To View This Video
Start Your Free Trial Plus Membership

[Music Playing]

The process of creating professional video starts in the studio with a technique known as 3 point lighting. This is a technique that involves three different sources of light and applying them makes your subject look a lot more flattering.

The first thing we’re gonna look at is the key light or the main source of your illumination. The next thing we’re gonna take a look at is the fill light, which is gonna clean up all the dark areas on the face. And the last thing we’re gonna look at is the backlight, which is gonna separate our subject from the background. I’m Tom Skowronski and this is three point lighting.

Standing to my left are two photo flex, silver domed, soft box lights. These lights are very even in their intensity, so we’re gonna use them for our backlight and our fill light. Now, the light we wanna use first is gonna be a little bit more intense and that is known as our spotlight. This is gonna be our key light and it’s gonna be the most powerful of all the lights we are gonna use. The best way to set up a key light is to raise it about three or four feet above the subject’s eye level, which will then recreate the same natural environment you get outdoors with the sun.

Now, a spotlight’s a very intense, powerful light, so we’re gonna want to keep this at about four to five feet away from our subject at least at all times so it doesn’t blind them.

[Music Playing]

Now, the best way to set up those shadows once you have your key light in place is to head over to one of these soft boxes and begin to set that up, again, at about 45 degrees from the camera’s positioning, just like the key light, only this time, if the light’s are the same intensity, we’re either gonna back it up or we’re gonna bring in a less powerful light.

At this point on our video, our subject’s gonna look very natural and look very flattering, but they’re not gonna be separated from the background and that’s where the third part of this process comes in, the backlight.

When we set up this light, we’re gonna raise it, once again, about a foot or two feet above Julie’s head, which is gonna add that nice rim of light that shines down and doesn’t spill over into our camera.

[Music Playing]

Now, that we’ve gone over this process, let’s take a look at all the individual lights one more time.

The key light’s main function is to create the most amount of illumination onto the subject. The second process we went over is adding the fill light. Now, the fill light it gonna clear up all those shadows that are created by the harsh light that comes from the key. And the last step to this process was adding our backlight, which is generally the key in separating our subject from the background.

Now, that we’ve learned about each individual step, the key light, the fill light, and the backlight, all of you can go out and create professional looking video with your own three point lighting set up.

[Music Playing]

[End of Audio]