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Am I lighting it properly?


Guest Mustapha Farmati

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Guest Mustapha Farmati

Hello everyone,
This is my latest short film teaser.I would like you to pay close attention to lighting and tell me what you think.
Feedback is deeply appreciated.

 

 

 

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First off, lovely titles! Very cinematic. But now the lighting :)

 

It's quite a good start, but could be refined. Let's dissect each of the three shots in full.

 

Shot 1

 

The framing is very slightly awkward. I think it could have been raised up slightly to make the camera axis more horizontal, but otherwise it's ok.

I think for the purpose of the trailer, it may have been better to use a medium-close up of the actor before revealing the painting in the second shot but that's a minor suggestion.

 

The lighting in the this shot and the next looks a little obvious to me. Namely that I can tell that there is a light roughly to the left in the room spotting the wall where the painting is. It may have been more effective to bring the light up and motivate it towards being a ceiling spot light. That way, you are hiding the fact that there is a light on your set by making it appear to come from an actual ceiling light.

 

Shot 2

 

 

By motivating the light for shot one (same take I'm guessing), you can begin to refine any other lighting needed for this closer shot where he would clearly be under the light to some degree.

 

If you were to change the first shot to a non-revealing medium/close up of the actor, this shot would work more effectively since you aren't cutting back to the same shot (which it appears to be). This adds interest and advances your plot, whereas the first two shots feel like the same moment, just ahead in time.

 

Shot 3 (portrait close up)

 

The lighting in this suffers a bit because it is obvious. There is a key (on the wrong side of the face for this shot) with maybe a little more fill than is necessary for the dramatic nature of the plot.

 

The background is also very bright and would benefit the actor and the drama by being at least 1-2 stops darker.

 

If you were to change the lighting as described earlier, you would now have a vertical soft light which you can then change for this particular shot, bringing the light down to the right slightly or even just bringing it forward to fill the face in slightly (we'll call the right side "onside" for this centered shot).

 

I hope this makes sense? It's all theoretical suggestions based on my guesses as to the actual lighting used.

 

Good luck with it.

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Lighting is something I spend a lot of time perfecting in my portraits and other stills.

 

Take a look at portraits portfolio. May help to illustrate my suggestions.

 

http://www.nickbedford.com/folios/portraits

http://www.nickbedford.com/folios/music

 

This particular environmental portrait I took recently illustrates what I'm trying to convey.

 

music_daneverett2.jpg

Edited by Nicholas Bedford
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Everything that I say is solely based on theory since I haven't done any real lighting myself, however, I've been studying the masters and listening to interviews, and it's somewhat beginning to make sense to me in terms of lighting. It's really a lot like writing, in the sense that you do it over and over until you begin to find your very own perspective of things or "style", every cinematographer is different, they seldom come from the same place and they see the world differently. A great comparison would be someone like Conrad Hall and Vittorio Storaro, with Hall you can see the imperfection, he doesn't use "beauty lighting", but rather feels the sense of this world he is creating for someone else, but with his own voice. He lights for the story. the same way with Storaro who is more of a perfectionist. I think it's a mistake to ask someone if you lit the scene properly, because everyone has their own method of doing things and you will get very different opinions. You have to have a feel for what you want. I think before anything else, you have to develop more in the composition aspect since I figure as a beginner you will have to do very minimal lighting and get very creative with what you have. I hope to do more shorts in the Dogma 95 style and improve on composition, I think the scene and location will ultimate determine the quality of light and the mood you're going for, if you look at Gordon Willis he wasn't afraid to let the scenes go dark when they needed to be dark! On the Godfather he even underexposed a couple of shots, but he knew how far he could push the film stocks he was using by doing tests. I hope in my next project, I'll be able to learn from my mistakes and above all learn from other people's mistakes. I feel lighting should be imperfect, I hate perfection, which is one of the things I discovered about myself when I made my first short film, not much to go on, but it's a start.

Edited by joshua gallegos
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Are you lighting it properly?

 

If it looks the way you want t to, and it conveys the mood that you require then, yes, you are lighting it properly.

 

I think that it was Owen Roizman, ASC who, when asked about 'how to light' said something along the lines of 'You put a lamp up and switch it on. I f you like what it does, you leave it there. If you don't, you switch it off and move it'.

 

I think your teaser looks good. No need to change anything.

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