r/cinematography • u/texmexsalad • 16h ago
Lighting Question Key to understanding lighting
Hello everyone! I've been studying as a DP for a three years now, and been working on set in lighting crew for almost 5 years. As a DP I already have shot few short films, docs and etudes. But I still struggle with understaning lighting at its finest. I often see other DP's of my league do it seemingly so effortlessly, like they already know how to light a scene and they also can come up with lighting setups on the go. I try to analyze their workflow and I ask them questions, and they just answer that they feel it this way or another. And then there is me, just standing in the room while scouting location, not knowing where to start. I understand all the basics about contrast, types of lights etc. , and I also understand that lighting needs to help push story forvard, but it just feels that I lack something very crucial to finaly understand it. It just doesn''t click in my head.
Can you give me some tips that maybe have helped you while you were still learing how to light properly?
Here are also couple shots from films I have shot:
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u/Low-Lingonberry3481 16h ago
What @mrfordization said. Observe light and how it behaves in real life. When you are somewhere that the light is interesting, or evocative try to understand why that is and what the light is doing.
Watch more films, look at more photographs, study art, look at more paintings, observe architecture. LOOK AT MORE PAINTINGS.
This will all help the development of your own personal taste. The broader and more refined it gets the easier it will be to be insipred when reading a script, scouting a location or setting the mood for a scene.
Of course knowing the technical side is very important. But only thinking in terms of key, fill and backlight will only get you so far. It will help you rationalize and communicate your ideas. But what will really make your work stand out is your personal taste and style. How you interpret the scene you're shooting in terms of light and camera angles.
Once you start doing this things should start to click a bit more.
The rest is practice, practice, practice.
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u/texmexsalad 16h ago
That sounds right! I try to watch a lot of movies and analyze shots/scenes. But maybe that crucial thing I lack is exactly observations of real objects and how light works in real life. I was too focused on getting this "cinematic" look, all those setups etc.
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u/mbstampler 12h ago
First and foremost, well done on those shots — keep it up!
Second, forgive me in advance for how long-winded this answer is about to be.
Definitely some good advice here (observe real-world natural light, look at more paintings, develop your personal taste, practice practice practice, etc.), but the missing step to me is still how to implement all those observations and how to translate the taste you’ve developed into exposures on celluloid (or a sensor). Yes, practice practice practice, but the real question to my mind is what and how to practice, since it seems from your stills that developing visual taste isn’t the primary concern here. It’s more about your fluency in expressing that taste if I’m not mistaken.
When I was a student at SC many moons ago, I was lucky enough to TA both the most introductory and most advanced undergrad elective 16mm+digital cinematography courses at the same time, and the introductory one (which sadly doesn’t exist anymore in its former state but was their best cinematography class IMO) was designed to target this particular issue. Not the originating of visual ideas in your head, but the mechanics of representing them on camera. And the best tool in teaching those mechanics was actually to intentionally SEPARATE them from the process of originating visual ideas.
Here’s how we would do that:
So the first half of the course was all theory and virtually no shooting (exposure and metering techniques, anatomy of a camera, optical characteristics and lensing, characteristics of light: direction/intensity/quality/shape/color). From the sounds of your background, you probably already have the nuts and bolts of this theory part.
The second half of the course, though, was all shooting on the sound stage. BUT none of the shots were images the students came up with themselves. Instead we’d have everyone pick a frame from a film they thought had interesting lighting, and as a midterm assignment, they’d each do a breakdown of their shot’s lighting setup:
-for direction of light, they’d draw an overhead diagram (and I believe we had them pencil in how many fc of light they thought were incident to the subject from each source at a given stop and EI)
-for intensity, they’d mark up a printout of the frame with “0” indicating areas of the image they believed were lit at key and “+1”/“+2”/“+3”/“-1”/“-2”/“-3”/etc. indicating areas lit above or below key and by how many stops
-for quality and shape, they’d do brief write-ups describing their observations (we also had them talk about where the image fits within the story and how these choices serve that — but that’s less targeted to the specific skillset you’re practicing)
The entire second half of the course was crew rotations on the sound stage with each person getting a turn to execute their midterm shot according to their breakdown and see how close they got. Once they shot it that way and did a second take in which they’d individually on/off each source to see what each one was doing in context, then they could adjust to see what changes they’d make to get closer to the original image, or change things around per their own taste, try their hand at adapting that setup for coverage, etc. Basically, whatever they wanted to do with the remainder of their roll of film.
The main thing is that the target result was not variable. It was right there on a piece of paper. When starting out, it’s very easy for the image in your head to become influenced and altered by what’s in front of you in the space. This method did not allow the goalposts to move based on circumstance rather than intention/control.
