In this video, I'll show you how to light
a film noir scene using speed lights.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey, and you're watching
Adorama TV, brought to you by Adorama, the
camera store that's got everything for
us photographers, and today you join me
back in my small home studio for a film
noir themed shoot. Now I did something
similar a while back where we just used
the venetian blind, check out the Adorama
Learning Center to see that one, in this
case however I've got a much bigger set,
because we've got an entire private
detectives office hmm... we filled it full
of props from the house, or things we
borrowed from friends, but it's not just
the props that have changed. I'm also
going to use different lighting, because
this time we're going to light absolutely
everything, using nothing more than just
speed lights. We will need a few of these
though. We also need someone to sit here,
and normally I'd use a model, but for
this to really work, we need an actor,
someone who can play the part. So let's
get an actor in. Let's get some lights set,
let's get shooting. So to help me out
today, I've got Liam. Liam's going to be the
model stroke private detective, and this
is his office. To light the scene, I'm
going to use multiple speed lights, which
means it can get quite complicated. So to
make life easier, I'm going to build the
shot up. One light at a time, and the
first light is round the back. We've got
a speed light here in front of the
Venetian blinds, and this is just going
to put light on the background. Now the
speed light is zoomed into its maximum
zoom. Let's take a shot like this and see
how it looks. As you can see, we've got
those streaks of light coming through
the venetian blinds, and that's okay, but
it is very sharp, and very defined. What
I'd like is just a slightly softer look
to the light in the background, and I can
do that really easily, just by getting
the speed light, and moving it a little
bit closer. Let's try that,
and you can see the difference is quite
remarkable, and for me that looks better
in this shot. So the second light is
going to go in behind Liam. I'm going to put
it nice and high, it's on a boom arm so
the stands out of shot, and the light is
just out of shot as well. It's on a nice
wide angle for the speed lights, so that
should give a lovely flood of light in
this direction, and it'll do two jobs.
Have a look at this.
So that light adds a bit of separation
onto Liam's shoulders, and on his hat,
and the second job it'll do, it will
back light the smoke, when we add that
later. So far we've got all the light
coming in this direction, which means
Liam's face is in shadow.
Well that's where the third light comes
in, this is going to be specifically just
for lighting Liam's face. So I've got
this zoomed in, because it needs to be a
fairly tight area of light. I don't want
the light spilling around and messing up
the shot too much, and it's in reasonably
close for the same reason. So it's on its
lowest possible power setting. Let's have
a look at this. So it lights Liam's face
just fine, but behind it is a fairly
obvious shadow, and the spread of light
is still a little bit too wide for my
personal taste. Dealing with the shadow
is relatively easy, if I move the light
around, the shadow will move in the
opposite direction, and go out of shot.
However making the beam of light
smaller, is a bit more challenging. It's
already on its maximum zoom, I can't put
it closer, because it would be in the
shot. So the solution is this. Which is my
Magmod Snoot. I'm going to use this just to
tighten up the beam of light and it just
sticks on the front of the flash like
that. Now it will take away some of the
power, so I may need to adjust this, and
I'm going to do that by trial and error.
Let's take a shot. That works really well,
it puts some light on Liam's face. But as
the shoot progresses I need to watch where
it goes, because it is a tight beam of
light, and it's possible Liam could move
out of it. The last light I'm going to
use is an optional light, and I only need
it because I want to simulate the look
of this desk light being on. It's called
motivated light, so I'm going to add in the
fourth speed light, just down here, just
out of shot, and it's going to light this
area of the desk,
and let's see how that looks.
That all comes together really well, but
it is worth remembering these will
become black and white pictures, and I'll
show you how to do that, once we've done
the shoot.
Liam the detective .. hard day in the
office... you can actually talk, it's okay
that's okay, he'll get a little angry on
the phone as well. Okay yeah, and that the
person's over there, the angry person you
want to shout to.
I think we got some good shots in there we
need some smoke in the room.
Give a little bit of smoke in behind Sam.
Liam did a fantastic job acting the part,
but there's some things I can't do with
the look, and the lighting, that I really
need photoshop's help. Let's have a look,
so this is a picture I want to edit, and
because it's a film noir, the obvious
thing to do is to take away the color
and make this black and white. Now I can
do that really easily by taking the
saturation here in Adobe Camera Raw in
Photoshop down to minus a hundred, or
because I'm in the newest version of
Photoshop Camera Raw, I can just come up
to the black and white button, and click
that. That's pretty much the same thing
in this case.
Now film noir has a few distinctive looks.
It's not just black and white, it's also
very high in contrast, so let's add in
lots of contrast, and then we'll take the
highlights up.
I'll bring the shadows down, so they're
nice and dark, but add a little bit of
pure white, and a little bit of deep
black. Now these numbers aren't an exact
science, they're going to vary according to
taste, according to your lighting, and
whatever style you want to go for. But
one thing I am definitely going to do is
add some clarity.
It adds contrast, and I really like it, so
a little bit of clarity looks good. So
those are the basic settings, but there's
some things that are very specific to
each individual picture. Let's have a
look at this one, because in this case I
talked about the snooted light being
quite accurate, and I think it's just
missed where I want it to be. It's a
little bit on his cheek and shoulder, so
to give that a helping hand I'm going to
switch over to the adjustment brush, and
on the adjustment brush I'm going to reset
everything, and add a little bit more
exposure, by clicking on the plus button
next to exposure, and add half a stop, no
more, and just paint a little bit of
exposure on his face. Now I think it
needs a bit more than just exposure. It
needs a bit more contrast to make that
look good. So we'll add a little bit more
contrast in there too.
Now there's a few other areas that could
do with a bit of fine-tuning, so I'll
make another new adjustment brush by
clicking the new button, and in this case
I'm going to take the highlights all the
way down. So everything else is zeroed.
Now just the highlights, and I'll just
darken down those very bright areas,
that's just catching my eye a little bit
like that. I may need to add in a bit of
white in there as well, just to take
those down a touch. There's also some
dark areas, like the back of the
typewriter that are losing details.
Let's see if we can pull just a hint of
that out, I'll make another new brush and
this time I'll add a little bit of
exposure. I'll open up the shadows and
I'll add a bit of clarity in there
because I haven't done any clarity, and
I'm getting withdrawl symptoms! Well no..
it just looks quite good with a bit of
clarity on the shadows. Okay so that
looks pretty good. I'm happy with that
really. Then it's just fine-tuning, so
let's go one more new brush. I'll take
the exposure down a little bit, and just
darken the edge of that desk, which is
just bothering me just a wee bit, and
maybe just the edge on the other side as
well, just to balance it up a little bit.
We'll just darken a few areas in like so,
and there it is there's my final film
noir picture completed!
Well that went really well, the end
pictures look fantastic, and it was a
great fun shoot to do. Now if you've
enjoyed this video don't forget to leave
me a comment below, and you want to see
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I'm Gavin Hoey, thanks for watching.