list.
And most part of tips that I will share with you, you can use, working with low budget
lighting tools.
Scene # 1 - soft back light Work with cinematic soft light on the middle
and close up shots.
Why soft light looks quite cool on people?
When I use soft light, I feel the large dynamic range of a camera.
I see rich and smooth gradient between dark and bright areas.
Using simple words, it looks cinematic and not cheap.
Why do I think so?
Just because I use references from a big movie and see how often this lighting technique
is used on the middle shots.
What light scheme is here?
I made a simple side light scheme.
I used litepanel and soft diffusion frost frame for softness of light flow.
For close up shots, I prefer to use dense materials.
these are LEE or Rosco soft diffusion filters.
I used a material numbered density 216 by Rosco filter.
Which gives a soft light diffusion.
But as soon as I have used soft diffusion, I have got diffused light.
Diffused and uncontrolled light fills all the space and looks not cool in the frame.
This is flat light.
I cut this light by means of floppy and made the gradient of light and dark in the frame,
that looks more volumetric.
Middle shot has the same light scheme.
But pay your attention to the set design of the scene.
colors, texture, props and location, all these work on an atmosphere of the shot.
Without all these components of set design, we had a risk to get quite simple and not
expressive shot.
Set design is cool thing for any projects.
And you can learn more about making cinematic light schemes and expressive set design in
my online course.
Link in the description.
Dark key and high contrast scene.
The principle of this scene is - limiting of the amount of incoming natural or artificial
light in the scene by means of negative fill fabric or flags and floppy.
I covered the window on 90%.
And I got dark exposition, due to since the camera is exposure on the window.
And then, I made light flow on the girl through the window by aputure 600D.
We have a quite contrasting scene with deep shadows and bright highlights.
Also we used a haze in the scene, we can notice beams of light near the window.
It was quite simple setup.
We just: - Blocked all extra natural light with floppy
and got dark scene Made additional light with 600D
Added a haze
Scene # 3 - silhouette scheme
Dark key, quite interesting tool to make a contrast image.
For example, I use this technique shooting silhouette.
Just find a dark place without extra light sources or block any extra light, and set
exposure to the outside light.
Done, you have deep shadows and detailed light areas.
I know that you think, but this is Alexa, it has huge dynamic range.
Red Komodo and Black magic Raw has big dynamic range too, don't worry.
Scene # 4 - soft light for close up shot
Perhaps you heard, that side light sometimes looks ugly on female face.
And I bet that you keep to make Rebrands triangle on the cheek.
No problem, but just pay your attention on the hardness of light.
Hard light can make the face look ugly, and show all skin imperfections.
And of course sometimes it is necessary for story or characters.
But if we want to make cinematic and soft close up shot, just make your side light softer.
I used bounce light from the white foam board.
Since we shot this in big space, the diffusion of the side light didn’t reach the background,
and therefore we didn’t block and cut it with flags.
Scene # 5
And the last scene.
What light setup do you think is here?
It was real improvisation, since we had A few minutes before dusk ends.
The cold and smooth light on the characters is dark skylight.
This backlight is godox 300VL, I made it for the emphasizing of the characters.
And so that the light doesn't look theatrical and fake, I added background light in the
scene.
Just for motivation of the backlight.
I used lightpanel with soft diffusion filter for it.
So, hope this behind the scene video was useful for you.
Use this tools for your working, keep making art and beautiful things, see you!