Lighting 2D Animation for Super 8

[Michael Koshkin]

Hello,

 

I am working on a 2D cutout animation short, shooting in Super 8 on a Nikon R10 with Ektachrome 64T. I've been unable to find much about lighting 2D animation online.

 

I understand the basic 3-point lighting system, but am not sure how this applies to shooting a flat surface. I have little money and the only light sources I currently have are two 500 Watt Halogen work lamps (on tripods)...other than that, a few low wattage household LED lamps.

 

Any ideas for how to do the lighting? The place I bought my cheapo lights from also has 250 and 1000 watt lamps that could go on the tripods.

 

Any advice or pointing towards resources would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Michael

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Grab a digital still camera and test out certain "looks" for the lighting. Not ever having done this I can only make an educated guess; but I would assume you'd need a pretty diffused frontal soft light just to light up the cut-outs etc. I would think most of the shading definition would come from the drawings. You can also throw cookies up to make little patterns etc.