Cinematic lighting explained – Basics, tutorial and ultra mobile lighting kit – Epic Episode #9

Hello and welcome to the MIR Division. This episode is about lighting. If you are here, you are probably in love. In love with the magic that is cinema. And if you are on your way to recreate cinematic images yourself, this should be a good mantra. Lighting is to film, what music is to opera. In this Enlightened Epic episode, we will explore the basics of cinematic lighting. We will teach you the terminology and talk about basic techniques. We are going to assemble a lighting kit that gives you a huge range of possibilities, while being completely mobile, running just on batteries. And this complete lighting kit is small and light enough to fit in a small case. And, of course, we are going to show you how. Let there be light. This episode is for our filmmakers' companion. That means it is tailored to the less experienced among you. But if you're a pro and you're dealing with projects where you have to be extremely mobile or you have a very low budget, this might be interesting for you as well. I often get asked what will improve one's work the most. Is it the camera or is it maybe lenses or is it the grade? The answer is, of course, the lighting. The first step to really improve your work should be improving your lighting skills and your gear. In the intro, we already established that lighting is the most important ingredient of the magic sauce that is a cinematic image. Of course, story and acting is always the most important part to a story. But if we're talking just about the image, lighting will have the most impact. First, let us establish what we mean by cinematic lighting. It better be good. I'm in a bad mood. Cinematic lighting can be everything and nothing. There's no clear definition of that term at all. You know, for kids. And venturing through the history, genres and fashion of cinema, you will encounter about every possible way of lighting, including lighting with just practicals, like in the famous candlelight scenes of Barry Lyndon. It needed the fastest lens ever built to make that possible with the sensitivity of film used at the time. Cinematic lighting can be achieved using just available light, like here in Arrival. And even no lighting, like here in Don't Breathe. Using just ambient light shows that cinematic lighting can be all about timing. That can mean waiting for certain weather conditions, like it becomes painfully clear in The Revenant. Or about the sun to have the exact right position to fit your set. Or to give a certain quality that will resemble the work of an artist, like in Mr. Turner. Cinematic lighting can establish a palette, like Drive does to symbolize the fight of good and evil. Or to pay homage to another filmmaker, like Crimson Peak is inspired by the lighting of Mario Bava. To put it in a nutshell, cinematic is what you and your audience consider cinematic. But generally, it is the emotional approach to lighting that makes lighting cinematic from our point of view. Cinematic lighting is more than illumination, it is tailored to help telling the story. Of course, lighting has to suit technical needs, like the limited sensitivity of film or sensors, or the need to shoot with high f-stops to give older anamorphic lenses a bit more bite, causing a distinctive look on its own. For example, in The Hateful Eight, the roof of the set was missing to be able to light the whole scene at the same time, freeing the extremely wide Ultra Panavision 70 camera to look around at will. But also, it created a lighting that is very unrealistic. Would an oil lamp or a candle create something remotely as hard, as shaped or as bright as this? No, it's not the sun, you see through the window that it's night time. Tarantino loves stylistic lighting, and very often lights from above. Remember those scenes in Django Unchained? This is a set photo from that scene, showing the lighting setup. Say what? While many cinema lighting setup look ridiculously complex, there are many samples for lighting that, while not simple in their effect, are simple in their setup. For example, this iconic scene from Blade Runner used just one big light off screen. It is bounced into a reflector to fill the shadows in her face. Oh, okay, there's one other light, the light that reflects in her retinas to give us the famous replicant eye effect. By the way, if you want to reproduce that effect, we made a tutorial just for that. I'll put a link up in the corner. Thanks to the ever-advancing technology, like improved sensitivity of the sensors and brighter, cooler, more versatile and less power-hungry LED, cinematic lighting setups can be simpler and more achievable for low-budget productions and even for hobby filmers. Of course, modern lights come with their own bag of problems, like pulsing or bad color rendition, but since LED lights have vastly improved their quality and dropped in price, we have completely switched to use only LEDs a while ago. The benefits just outweighed problems by far. The lighting set we are going to assemble is going to be LED only. Let's recap. You don't need 40,000 watts lights with a generator truck for good lighting. Lighting doesn't have to be realistic. And simple lighting can be good lighting. To understand what we are talking about, you need to understand the following terms. The key light is usually the main source of light in your scene and it helps you to give your subject form and dimension. In this case, the key light is very much on the side and helps me to separate my face from the background and gives it its shape. The fill light is the light that helps to fill the shadows that your key light generates. In my case, it's on the other side and it's a bluish light that we just put on the side and reflect it to fill the shadows up. A practical light is a light that is visible within your set. So in this case, a lamp right there. It can be just a desk lamp or whatever and helps to bring life to your set. An effect light is the light that helps