Creating Shadows

Brian Peterson
June 2008

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Shadows are evil. They introduce noise into our video, obscure our subject detail and suck the life from a well-lit scene. We must exorcise these underlords of darkness from our sets.

O.K., perhaps that's a tad overboard. But, as beginning producers, that's how many of us have felt. Our mentors cautioned us not to use hard lighting instruments, which cast distinct shadows, to avoid the inherent high-contrast ratios that were beyond the dynamic range of our camcorders. We became addicted to softboxes and bounced light. Sure, the result was video that showed detail and lacked noise, but it also lacked drama.

Shadows can be our friends if we learn a few simple techniques. Through matching the mood of your scene, controlling contrast and careful selection, placement and modification of your lighting instruments, you too can become a shadow master.

Before you plug in your first light, you first need to ask yourself two questions. What mood do I want to create, and what lighting do the time and environment suggest?

To help you determine the mood, look to your script, action or topic for guidance. If it is a dramatic dialog with rising tension, your lighting should support this tense atmosphere. To establish distinct moods, you can simulate with video lights the accusing effect of a reading lamp spotlight, the warm flicker of a fireplace or the ghoulish glow of a TV. Their contribution relies as much on their unique shadows as on the quality of their illumination.

As for the time and place of your environment, let's say you have a scene in a living room. What time is it? Are there lots of windows or interior lights that will be visible in your shots? This will make a big difference in how you choose to create a lighting solution that mimics the natural setting and casts appropriate shadows. We'll cover this in the section on light placement.

High key and low key are terms used to describe general lighting styles that are respectively low- and high-contrast. You would use a high-key setup for scenes where the mood is light-hearted or where simply documenting everything is most important. Low-key setups establish moods that are mysterious, tense and serious, and that is where shadows play an important role.

Today's camcorders can handle a greater range of brightness, but it remains important to learn how to control this dynamic range when you can. You control the intensity of the shadows on your subject by adjusting the light output ratio between your main and fill lights. Shadows start becoming apparent at a ratio of less than 2:1 and reach their effective limit at approximately 8:1 (see sidebar for calculation).

If you are shooting indoors, you have the opportunity to create a base level of illumination. You can do this by either using large light sources - those that do not cast their own shadows - or bouncing lights off a ceiling or other large light-colored surface. This base level of illumination is like a master fill light and will give you the freedom to change your other lights without worrying about losing detail in the dark areas or having noise creep into the shadows.

Unless you have test equipment, like a waveform monitor, you'll need to set up your base illumination by eyeballing it. Do this by setting up your main, fill and any accent lights, and then manually expose for your subject. Then add your base-level lighting instrument near your camcorder and adjust so that your shadows just begin to move toward dark gray. Watch your image closely in a calibrated monitor or trusted viewfinder while you make this adjustment.

If you have a waveform monitor, increase the intensity of your base illumination so your black levels just begin to move off the 7.5 IRE mark. In other words, don't smash your blacks.

There is a difference between what we are describing as base illumination and your standard fill light. The base illumination should raise the brightness of everything in your scene, including the background, so that nothing becomes pure black. Your fill light usually reduces only the contrast on your subject.

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