Let's talk head-on. Everything and everyone looks better on film. No, they look great. It doesn't matter if we see them in a theater or on a TV at home. The world looks better when it is captured on film.
Well, why is that? Video technology has progressed a lot over the past 20 years. There is even high-definition video, which answers all your prayers regarding parity with cinema. The contrast, the resolution, the color, everything is improving in video. Even 35mm camera lenses can be adapted to Panasonic and Hitachi cameras. So why can't my video images look like a movie? No, actually what we mean is: why don't our videos look better?
Film is film and video is something electronic that happens, somewhere, between the lens and the monitor. Making a video look like a movie will drive you crazy and won't allow your images to look better. But if you can record images that don't make you think of video or movie, you'll be on your way to a happier life. 20 years ago, in field video productions, one rarely had the opportunity to adjust the level of blacks or lower it to whites. Things have changed and for the benefit of all. However, television is still seen as television, even if we try to achieve the appearance of a movie.
Much of the above has to do with lighting. Numerous cameramen still live in the past when it comes to lighting, "filling in the shadows and lowering the lights." Modern technology has improved to the point that no one talks about "bursts" or noise in blacks anymore. Today we have a wider contrast range, so let's use it.
There is no need to be more afraid of windows. Show them inside the frame and let them shine. Do not panic at bright backgrounds, illuminate them or lower the intensity. Don't become a slave to what you learned from people who learned it before you were born. Create an image that looks good and let the electronics do their job. You will be amazed at how much it can absorb.
If you can't find a beautiful picture to record, well, create one yourself. Now it can illuminate more dramatically, with more style and prominence than ever before. Don't "fill" as heavily as you used to. Accept the contrast in your images, there's nothing wrong with having black inside the frame. It is not necessary to illuminate everything as a contest. The "flat and bright" credo is for TV comedies and game shows; these have a time and a place, so leave the above to them. Anyway, you need more life in your frames.
"Okay, but I don't know how," one can argue. "I don't have a budget for Hollywood production, what am I going to do?" Well, very few have large budgets to work with and they do it in the best way.
One of the first ideas to consider is "motivated" lighting. Enlightenment that has a reason and a relationship to what the observer might relate. The lighting scheme on the locations is ready for you. What? Where? The light comes from the windows and, commonly, it is the lighting that the people who live in the places where it is going to be recorded have. An HMI light as small as a 1200, through one of those windows, can provide a beautiful sunlight, or if you prefer a fluorescent daylight, and even the same HMI 1200 with diffuser, which gives a feeling of bright fog.
After the windows come the lamps. Put a lamp on your stage, in such a way that it allows you to direct the light in a certain direction. This gives the scene a sense of place. The last thing you want is for your scene to have shadows that fall in the direction of the obvious light. So if you have a lamp on the left of the painting, all shadows should fall from left to right. This serves as a guide to locate the main lights.
When there are no lamps or windows, you can still light up with the idea of "motivation" in mind. It must make you believe that there is a window outside the frame, the same place where the music of a soundtrack comes from. If there's a window in your location but you can't make it fit into the picture, light up through it, anyway. If there is no window, build a simulated one with tape and a frame, use Venetian blinds or a Leko lamp with a window pattern. Just remember that using these kinds of tricks too much is as offensive as a drunk in your sister's marriage. A small part of light, on a table or on a wall, is enough. Then the characters can be illuminated separately, from the same direction. Use flags and tights to cut off the light to your talent outside the area "motivated" by your lamp or window.
This has been a terribly simple explanation of motivated lighting, but you can apply this simple idea to any shot, successfully. More than enlightenment, it's making images feel like a place of truth.
And this idea can be applied to outdoor work as well. The nights, outdoors, are the best friends of the videos. There we have all the freedom in the world, a blank canvas to paint. The nights, outside, and the tungsten lights, were made for each other. Define large areas with lights of different shapes and let the darkness around them make the frame. If you are filming in the city, finding the atmosphere of lights is wonderful. The neon signs and light of the architecture, down to the street lights, achieve incredible backgrounds and balance levels for close-up action that require less lumens than one imagines. We light up outdoor nights with babies of 1K or less.
It is not enough to emphasize the concept of "contrast consciousness" in night environments. Do not overlit. Take out all your equipment; every light needs to be sculpted with flags, meshes, black silks or whatever. Use oblique angles to illuminate or fill faces with light. Remember that it is night. Both things and people look dark. The saddest thing on TV is an overly bright night outside (with the exception of any shots recorded in Las Vegas).
Speaking of outdoor nights, you can make the interior shots look like night, even if it is daytime, covering with an awning the windows that are seen in the painting and illuminating through them. In this way the nocturnal appearance is achieved in an instant and it is possible to illuminate with more contrast, more blacks in the frame and the images will begin to look better.
Thus, the essence of "motivated enlightenment" gives a sense of place. Not only space or objects are illuminated, but a space is defined so that it is perceived in a certain way. We don't talk about cheesy things, we talk about moments like morning, afternoon or night, about something real. Making the lighting mean or do something is what is intended in the background the "style-cinema". Hollywood has the budgets and time to invest, we get the clients who need their shows to look like Hollywood's, but without the need for such high budgets.
Just because you work in a studio doesn't mean you shouldn't use "motivated lighting." It is your responsibility to observe that when scenarios are planned for lighting, there should be enough space outside for lighting, and not just that needed to accommodate lighting equipment. We must talk about the need for interior lighting to "motivate" their look and not fall into the trap of the madness of multi-cameras. Skin tones and face lighting change according to cameras and angles. When you take the faces, at the same level, you end up with flat, flat, flat shots, which have nothing to do with the style sought.
In addition to learning to "motivate" your enlightenment, it is necessary to develop a "lighting vocabulary". We don't want to say weird names or for the team. Just as there are people who enjoy collecting words, you should collect "enlightenment formulas." The way to do this is to analyze what you see in movies or other sources of inspiration. You'll want to reflect on the moments when the lighting was especially impactful and try to figure out where the light in those scenes came from and how it was being manipulated to get a good feeling and grab your attention. Keep this in mind when you go to work and come back to it from time to time. He's not stealing anyone's work, he's flattering them by doing a magnificent job with his performance.
Keep your eyes open to the surrounding world. Look at locations, look at faces and see how they are illuminated, find a way to recreate this on a stage. Even if you don't succeed, you'll realize how much your work improves just by putting a little more attention around you.
And please stop looking at the monitor. It's probably not even set up properly and surely someone has been playing with it without you noticing. Free yourself from the box. Good lighting, wonderful lighting, had already been invented before video. Stand in front of the camera and look at what you're creating. If your eye tells you that it looks good, it will look good on video.
We all enjoyed it and "good luck" on its next shot.
 Lighting exercises A technique often used in lighting design schools involves collecting postcard-sized photographs or reviewing the books of classical painters such as Rembrandt, Goya, Degas, Titian, and others who use lighting and real (non-abstract) subjects. The exercise consists of diagramming the images as if they were seen from above and arranging the light units where it is thought that they should be placed. See if it's a soft or strong light. It is interesting to discover how common it is to find multiple light sources, such as portrait holders, in which there is a strong light, at some angle, and soft from another. |
Leave your comment