Screenwriting Basics

When you start film making for the first time you don’t know how to light a film set. Well its very easy to learn, its all about three types of light and they are the basic foundations of all lighting in film.

Key
Fill
Back

That’s all. Everything else follows on from there to create a range of effects. But that is all of it, And these foundations haven’t changed they’ve only improved.

The KEY light. It is your main light and your first light. What you do is you place a single light on your subject. Usually its a big one in-order to mimic something like the sun or some other light source. This light brightly reveals your subject, and is the most amount of light in a scene.

Ah, but then your left with all these harsh shadows on your subject. Because Your not done yet, and your first instinct might be to move your “KEY” light to chase them away. Don’t do that Instead place your.

FILL light. Its exactly as it sounds you place a second light which is usually weaker than the first to “fill” in these shadows. The light then spreads widely and chases away the shadows. Typically the ones on a person’s face, the hollow spots, under the chin, eye sockets are the sort of thing you want to get rid of. You might need to use more than one light to chase away the shadows. Sometimes the ones created by your other lights. Note: a reflector is invaluable with this task.

You might find that if your subject has shadows in his/her eyes they will look less human and sort of un-dead. The principle Is the same for anything else you might light. For inanimate objects and everything. Of course you might want some shadows because they can look cool.

But The problem with film is no matter how much dimension and scope it may have, it is a 2D medium ( normally ) It doesn’t look like real life because real life is not flat. You need a

BACK light. you place a light behind your subject (your subject which is between the camera and the light) shining directly onto your subject. In-order To separate them or it from the background or vice versa. So the BACK of them is lit. Now Your characters no longer look like a flat part of the wall But look closer to real life. Because there is an edge around them; A kind of halo. You could also back light lots of things in the same scene not just your characters. You could back light the desk, a poster, a chandelier, a house anything really.

That’s all of them and all other effects are created through manipulating these basic principles. It works because it is simple.

For instance you can create a very nice edge lighting on your subject through half back lighting them. Maybe by placing a light in a specific spot to either side of the actor. In-order to draw attention to the contours of their body or chin. that sort of thing.

If you like you might just want to back light the subject in-order to create a nice simple silhouette. dead simple but dead cool.

I once heard of a very good idea for a Fill technique. This technique is normally for night time and away from any proper light source you can mimic. For instance a parking lot. What you do is you simply cover the ground with a very light layer of water. The reflective nature of the water will bounce the light back up onto what ever is going on in the scene. Thus acting as a natural reflector or fill light. Most importantly though it will mask the presence of any Unnatural lighting you wish to use (diffused of course)

Your inventiveness from here on is the limit.

Of course after this simple set up there is something you will want to pay attention to. First of all UN-natural lighting looks like it sounds: Un-natural. It won’t look completely like the sun or the moon. Even if it is supposed to look unnatural it will look harsh and unforgiving. For almost all lighting set ups you need to soften the light or diffuse it – not reduce the intensity – but soften it with a thin flexible sheet. You can use tracing paper very well I have many times. However There are professional sheets which works much better if your willing to pay.

Now you will find the light isn’t driving into your subject and your viewers will be much less aware (and in some cases not aware at all) of there being any unnatural lighting.

There is more beyond this like gels, warm light, cold light but there is always more. however With this set up explained you now know how to light a scene.

Author: Kule Sinbes

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