Lighting And Directing Workshops

Over the past two weeks we have had a variety of directing and lighting workshops led by steeve Finn, Fergus and Sam respectivly. Durign theese workshops we picked up a variety of skills.

3 Point Lighting setup:

When it comes to lighting we learned that the standered and often most effective set up, is the three point lighting systum. This sues three different lights of difeerent intensity to create depth, fill, and backlight respectively. 

A key light is necesarry for illuminating the subject, so that they stand out from the background. A fill light is used to reduce shadow while a backlight helps distinguish the subject from the background. 

Stop reducers, theese mesh disks are put over the lights to reduce the intencity of the lights so the subject isn't over exposed. The thicker the mesh the thicker the more stops it reduces the light by.

We paired theese together with Nutral Density filters and gels so that the lighting could be controlled. You could also controll the light levles with reflectors, defusers and the fous of the light its self. The following images detail the effects of the afore mentioned equipment.

 

 The right image shows the use of colloured gels to create a tinting and mood/atmosphere. The right was a photo of our 3 point lighting set up.

Theese images is what the subject looks like illuminated from two sides, in this example we did not have a back light but were atempting to use gels, and the effect in this photo was quite a harsh one, although it generated an atmosphere, it perhaps ruined the subttlty of mood lighting. 

The camera its self has a built in ND filter which can be used to reduce over exposure such as that in teh photo, but it is best to ensure the lighting is positioned as best as possible to make things easier when filming/editing. 

Directing And Blocking

We also had workshops where we worked off of a script and developed our skills of blocking and directing scenes. Using what we had learned from Steeve Finns lectures we took turns to lay out a master shot. Key things I picked up from theese workshops include: Actors work around the camera, not the otehr way around; a master shot should show off as much of the scene as possible; it can move and turn in to other shots but their needs to be a good reason for this. 

Keep your scene on the move, a static two shot is acceptable, but only for a certain amount of time; actors should use the space available and interact with each other as much as possible.