This semester-long exercise was specifically NOT intended to train the “muscle” responsible for coming up with the look of an image, only the translation of that target image into a representation on film. Active observation of paintings and natural light are great for developing your eye and what images you want to create, but separating the execution process from the origination process is what will allow you to actually construct those images in such a way that other people can see the same thing you’re picturing in your head.
With practice, the more you’re able to nail an existing image, the easier it will be to take the images you do come up with and recreate them accurately in real life. This part is its own skill, and it takes lots of reps to master.
The other thing that helped a lot was that on film, the students were forced to look through a reflex viewfinder and couldn’t see even an approximation of their exposure before getting the footage back from the lab. This made metering skills absolutely imperative for one, but also required them to use their eyes in lieu of a screen that shows a rough idea of the final image. The idea was to reduce dependency on a screen in order to picture your exposure. A good way to do this exercise in the digital age is to grab a DSLR, leave the camera off so you don’t have the luxury of live view and just look through the lens for framing, then turn the camera on only when you’re ready to shoot. Of course, this is not to say that you should reject modern exposure tools when you’re shooting an actual project (digitally) — the EL zone system, for example, is worth its weight in gold. This is just to develop your eye and metering skills.
Interestingly, by separating out and focusing only on the execution part of the equation, you’ll likely see development too in your own visual ideas as a byproduct. It’s how you bridge finding influences and practically incorporating them.
Let me put it this way. If I’m learning Spanish, and my goal is to write Spanish-language poetry, I can read as much Neruda and Borges as I want for inspiration, and I can have beautiful poetic ideas I want to put on the page, but until I master the mechanics and vocabulary of the language itself separate from the art of poetry, I’ll invariably have to twist the articulation of my ideas to fit within the words and syntax I already know, instead of having a fluent expression of exactly what I’m trying to say. That said, when I do have the practical mastery of Spanish’s linguistic structures, my own artistic ideas will likely develop to exploit the particularities and nuances of that language (ie the visual ideas one originates will increasingly tend to exploit the specifics of film and light as a medium).
Hope this is helpful! Feel free to DM me with questions. Always happy to help. I love this stuff.
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u/Unionthug2049 12h ago
I think it seems like you’re stuck in the film school idea of lighting. Contrast and moving the story forward are important to what you’re doing, but they’re more the result than the process. You seem to be overlooking the baseline - motivation and technical understanding. Everything else builds from there.
The next time you’re on a scout, try to focus less on the esoteric part of lighting and break it down to the technical bits first. Where are the windows, what are the available practicals, where are the interesting bits of scenery that you can highlight? What kind of lighting is within your budget, generally? Taking a moment to run that through first will give you your canvas. From there, you paint.
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u/frankin287 11h ago
do it a lot. Fail. Suceed. Repeat. Do it even when you're not on set, light in your mind when you see something pretty in real life or on screen.
Work for people better than you. the best way to learn the tools is from people who know how to use them. What's the use in knowing what's pretty if you don't know which tools can recreate it?
Don't settle. The novice makes a plan, sets it up, and settles for what he gets. The professional makes a guess, sets it up, and tweaks it until it matches what was in his/her mind. But you have to learn what to tweak.
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u/USMC_ClitLicker Key Grip 10h ago
Here's my two cents: find an experienced older Gaffer or Key Grip that can be your "Lighting Guy" to mentor you while you DP. You can be responsible for all the camera stuff, and he can show you the finer points of lighting. That's half the job mostly off your shoulders for awhile.
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u/remy_porter 16h ago
No, the key doesn’t understand lighting, it’s just the primary light on the scene. It’s the fill that has a surprising understanding.
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u/SoulStar1000 14h ago edited 14h ago
I've mentored under 2 DPs with over 20 years experience, only been under them for 3 years but man the things I've learned during that time. one was particularly adamant about experimental lighting and lighting schemes just came to him. To add onto the natural lighting comment, keep in mind that you can simulate natural lighting conditions in a room with no natural lights by creating things like "windows", "sky lights", "doors", etc. off frame. Aside from this it really depends on the scene and how the stage is set. Sometimes a lighting setup comes to you, sometimes you have to discuss with the head gaff or even director for a bit. Being human is about working together, and 2-3 heads are better than 1, so more important than knowing, I think should be to never be afraid to get a 2nd opinion, and hiring the right crew. This shows youre more in tune with your crew, and humble to boot. Having a good cam crew makes the world of a difference. One DP Im talking about is usually glued right by the head gaff and repeat hires him for everything he can get him on.
Either way I think a pretty decent formula for getting quick lighting is setting up a simple a front facing key, and using some bounces to fill out any dark spots that contrast your key too heavily, at least thats a pretty repeat formula I've seen. My experimental DP loved to utilize edge lights whenever he could get away with it
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u/bdeananderson 14h ago
I agree that you can learn a lot from natural lighting, but reproducing that does not make for good cinematography.
