Light Source: Reflecting Light

There was a time when dramatic lighting and video production were mortal enemies. Early video cameras needed so much light to create a clean picture that it was nearly impossible to create the dramatic lighting effects found in motion picture dramas. That time has passed into a distant memory. Today's video cameras are so sensitive to light that it is sometimes hard to shoot on a sunny day without adding neutral density filters to your lens to cut down the intensity of the light. We live in an age where it's easy to achieve dramatic lighting with just a little know-how and some ingenuity.

In this column we'll look at some different styles of dramatic lighting and describe ways you can achieve the desired results. We'll start by taking a look at some basic accessories you can use to turn any ordinary video production into a dramatic presentation.

The key to dramatic lighting is creating and controlling shadow. There are a number of tools that professionals lighting designers use to block, cast and focus lights and shadows.

Three basic lighting tools used to create and control shadows are the flag, barndoors and snoot.

A flag is an opaque panel or card (usually black) that blocks light from a lighting instrument and casts a shadow on your subject or background.

Barndoors are adjustable metal flaps that attach to the front of a light. By opening or closing the flaps, you can control the shape and size of a light beam.

For a very narrow beam of light, you might use a snoot, a funnel shaped metal cone that fits over the front of a light.

Finally, the most important tool in the lighting designer's bag is imagination. By visualizing the effect you want to create and by experimenting with the tools mentioned above, you can achieve a myriad of different lighting effects to match the mood you are trying to create.

The key to deciding how to light a scene is determining the effect you want to have on the audience. You may want to draw your viewer's attention to a particular part of the frame. You may want to duplicate the natural illumination that occurs in a scene. By keeping your intentions in mind, and using the tools described above, you can create a dramatic scene that will impact your audience.

• Cameo Appearance
  Cameo lighting is usually used to light a single person without lighting his or her surroundings. To create cameo lighting, place a small, intense light about sixty degrees above and at about the one o'clock position in front of the subject. The light will fill the subject's face and create hard shadows to one side of the nose and below the chin. Make sure you position the light low enough to catch a glint in the subject's eye yet not so low as to spill onto the background. This is called cameo lighting because it duplicates the effect you find on a cameo stone, a light figure on a dark background.
• Rembrandt Lighting
  Lighting designers use this technique to highlight specific features of their subject, the eyes for example, while keeping everything else in shadows.
  You can achieve this look by using flags, barn doors and some diffusion material. By carefully flagging and diffusing ordinary three-point lighting, you can reduce the amount of light that falls on the background. This will allow you to change the placement and quality of the light on your subject's face or body and direct the viewer to focus his attention on whatever you wish him to.
• Silhouette Lighting
  Silhouette lighting is also a highly dramatic way to light a scene. To create the silhouette effect, light your background with flat lighting and place a backlight on your subject. You will not be able to see any features of your subject, just a distinct outline. Video producers often use this type of lighting to keep the subject's identity a secret or show clandestine meetings.