Lighting: Using Practicals (page 2)

Now for the real lighting challenge: recreating the light that supposedly is coming from the practical. For this, you have to consider a few lighting choices. Ask yourself if the lighting created by the practical is soft or hard. If the practical is a lamp with a shade, then it is a soft diffused light, and you would want to use a large soft light to duplicate it. If the light is coming from a bare bulb or candle flame, you would then want to use a small hard light to recreate the illumination. If the practical you are dealing with is a window, look at the quality of the light coming through it and use a hard or soft light as indicated.

Once you have determined the type of light needed, you need to set up your supplemental lighting to duplicate the effect of the practical. Always make sure you set the supplemental light at the same vertical angle as the practical. Also be careful that the light from your lighting instruments does not illuminate the exterior of the practical or throw a shadow of the practical into the scene. To avoid illuminating the outside of your practical, carefully flag your light so that a shadow falls on the practical and nowhere else. There is nothing worse than seeing a lamp shade with light shining on it from the outside! You can avoid the shadow of the practical by placing your lighting so that it is angled a bit forward of the practical. This will cause any shadow from the practical to be cast off-camera in a distance beyond your talent.

Now that you have the basics, let's take a look at our opening setup.

This setup includes a table lamp sitting beside a sofa in front of a moonlit picture window. Our subject, the beautiful woman looking at her engagement ring, is lit by the warm glow of the lamp on one side of her face, and the blue haze of moonlight provides a soft backlight. The fill side of her face is softly lit by the ambient room light reflected by the light walls of the living room.

For this setup, you will need a softbox with a flag to supplement the table lamp, a large blue-gelled Fresnel or reflector spot such as a Lowel Omni to recreate the light from the moon and another softbox set up at a distance to provide a bit of fill light on your subject's face.

Set the softbox up just outside the camera shot, slightly toward the front of the table lamp. Place a flag in front of the light, so that its shadow covers the lamp and table but does not shade the couch or talent. Place your Fresnel or Omni at a 50-degree vertical angle above and to the opposite side of your talent, so that the bluish light falls on her shoulders and the back of her head. You will want to place this light outside the window if at all possible. If not, make sure you mount it so that you can still see part of the window and that you flag any spill light from the back wall. The light has to look like it is coming through the window, so be very picky about spillage. Finally, place a softbox on the other side of your talent towards the front to softly illuminate without overpowering the soft shadows created by the "lamp light" on her face (see Diagram). The end result should be a beautifully romantic scene.

As you can see from the above setup, as long as you select, control and supplement your practicals carefully, you can recreate any lighting setup so that it looks as natural as possible. Always remember to add a supplemental base light to the scene, so that your video comes out clear and sharp. Too little light always leads to video that is dull and grainy. All too often with today's technology, beginning videographers feel that their cameras can work well in the lowest of light and that real, natural light is all they need to make real, natural-looking shots. Don't kid yourself. You always need to supplement the lighting. By using what you have learned here, you can recreate scenes so that they look like you shot them using natural light, but the video will be much higher in quality and look a lot more professional.

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