to establish a certain location or helps to make an effect more believable. Ambient light or available light is the light that is in your scene by nature. It could be sunlight, moonlight, street lights or maybe the lights of a whole city. Light can be defined by its position. There is back light, there is side light and there's of course frontal light. Light can be defined by its quality. It can be soft light or it can be hard light. Soft light is usually from a large light source. Big surface that gives off diffused light. You can additionally put in diffusion or use a reflector to bounce it back into your scene. We just call that bounce. Hard light usually comes from a very small light source. You can use it to shape light. Light does not have to be realistic but often it makes sense to use lighting in a motivated way. Which means for example if your talent has a window on his left side the key light should come from the same direction because it just makes more logical sense when a light comes to where natural sources are. But of course rules are there to be broken. Lights can be defined by their mood. We define it as high key for a bright scene and low key for a darker moody scene. Of course different settings or genres lend themselves to be shot either in high key or in low key. For example a horror movie is traditionally a low key and a comedy would rather be high key. But sometimes it's very interesting to play with these perceptions. If you find our work entertaining and useful please like the video and consider subscribing to our channel. And while you're at it, ping that bell too so you don't miss any of our epic episodes. If you want to know what we are cooking for the next episodes and get some exclusive behind the scenes and tips for your YouTube lighting setup and the likes follow us on Instagram. There you can also enjoy our latest episodes as IGTV episodes condensed and mobile friendly. Before we will assemble our lighting kit and show you how to use it episodes like this take a lot of work and we are happy to have a little help from our sponsor NordVPN. The ancient art to be with a shadow to be a ghost to disappear from the eyes of your enemies to be in many places at the same time to be as fast as the striking bucket it takes ages to learn that shit. Don't you wish there was an easy way to learn all this ancient arts? In a second. 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So, let's see what we find in our ultra-portable cinematic lighting kit. With the Soonwell FB21 we have a super flexible and strong B-Color LED as our key light. As our fill and effect light we have the amazing Color Spike a programmable RGB LED light. Don't leave home without a hard light. We pack an Aputure Mini LS light that has a built-in Fresnel for flood and spot modes. Next is a tiny LED panel light called the Tire Light. It is the joker filling in where the others can't. Our last ingredient makes your light itself part of the scene. A little bit of haze… in a can that is. And of course and like always we carry the fitting batteries, diffusion and gels. All lights in the kit are small, light and are able to run unburied for extended times and they have very good light quality with a high CRI. As we want to use this kit without C-Stands in a mobile way you always carry a bit of gaff with you so you can stick lights to the walls, to doors, to tables, to ladders or whatever. Just be creative with your surroundings. Of course I will put all the links to the lights and the other gear in the description of this video. Let's start with our key light. As you would want a soft light as your key most of the time it is nice to use a large surface light with a soft box. Our choice for this kit is the Soonwell FB-21 because it has a very very good bang for the buck while still having a high output and great light quality. Flexible LEDs are very versatile. You can easily stick the light to the ceiling, to a lamp, a chair, just about anything. You can even shape it to fit in confined spaces. A very cool option is that you can shape it to a double-sided or round source being an ideal source to light multiple characters or objects in a scene at the same time. It is bi-color so you can change the light temperature to match your scene. The light quality is rated at 95 to 98 CRI depending on the chosen light temperature. The 100 watts of power draw give you 3660 lux at 1 meter. The power module has a large screen and doubles as a controller for brightness and temperature. And if you want to include it into a studio setup it has DMX support. The module can take V-mount batteries and can switch between DC and battery mode. It comes with everything required to keep the light in flat shape if you want to use it on a C-stand, allowing just the same and better control than what one has used from an ordinary light panel. The Sunwell includes a softbox for diffusion, giving the desired large soft key light we are after. A grid lets you make the light directional, meaning that you will have less spill. On top of that, the Sunwell FB21 is rainproof, so you don't have to worry about using it in combat. The very low weight of a flexible LED makes it the ideal light for a boom light. What is a boom light? Well, it works a bit like a microphone on a boom stick. You just use a pole and stick a light to it, and you can use that to bring it close to your subject. Let me show you how that works. Here's the behind the scenes from the beautiful Apple ad who shows how effective a boom light can work. The Sunwell is perfect for stunts like that, as well as for being used as a simple alternative to a classic LED light panel. Of course, no light is perfect, so let me give some fair criticism. I wish the power cord would be longer. If you place it under the ceiling, your power supply often hangs mid-air, but nothing that you couldn't fix by getting an extension cord. Like many LEDs, the lowest setting will still give you a lot of light, often overpowering the scene. Be ready to apply more diffusion to