Light with Large Sources | Advanced Cinematography Techniques

Welcome to another episode of 4 Minute Film School. My name is Valentina V. I know my voice sounds awful. It's because I'm sick. Don't worry about it. Today we are talking about how to light with large soft sources. Let's check it out. I'm here joined by Austin Sabado who is a commercial DP. He's worked with a lot of fashion and beauty brands and let's talk about it. Large sources. Why would we want to use a large source? What's the advantage? Lighting with a large source enables you to create a consistent look, especially when your talent is moving from point A to point B. Also when you have multiple talents, whether they're all in the frame or you're just kind of flying in various talents, you're going to get a nice consistent look. So having a large source wraps around the subject creating a nice and even pleasant look. So when you're planning to use a large source, what are some things that you should consider first? Well you want to consider if your subject's going to be moving or not. Another thing to think about is are you going to be bouncing, diffusing, or doing both? And lastly you want to ask yourself what kind of fabric material are you going to use and how it affects your light. All right let's look at some examples. Let's do it. So for this first setup you actually put the camera on a dolly and you had a moving shot. You had your actor walk forward and back. How did you approach lighting this? Yeah so we kind of wanted to make a wall of light. That way we can get a nice key, a nice fill, and keep it even and pleasant. So we started off by the key with two 300Ds bouncing off two 8x8s which had ultra bounce. So as our fill we had one 120D and one 300D bouncing off two 8x8s which had unbleached muslin. So I noticed as your talent was walking forward she had like a column of light so that no matter where she was walking she was lit up on both sides. Right. But then why did you place another light right up at the front? Yes our talent is moving forward but she is going to land on her second mark. So that's why I had a 300D and a seven foot chimera and so once she lands there the light is going to be consistent and even throughout. So I noticed that you had two lights lighting up the background. What were those and more importantly what were they doing on the ground? So those were two LS1s. They were on the ground because they created a nice even spread of light. They're nice and bright so if we had it on a c-stand if they were on the floor it didn't really matter compared to for now that would give you kind of like a hot spot. So it doesn't matter because there are multi-source lights and they just give like a nice even shade of light and you want the background to be bright and white and you don't want it to fall off into the grace. Right. So let's take a look at that setup. So in our second setup we kept our frontal lighting the same but we knew that camera wasn't going to move so we set up a hair light which was an LS1 and was able to separate our character from our background. We kind of built from there we took down our two 8x8s that were in the back flipped our 300d and our 120d and created some cool textured streaks with barn doors from those lights. So I like that because it introduces a little bit more texture a little bit more play into the shot makes it a little bit less flat a little bit more exciting. Let's take a look. So that is your episode on lighting with large sources. Okay Austin one more time what do we have to remember before we set up a large source? We want to consider if our subject is moving or not as well as asking ourselves are we going to be bouncing diffusing or doing both and what fabric are we using what material is it and how is it going to affect your light? Well I love how you used both diffusion and bounce in your setup but I want to know like you guys in the comments how would you use a large source outdoors? The best answer is going to win It is Aperture's new underwater light and it's super super super bright. So if you enjoyed this episode if you enjoyed us then go ahead and give us a like or subscribe turn on bell notifications we do this show every week. If you liked Austin you can follow him on Instagram or you can also follow me on Twitter it's at Valentina V and until next time see ya!