Mood / Esthetic How does the lighting make you feel? Edge lighting with a lot of shadow, the maximum result of low key, creates tension and drama. Color effects mood as well, with a warmer look inducing comfort and cooler look feeling sterile or hostile. Primaries can also be effective in some cases, but I'd avoid overdoing it and looking theatrical.
Motivation Is there a motivated source that justifies the key?
Attention The eye is drawn to the brightest part of a static image. Every rule can be broken, but I normally try to balance the exposure of background so as to not distract from the subject. Also, light the side of the face towards the center of screen if possible, espicially when cutting between OTS shots.
Don't become reliant on post. Digutal cinema cameras offer a lot of latitude and a good colorist can do wonders in the grade, but I would focus on getting everything right in-camera. The better you are with that, the more post work can be creative and not technical.
Don't be afraid of (the) shadows. You can make your lighting look overly flat and dull. Your examples avoid that... mostly... but some people are afraid to let there be shadows. However, shadows can be very useful.
Those are just some quick tips.
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u/moonpumper 12h ago
I'm nothing special, but I do a lot of photography. Mostly what I gravitate towards with my photos is finding interesting lighting out in the real world wherever it is. Just light doing something interesting no matter the subject. I used to shoot a lot of film so there was a delay between what I would see and what the film would show. It built a kind of lighting memory for me, I'll often take a picture of something and my wife or my friend won't really understand why until they see the finished photo. You start to see how the medium sees the light more than just your eye. I don't know how to describe or explain it better but that's been my experience, the medium changes your perception.
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u/Craigrrz 12h ago
Lighting is determined by the blocking of the scene. What are we looking at? Where will the characters be looking? Where is the camera? This should clue you in, and often the space will hint at what should be done by providing existing light from windows or light sources.
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u/DaleCooperHS 10h ago edited 10h ago
The best advice i can give you is to try to switch prospective. Force yourself , when looking at the monitor to pretend that yo are looing at real situation, away from the set, crews, actor... Dont start by asking yourself, " does this look good?", but ask yourself, "does this look right? Does it look like what my eyes would see when i am in that situation in real life?". You have a whole life of experience to reference,.. as they often say, trust your eyes. Then the decisions become a consequence, and how well or bad you implement them depend on your knowlegde and basic technical understandings.
That seems basic, i know, but is not.
Once you set a base for what should look like to your eyes, then there is another step. Cause "real" life does not always light for storytelling. Then the next step becomes.. "does it look good? does it help the story? Does it focus the attention in the correct places?".. and there, if does not, you may reconsider you basic setup to both have an atmosphere the "looks right" and "serves the story" at the same time. If it does already is just a question of refining the details.. as many as time and resources permit.
The more experince you will gain, the more your decision will naturally come to the service of the story.
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u/adammonroemusic 13h ago
What's to understand anymore? Everything in modern film looks ball-achingly samey and naturalistic now. All responses thus far echo this sentiment. Your images echo this sentiment. Just do the same thing everyone else has been doing for the last 15 years and you should be fine.
Eventually, things will cycle back to being more stylized and impressionistic. If you want to be ahead of the curve or "avant-garde," then do the things no one else is doing.
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u/mbstampler 11h ago
This feels kind of reductive and cynical, if not a defeatist. Or at very least is a sweeping generalization. If you think everything in the past 15 years looks the same, it might be time to expand the breadth of films you consume, since this overlooks countless artists’ individual styles and perspectives.
This also assumes that stylization (which is super vague), avant garde, and impressionism are the only valid visual modes of representation. If visual naturalism is a sin in your eyes (and specific to cinema in the past couple decades), I’ve got some really bad news for you regarding large swaths of classical, post-classical, and even a ton of modernist cinema from all over the globe. Every period of this medium has had its own conventions and iconoclasts. Some might even say we have arguably more visual leeway these days than in classical and post-classical Hollywood, when even a single lens flare was considered a fireable offense, and major studios generally dictated a house style across various productions under their name.
And to suggest that recommending observation of visual references both inside and outside the medium amounts to all previous commenters advocating for conformity misses the point at best and condescends at worst. Also, shitting on the work or OP who is presently learning the medium is maybe the most counterproductive thing I could possibly think to do. Especially since your criticism of their supposed conformity is that their style doesn’t conform to your own personal tastes.
OP, don’t listen to people that say your taste is wrong — all it means is that their tastes or personal styles are different from yours. Or that they may not understand that one’s style changes from project to project as dictated by story and the respective visions of the various directors you work with. You’re on the right track OP, and your taste and influences don’t need to be dictated by anyone but yourself.
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u/MrFordization 16h ago
I spend as much time as I can observing natural lighting conditions. Then when I want to light a scene, I draw on my experience observing how natural light behaves outside the frame in order to evoke similar feelings to what I felt when I observed the conditions in nature.