bring down the output. All in all, I think a flexible LED is a must-have, and the Sunwell FB21 is a great light at a good price, costing slightly north of $400. Next is our fill and effect light, the color spike. This is a light that compares to about nothing else out there. It's an RGB light stick that lets you program and use even animated lighting effect for well about everything you can possibly think of. To better see what's going on, we remove the diffusion. We see three rows of light, with the middle one hosting the RGB lights, and the outer ones hosting daylight and tungsten LEDs. Combining all LEDs, the color spike can reach 1400 lux at 1 meter. Color spike can be controlled with a mobile app, which you are going to need just by the complexity of the possibilities that this light has to offer. Just dial in a color, or a temperature, a brightness, choose a motion pattern of a preset, modify the preset, just turning one candle into two, or three, or four, all at the touch of a finger. And all that in a confined system that includes the battery. Simply amazing. Just place it, or hang it, or stick it, wherever you would need a light. And again, no light is perfect. The internal battery is used up very quickly. Too quickly to rely on in a serious work. Better bring that power cord with you. The app loses contact all the time and needs to be restarted to re-establish the connection to your color spike, and the included diffusion doesn't seem to fit the light. I managed to break it right away. Still, I don't want to miss this light on any shoot. And if it's just for placing a super quick fill with the exact right color. Color spike can be ordered for $450. Next up is our hard light. Large sources are nice for soft light, but you can't really shape them. So we are packing an Aputure LS Mini 20D. The D stands for daylight, and this is not a bi-color light, but as you will need all the power in such a small light, we chose the D as the more powerful variant, delivering 10,000 lux in the spot mode from a meter distance. The LS Mini has a Fresnel with an adjustable beam angle, so it can go from spot to flood. Pretty amazing for such a compact light. The included barn doors allow to shape the lights for nice eye lights and many other cool uses. The odd thing about the LS is the light temperature of 7,500 Kelvin. So we will have to carry some gels to match the LS Mini with our other lights, taking away quite a bit of punch. Also, the barn doors are very fragile. I managed to crack one of the flags almost instantly. Still a good option for mobile filmmaking. Next up is the tile light. It is always good to have a very small light in your kit. It is amazingly bright for such a small light, so it can be used as a fill and even as a key light if it has to. It is an ideal light to put accents in the background. It is so small that you can easily hide it. It's the obvious choice to put in your car's dashboard to light up your driver. Overall, it's a good light. It is not single source like Blindspot Gear claims. When the light shines into the lens and when the lens flares, individual LEDs can be seen. Of course, it's important to always carry enough of the fitting batteries for all your lights and never forget your gaff. Let's talk a bit about how we could use this kit in the real world with some examples. This is part of my office space, and I think we can all agree that there's nothing cinematic about this room. Our challenge will be to shoot something cinematic looking using parts of the lighting kit we just assembled. First, we will bring down the light shining through the glass wall. The glass wall is tricky as lights and reflections can easily reflect back into the cam, breaking the illusion of natural light. A vintage projector in the back will be our practical to make the background somewhat interesting. We are just going to need our key and our fill light for this little experiment. We are going to leave this somewhere in the panel configuration with the softbox and the grid. On the road, we could easily attach LED to the wall, but as we have the light stands available, let's use them for convenience. We are going to place a large foldable diffusion in front of the already soft zoom well for extra nice wrapping of the light. By the way, if you want to fold these back for transport, here is how you do it. But back to softening our light. Instead of diffusion, we use a foldable reflector that could also be used as a negative fill if placed the other way around. We are going to use that to reflect the fill back on me. We put both lights and the camera to 5500 Kelvin. Now, to add a bit of cinematic poetry, we are going to add an anamorphic adapter to soften up the image. Super sharp images have the dreadful video look. It will also give us some flares that will make JJ come. The matte box contains an additional diffusion filter, a promist with a quarter of density. Our haze in a can will make the light from the projector visible and give the room a moody look. We dial the brightness and sharpness down with our grade and apply a Kodak film emulation with a bit of grain. To make it a bit dramatic, we add a prop gun. Don't worry, it's not real. Of course, this lighting kit is not limited to cinematic lighting. You can use it for ordinary interview, three-point lighting, if you wish so. And of course, you could use the lighting kit as your mobile lighting kit for your YouTube channel. The Soonwell is right here behind that diffusion. That is the aperture and here on the side is our color spike. Like always, you find all the links to the products, the music and all the gear used in this episode in the description of this video. This is it for today and I hope you found this helpful. Please let us know in the comments how you achieve good lighting on the go. If you haven't subscribed, please consider do so. We are very, very honored to have you hanging around with us. My name is Nikolas and I hope to see you soon here in the Media Division. Until then, shoot something amazing. Bye.