Lighting dark skin

[Guy Meachin]

What's the best way to light someone with black skin? Any tips? I wuz shooting for an film commisioned by the art council today and the actor is black. I had a few problems with picking out his facial features, though black skin looks alot nicer on camera than white skin!

[David Mullen ASC]

If by "black skin" you mean REALLY dark-toned skin, there are two basic tricks:

 

(1) Don't underexpose; in fact, slightly overexposing them will help retain some detail. Just don't expose them so that they look caucasian... It helps to avoid white in the wardrobe so that when you overexpose slightly, the wardrobe doesn't get too hot.

 

(2) Large soft lights tend to work better instead of harder lights. It's a little like lighting a black car. You point a hard light (point source) at a black car and all you get is a hot spot where the light is reflected. You point a large soft light (broad source) at the black car, and the surface of the car reflects the large soft source. Using soft edge lights (kickers) also works well, even if they are not that bright, because you get this nice reflective glare over the skin.

 

Of course, it gets more complicated if you are talking about filming both a pale actor and an actor with very dark skintone in the same shot.

 

If you are talking about African-American skintones in general, they run such a WIDE gamut of tones that it is hard to generalize about how they should be lit.

 

Other than the two issues I mentioned, nice portrait lighting tends to work well regardless of skin color. The shape of the face is a bigger factor.

 

Another note is that some very dark skin will pick up a blue-ish tone that can be cancelled by warming up the light if you want.

Edited November 4, 2004 by David Mullen

[Michael Nash]

Another note is that some very dark skin will pick up a blue-ish tone that can be cancelled by warming up the light if you want.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was thinking something similar except for a different reason. If you can't light up or overexpose the face enough to bring out all the detail you want, you can at least warm up the color to make the dark skin look a little more "healthy" and not just dark on film. There are cosmetic gels, or 1/8-1/4 CTO can work. Just don't go too strong, or the color will just end up looking fake.

[Ed Nyankori]

One "trick" I have seen for lighting dark skinned people for video is to use a bit of chocolate gel in your fill and kickers. Given the limitations of video's lattitude the chocolate gel will offer more heat where you want it w/o creating harsh white highlights that would make your subject look "lit". Once again this is a trick so test it out before you sell it...

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Below is a link to some stills from a music video I shot for a black gentleman called Masayah a couple of years ago. He was extremely black - almost blue-black. My soft keylight on his face was 3 stops over, which was nervous at the time. But that should give you an idea. We did end up pulling it back a bit in telecine, but the ratio was there.

 

 

Masayah

[Wendell_Greene]

Here are a couple of on-set reference stills from a music video I directed two weeks ago for Adriana Evans. The DP was Johnny W. Ching.

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest fstop]

Have you guys seen Disney's song of the South, shot by Gregg Toland? A huge number of really dark skinned coloured actors in there, and our man got em done very simply through the use of tracing paper diffusion. There is a bit of blue in the skin, but it's tasteful and works well with the technicolor colour scheme of the movie.

 

I'd also add Beverly Hills Cop 2 to your list- God knows how Jeffrey Kimball got away with all that stuff with Eddie Murphy side and back lit low key with hardly any fill- no special treatment or ego portraiture set-ups, just shot along with everyone else in two camera wide shots cut with close ups throughout. The absolutely fascinating part is that Kimball just makes it look SO EASY.

 

One thing I must admit as far as personal taste goes- black actors in hard light or with direct fill create that nasty little nose shadow that just really makes my toes curl- If it's a traditional key/fill portrait it HAS to be diffused, IMO- black on black just looks tacky. Sorry, just my personal quibble :)

Edited November 4, 2004 by fstop

[Wendell_Greene]

Well one of the best old school films of great lighting of black skin tones was John Alonzo's work in "Sounder". They're are a great deal variations in skintones and under tones to black actors, oftentimes all within the same scene. (some of us have a very red undertone)

 

A few of the films that come to mind where you can see an example of this are :

 

"The Color Purple"- Allen Daviau, ASC

" City of God" - Cesar Chalone, -

"Daughters of the Dust" - Arthur Jafa

"Malcolm X" - Ernest Dickerson,ASC

"Ray" -Pawel Edelman, PSC

" A Lesson Before Dying" - Donald M. Morgan, ASC

 

And when you talk about the work involved in lighting a dark skinned African-American actor in the same scene with a caucasian actor(s) I think DP Shane Hurlburt did a fantasic job of this when in the HBO film, "The Rat Pack" when you had Don Cheadle as Sammy Davis Jr. in scenes moving around on stage, dancing and singing with the other four white actors. The scene with Cheadle wearing a black shirt, pants and boots and sitting on the white bedspread in the all white bedroom watching the JFK inaugration was the bomb!!

Edited November 4, 2004 by Wendell_Greene

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I shot a music promo once with black performers - not very dark, but I thought the ring-lit look worked well on them, even where it pushed the DSR-500 into DCC and started looking all smooth and interesting like the hilights in the stuff Mr. Frisch posted.

 

Phil