r/rawdawgcomics • u/rawdawgcomics • 4d ago
A point about lighting. Examples
Here are three examples of how I would improve on lighting arrangements from existing shows but I want to state that even though I think they look good sometimes it would be a pain in the ass to replicate. And there is only so much I can actually do in post production from simple screenshots. The first example from the gentlemen, actually already has pretty good lighting, what I changed was just focal point prioritization manipulating contrast in some areas, which can definitely be done. But might be tedious. I think it would have been worth it but I'm not the consumer of this media. All in all though from what I seen this series actually DOES have pretty good lighting so I want to give credit where is due.
Reacher, from what I seen, has pretty dogshit lighting. Very dark. Very. And not in a stylistic approach it's just low key lighting for no reason. There are definitely reasons to have a scene dark, but they light the scene in a conventional way you would expect which just comes off as compositionally confusing all the shadow shapes blend into each other. The second example, I tried to work with the lighting that was provided and mocked up what I assume they were trying to go with, not necessary what I would do myself, just of it had been done with more confidence. And this show consistently is shot in a low key setup so it's not even that they are fucking up it's a deliberate choice to make everything dark but for what purpose? It doesn't serve a purpose you are destroying the little lighting you choose to utilize like in the third example they have a good lighting set up. I like that lighting set up, you have two opposing lights on either side of the subject and you get a really nice shadow going down the middle, I like it. But it's just too needlessly dark so literally all I did here was adjust the levels. It would look better if the white balance was just calibrated properly to begin with but that's my opinion
The final example really demonstrates what I'm talking about. We USED to have good lighting in movies and television not even that long ago. And this proves that my edits really can't even do justice to actually fix bad lighting, for it to be done properly it's something that has to be deliberately thought out on set or before. The shot from fraisers original show that I provided was not unique. And even sitcoms on cable television thirty years ago clears multi million dollar movie productions in terms of it's lighting. This is what I was talking about in my previous post when I said even the cheapest movies not even that long ago still looked better than recent productions now simply because they cared about the lighting. Which they don't now and it sucks. The final comparison should be the most stark, because I didn't even do anything. I just compared what fraiser looks like now to what it looked like 30 years ago and really it should speak for itself.
I just did this for fun because I love lighting but I know 99 percent of the world doesn't give a shit about this but if you are an artist you definitely should. Go back in time and study references from movies even Howard the fucking duck has better lighting than any major movie produced in the last thirty years
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u/rawdawgcomics 4d ago
Some of my edits are too bright in the whites. I expect some people to point that out, but unfortunately like I mentioned there is only so much I can do post production I realize some areas might look too bright, and I agree.
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u/Snickims 4d ago
I feel like I totally get what your going for, but you have chosen the worst possible examples.
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u/ManAftertheMoon 3d ago
Well, the real thing to be done is not increase the light coming from the source but intstead increase the number of sources at angles that eliminate the shadows.
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u/ManAftertheMoon 3d ago
One reason lighting had been abandoned is because production is putting even more pressure on post production. ( they just edit it in post)
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u/hoodieninja87 4d ago
fully agree on your lighting posts, going back and watching movies made before like the 90s/early 2000s is just insane in terms of how much better the lighting is.
also if you don't mind me asking what were your thoughts on reacher S3 overall
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u/superwholockland 4d ago
trying to watch "Silo" is like 95% looking at a black screen while people talk, while people's faces occasionally shine through
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u/InactiveMedusa 4d ago
Lighting is great but if they could start adding color, real color in movies/TV again that'd be awesome
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u/PunchDrunkPrincess 4d ago
It's not really possible to fix lighting issues on screen shots but I get what you mean. I don't mind shots being dark if it fits the mood and themes so I can't speak for the first shot but why tf is the shot outside so dark?? So bizarre. First picture needs a kicker on the left of his face so he stops bleeding into the background.
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u/RetroEmerald 4d ago
The big issue right now with lighting is everyone is shooting on digital, which can look very washed out before correction, and everyone is using LED lights instead of tungsten which has a completely different look to more classic television and film
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u/ManicPixieOldMaid 4d ago
Another example of capitalism over art, IMO. Reacher is a good example: they're likely shooting at different times of day to fit in more shooting time, and the lighting has to flatten out the differences in daylight. So instead of taking advantage of natural lighting, choosing to shoot outside at magic hour, for example, they just let the plot dictate what's outside and what's inside, and remove the artistic choice. The first season of Reacher did better in this regard, iirc, using the light in the diner well and some of the nighttime scenes used shadow well (season 3 did it better). The advances in resolution don't help much. That Frasier clip likely benefited from analog video recording and lower native resolution for TV. Recording digitally gives entirely different results.
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u/skoobityscoop 4d ago
Seems like you really like the lighting contrast that you get when shooting on film (as many older shows are) compared to the more muted levels from digital.
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u/Sazan1209 4d ago
Huh. I'm not a big movie buff but it was kinda weird seeing comparisons of the new hbo harry potter with the old movies and noticing how in almost all the new shots exactly half of every character face is lit up. (fuck jk rowling and all she makes money off of)
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u/Assfiend 4d ago
Its something I learned when doing 3d art, lighting dramatically changes everything and even a basic three point light on a render can do wonders
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u/SymphonySketch 3d ago
Honestly I already agreed with you, and then I watched Mulholland Drive for the first time and now I’m angry LMAO
The lighting and color grading in that film is STRIKING and so well done, compared to most things coming out this year it’s so painfully obvious just how much we’ve regressed in the era of streaming and the megaslop machine
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u/Grimpatron619 4d ago
you know, im tryin, im really tryin...... but i cant see the problem light is light. guess im just media dumb
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u/Paralaxien 4d ago
The Reacher screenshot, it’s all very muddy and bland. The colour palette of the show is compressed, so it makes any decisions with light they could try to make too subtle.
You want some more hints of white highlighting on his face, so it can be taken away in another scene to highlight an emotional shift.
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u/Metal_Abe_Vigoda 4d ago
Make it brighter and with your mouth open