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trying to simply eyeball the light. In
other words, they are trying to use the
naked eye to judge whether or not the
light in a shot is suffi cient and correct.
The light meter exists for a reason and
nowadays most cameras come with
one built-in. Use it!
The problem with eyeballing a shot
is that the naked eye has a very wide
dynamic range — the equivalent of
about 30 f-stops of light, from darkest
to lightest. Your camera doesn’t. Yes,
you can fi ddle with your camera’sI know we say this a lot, but it’s worth
repeating; whether you’re a wedding
videographer, narrative fi lmmaker,
hobbyist, documentarian or YouTube
video producer, the most important
visual element of any shot in any proj-
ect is the lighting.
Light in fi lmmaking is like salt in
food. You may not even notice it un-
less there’s too much or too little, but
after it has your attention, you can’t
remove it from your awareness. Here
are a few common mistakes to avoid
when lighting a shot, and how you
can sometimes use minor errors to
your advantage.Not enough light
Hands-down the most common
mistake we see when lighting a shot
is that there just isn’t enough light.
The most common reason for this
is usually inexperienced shootersLIGHTING
Lighting is an art that can take
years to master. Understanding
and avoiding these four common
mistakes, however, is a quick
way to improve your results.
by Mike VanHelderISO and aperture to make a dimly lit
shot look brighter, but remember that
when you raise the ISO you also raise
grain and noise.
When you open up your aperture
to a low f-stop, your depth-of-fi eld
decreases. Holding focus becomes
very challenging, maybe even impos-
sible. Now, it’s true that some of us
really love shooting with a razor-thin
depth-of-fi eld, but that’s a decision
you should make because you have a
specifi c artistic reason to do so, and
not just because a dimly-lit scene
forces you to.
As a general rule of thumb, if your
ISO is set to around 200, and your
aperture is between f/4 and f/5–if the
important details in your shot aren’t
visible, you need more light.
“Wait a second!” you might be say-
ing. “Oscar-winning cinematographer
Conrad Hall Sr. famously shot a lot of
his work in mostly shadow.” That’s
very true, and when you win an Oscar
you’re allowed to do that all the time,
too. Otherwise, make sure you have
good, carefully considered reasons
if you’re going to go dark in a scene.
It’s usually better to err on the side of
more light, rather than less.4 Common lighting mistakes
Light is too hard
Sometimes, people think that they have to use
hard light in order to get bright light. That’s
not true; the hardness or softness of light
has nothing to do with how bright it is. Using
harsh light that casts strong shadows is fi ne ifyou’re doing very specifi c noir-style lighting.
In most contexts, though, it will look dated
and amateurish.
Back in the 1970s and earlier, it was common
to light people with very hard, direct lighting.Don’t try this at
home. From an
episode of The Outer
Limits, 1963, shot by
Conrad Hall Sr.385 C03 Lighting.indd 46 4/23/19 2:09 PMVIDEOMAKER >>> JUNE 2019 47
LIGHTING
ISO and aperture to make a dimly lit
shot look brighter, but remember that
when you raise the ISO you also raise
grain and noise.
When you open up your aperture
to a low f-stop, your depth-of-fi eld
decreases. Holding focus becomes
very challenging, maybe even impos-
sible. Now, it’s true that some of us
really love shooting with a razor-thin
depth-of-fi eld, but that’s a decision
you should make because you have a
specifi c artistic reason to do so, and
not just because a dimly-lit scene
forces you to.
As a general rule of thumb, if your
ISO is set to around 200, and your
aperture is between f/4 and f/5–if the
important details in your shot aren’t
visible, you need more light.
“Wait a second!” you might be say-
ing. “Oscar-winning cinematographer
Conrad Hall Sr. famously shot a lot of
his work in mostly shadow.” That’s
very true, and when you win an Oscar
you’re allowed to do that all the time,
too. Otherwise, make sure you have
good, carefully considered reasons
if you’re going to go dark in a scene.
It’s usually better to err on the side of
more light, rather than less.4 Common lighting mistakes
Light is too hard
Sometimes, people think that they have to use
hard light in order to get bright light. That’s
not true; the hardness or softness of light
has nothing to do with how bright it is. Using
harsh light that casts strong shadows is fi ne ifyou’re doing very specifi c noir-style lighting.
In most contexts, though, it will look dated
and amateurish.
Back in the 1970s and earlier, it was common
to light people with very hard, direct lighting.LIGHTING JUNE 2019
Take a classic Saturday Night Live skit from,
say, 1976, and look specifi cally at the light and
shadow Then, compare it to an SNL skit from
today. You’ll notice that the soft light almost
seems to wrap around the subjects in the latter
example. The shadows are much softer, the
light much more even.
Unless you’re going for a very specifi c effect,
like for a horror movie or pro-wrestling promo,
nowadays, soft light is usually preferable to
hard light.Image is fl at
This mistake is very common but can be tough
for beginners to spot. When an image looks
or feels “fl at,” it means that there isn’t enough
separation between the foreground and the
background. In other words, the subject is too
close in value to what’s behind them. This
makes it diffi cult for the viewer to tell whereI lit Videomaker contributing editor Kyle Cassidy
against a dark background with a single large softbox.
Notice that not only is Kyle highlighted against the
background, but his left moustache curl is highlighted
against the background of the shadowed side of his
face.Here, purely as an exercise, I bounced a gridded light
off of the wall behind Hannah’s head to separate her
face from the background. The illusion of a halo is a
bonus! Look at how similar in value her legs are are
relative to the wall behind them, without any extra
light to separate them.SOMETIMES, PEOPLE THINK
THAT THEY HAVE TO USE HARD
LIGHT IN ORDER TO GET BRIGHT
LIGHT. THAT’S NOT TRUE.385 C03 Lighting.indd 47 4/23/19 2:09 PM