A Few Simple Cinematic Light Schemes

Hi, I have a few useful cinematic tutorials and lighting breakdowns for you. In this video, using my shots and behind the scenes, I will show you a few tips. How to make a cinematic soft light scheme for close-up shots? What tools to use? How to control softness of light sources? How to make dark key and deep shadows in the interior scene? How to create a silhouette scheme without light sources? And how to make an accent in the frame using a few low-budget light sources? It was an art short film, where I worked with limited light tools list. And most part of tips that I will share with you, you can use working with low-budget lighting tools. Scene number one. Work with cinematic soft light on the middle and close-up shots. Why soft light looks quite cool on people? When I use soft light, I feel the large dynamic range of a camera. I see rich and smooth gradient between dark and bright areas. Using simple words, it looks cinematic and not cheap. Why do I think so? Just because I use references from a big movie and see how often this light technique is used on the middle shots. What light scheme is here? I made a simple side light scheme. I used light panel and soft diffusion frost frame for softness of light flow. For close-up shots, I prefer to use dense materials. These are Li or Rosco soft diffusion filters. I use a material number density 216 by Li filter, which gives a soft light diffusion. But as soon as I have used soft diffusion, I have got diffused light. Diffused and uncontrolled light fills all the space and looks not cool in the frame. This is a flat light. I cut this light by means of floppy and made the gradient of light and dark in the frame. That looks more volumetric. Metal shot has the same light scheme. But pay attention to the set design on the scene. Colors, texture, props and location. All these work in the atmosphere of the shot. Without all these components of set design, we had a risk to get quite simple and not expressive shot. Set design is a cool thing for any projects. And you can learn more about making cinematic light schemes and expressive set design in my online course. Link in the description. Darky and high contrast scene. The principle of this scene is limiting all the amount of incoming natural or artificial light in the scene by means of negative fill, fabric, reflex and floppy, etc. I covered the window on 90% and I got dark exposition due to scenes the camera is exposure on the window. And then I made light flow on the girl throughout the window by Aputure 600D. We have a quite contrasting scene with deep shadows and bright highlights. Also, we used a haze in the scene. We can notice beams of light near the window. It was quite simple setup. We just blocked all extra natural light with floppy and got dark scene. And we made additional light with Aputure 600D. And we added a haze. Scene number three. Silhouette scheme. Dark key quite interesting tool to make a contrast image. For example, I use this technique shooting silhouette. Just find a dark place without extra light sources or block any extra light and set exposure to the outside light. You have deep shadows and detailed light areas. I know that you think, but this is Alexa. It was huge dynamic range. Okay, Red Komodo and Black Magic Row has big dynamic range too. Don't worry. Scene number four. Soft light for a close-up shot. Perhaps you heard that side light sometimes looks ugly on the female face. And I bet that you keep to make Rembrandt's triangle on the cheek. No problem, just pay attention on the hardness of light. Hard light can make the face look ugly and show all skin imperfections. And of course, sometimes it's necessary for story or characters. But if we want to make cinematic and soft close-up shot, just make your side light softer. I use bounce light from the white foam board. Since we shot this in a big space, the diffusion of the side light didn't reach the background and therefore we didn't block and cut it with flex. Scene number five. And the last scene. What light setup do you think is here? It was real improvisation since we had a few minutes before dusk ends. The cold and smooth light on the characters is dark skylight. This backlight is Gotox 300VL. I made it for emphasizing of the characters. And so that the light doesn't look theatrical and fake, I added background light in this scene just for motivation of the backlight. I use light panel with soft diffusion filter for it. So, hope this behind the scene was useful for you. Use these tools and tips for your working. Keep making art and beautiful things. See you!