132 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E
Lighting Your Actors
Lighting a person is always a bit more challenging than lighting an object. The human face has many angles, and it’s easy for bright lights to cast strange and unflattering shadows. In addition, bright lights can magnify every little flaw on a person’s face, while the wrong color lighting can result in an unnatural-looking skin tone. Whether your goal is to make your actors look beautiful or ugly, the right lighting will enhance your characters and story. The following three-point lighting tutorial provides a tried-and-true method for lighting an actor.
Tutorial
Three-Point Lighting
This tutorial assumes that you have access to a typical video light kit (like the one described in the sidebar ”The Basic Light Kit for Video“), a selection of gels (see the section “Lighting Gels”), and a suitable subject to light, preferably a person. If possible, you should also have your camera set up on a tripod in order to see how the different lighting possibilities look through the lens and to check for good exposure using the zebra stripes, built-in light meter, or histogram display. If you have a field monitor, you should use that, too. If you don’t have a field monitor, consider recording video as you experiment with your lighting, so that you can later view the results on a full-size monitor. You’ll also need a pair of work gloves for handling hot lights. Finally, you should start with a large, dark room. A soundstage is ideal, but any dark room will work. If you’re doing this tutorial at home, see the following tip on how to avoid blowing a bulb.
STEP 1: PLACE THE KEY LIGHT
To begin, set up your key light. Take one of the 650-watt lights from your kit and set it up on one of the stands. Attach the barn doors to the light itself—they usually just slide into place. Direct the light toward your subject and turn it on. Don’t worry about the background yet; we’ll deal with that later. For now, focus on lighting your subject as best you can.
Now that you have light on your subject, find a pleasing angle at which to place the light. The human eye is used to seeing light that comes from a high angle, usually from over our shoulder, so low-placed, low-angle lights often yield results that look a little strange. Extend the stand to its full height and then aim the light down at your actor. Experiment with different heights to see what works best. Try placing the light at different distances from your subject. Does it look better close or farther away? You can set up the lights any way that looks good to your eye. Just make sure that the light is not so bright that it overexposes in your viewfinder. (If your viewfinder provides a Zebra display, turn it on to help identify hot spots.)
Because of the shadows cast by a person’s nose, the key light is usually placed about 30 to 45 degrees off-center from the person’s face. This position gives definition to the features of the face and allows the shadow from the nose to fall to the side without becoming huge or distorted. (Consult the diagram back in Figure 6.1 to re-visit a typical three-point lighting setup.) Once you’re happy with the angle, play with the focus knob on the Fresnel lens. Does it look better tightly focused or flooded? (Figure 6.6 shows the difference between a hard key and a soft key.) Try adding some diffusion. Play around until you find a look you like, and then move on to the next step.
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Don’t Waste Expensive Lightbulbs
Avoid touching high-wattage lightbulbs, (or globes, as they are professionally known). The oil from your fingers can overheat and cause them to explode (the globes, not your fingers).
STEP 2: SET UP THE BACK LIGHT
Now it’s time to add the back light. As with the key light, set it up on a stand and play around with different positions. Back lights are usually quite bright and often filtered with lightly colored gels. Usually, the best position for a back light is either high overhead pointing down at the back of the subject’s head, or way down near the ground pointing up at the back of the subject’s head. The reason for this is that you need to avoid having the light itself visible in the shot, as well as avoid having it pointed directly at the camera (which will cause a lens flare). Figure 6.8 shows the actor illuminated with the back light only, and Figure 6.2 (center photo) shows the actor illuminated with the back light and key light.
Fire Hazards
Avoid putting diffusion gels, lighting gels, and any flammable materials too close to professional light globes. You might end up with a stinky, smoldering mess stuck to your light, or worse, you might start a fire! In addition, use your gaffer’s tape to tape down your light’s power cords. It can be easy to trip over cords and pull over your lights as you work around them. Finally, use sandbags to weigh down light stands so that they aren’t easily knocked over.
Figure 6.8
The actor lit with a back light only.
134 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E
STEP 3: ADD SOME FILL LIGHT
Now you are ready to set up the fill light. Take the 1K soft light from the kit and set it up on the stand. Your goal with the fill light is to make the shadows cast by the key light less severe. Usually, this means placing the light on the opposite side of the subject from the key light, typically at a 30to 45-degree angle directed at the unlit side of the actor’s face (see the diagram in Figure 6.1).
The brightness of the fill light is very important, since this is how you control the contrast ratio of your scene. Remember that video doesn’t handle high-contrast lighting as well as film does. Try placing the light at different distances from the subject to see how the contrast ratio changes. It’s often nice to have a fill light that’s a different color than the key light. Experiment with different colored gels until you’re satisfied with the fill light. Figure 6.9 shows the actor illuminated with a soft 1K fill light only, and Figure 6.2 (bottom photo) shows a subject lit with key, back, and fill lights.
Figure 6.9
The same actor lit with a fill light only.
STEP 4: MAKE ADJUSTMENTS
Now that you have your three lights set up, it’s time to look at the overall scene. Are colored areas washing out to white? Are there hot spots, bright reflections from cheekbones or foreheads? In other words, is it overlit? Try adding single or double scrims to the lights that seem too bright.
How does the background look? It’s pretty hard to light the subject and the background with only three lights, but see if you can move the fill light so that it fills in the background as well as the shadows on the subject. Is there too much light falling on the background? Try using the barn doors on the key light to direct the light onto the subject only. If you have barn doors for the fill and back lights, adjust them as well. Remember to wear gloves when you’re adjusting lights that have been on for a while—they get very hot. If your lights are still too bright, try moving them further from the subject, or add more scrims or diffusion to your
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