Learn How To STUDY and RECREATE Light | Lighting Breakdown

So you want to recreate scenes from your favorite films and so you go on YouTube to learn and you see other YouTubers recreating scenes from their favorite films and they're showing you how they lit that particular scene. But in this video I'm gonna do you one better. Let's get into it. So in this video I'm gonna show you all how you can recreate any scene from any of your favorite films learning how to analyze light. Now I can easily show you, which I've done in the past, how I lit something, what lights that I used, but I think the best way to really learn light is not by seeing what I did for my particular setup but by learning how to look at a scene and literally analyze the light from that scene and learn lighting a little bit more so that you can do that for whatever scene that you want to light. But first let's start off with the basics. So when I was at the Aperture House doing Cinegear they gave us a plethora of gear to shoot and just be creative and so with that I wanted to play around with recreating moonlight, recreating sunlight, and what that looked like. It was really just finding inspirational photos and seeing how I can recreate the overall sense of this particular image. And so the first thing I want to talk about when we are trying to learn how to analyze light is light direction. So you want to find out where the shadows are being casted because that is going to help you figure out the direction of the light. So again when we're talking about light direction we're trying to look at what the shadows are doing and that is going to help us determine where the light is directed. And so this is one of my favorite shots that I found off a shot deck when I was trying to recreate moonlight and I just really loved how simple it looks, how natural it looks. It looks just like just the overall lighting just is really beautiful to me. I love texture on walls so that I was very much drawn to that. But if we look at the shadows we can already see that there is a lot happening on this wall over here. Honestly we can look at this and see where the light is at. We clearly have some light outside that is shooting through these windows so there's probably just like a nice little light out here that is shooting through these windows. They probably have multiple shooting through each one because you can see texture from each windowsill and it's adding texture to this wall which again I love me some good texture. But even in the back the back room is also lit so I would assume that there's maybe windows back there or they have a light back there that's also lighting it so it doesn't seem dark behind him. So something in that room is being lit in some particular way because if you see behind him it's not dark and so they really kind of have him popping out even though it's like a silhouette look they kind of really have him popping out from his back because if you look between his legs you'll see also that there's some texture happening. So they could have used a cucullaris or spotlight or they also could have windows in this location where they also had a chance to shoot through those windows in the back room. He's being lit literally in one direction and so it would make sense for it to have natural falloff. If we zoom in we'll see on his face that on camera right this is where the light is hitting him clearly because it's coming off from this side and then camera left will make it red. It's just natural falloff it's really dark it's pretty much splitting his face which is cool because when you think about a thriller you think about this split multiple personalities all of these type of things and so I think this was really really cool to see since I wanted my particular scene that I was making up to be a suspense. Another way to learn light direction is by looking at catch lights. You can look into someone's eyes and if there's reflection from the light you can kind of tell what direction the light is in based off that reflection. It also kind of helps tell you what kind of modifiers they may have used. Was it square? Was it round? Was it big? Was it small? If you really look at the catch lights they reveal so much. The second tip I want to give when you're trying to learn how to analyze light in any particular scene is going to be the quality of light. So first you have your light direction how are the shadows being cast that is helping you figure out where the light may be. The second one is going to be the quality of light. Is it soft? Is it harsh? Is it specular? Is it diffused? All of those help add into the quality of light. Like I said even with him it was two-tone so as if the light was coming from one direction it made him two-tone. They could have softened it but because this is thriller happening and they wanted this harsh look they decided not to and so it created a very stark line in the middle of his face. Now if we look at a couple of other images we'll see if they diffuse some light or if they soften the light and that really also plays a part in how you may want to light and what gear or equipment that you may need to do so. So let's go back and look at a couple more images that I pulled. Let's look at me when I was recreating sunlight. This shot is super soft even in her eyes there's no catch lights. It really creates this really natural you know warmth about it as well and she's in this house and so it's not a lot of like harsh light happening through windows. We could tell that there was a window on camera right but there's not a lot of harsh light. It's very very soft. If we go to another image even with this you do have a little harshness happening on the shadows on the ground but it's still very soft to me overall and you can tell why it's soft. They have these blinds. They have these really soft blinds that is happening through the windows that's already softening the light as any light comes through. So also knowing when to shape your light, diffuse your light, balance your light they all play a part as well in learning how to analyze light as well as just learning lighting in general. Now we're here talking about recreating scenes from films. We're talking about it is the summer. We're outside. We're shooting specs. We want to get into narratives. We want to grow as creatives and as artists and as DPs and cinematographers and I want to shout out Artlist for this particular feature and it is their AI voiceover. It's super simple to use. Go to the voiceover tab and listen through the catalog. Remember those summers at the basketball court? I'm embracing every part of me. When you found the one that fits your project, select it, write out your script, hit generate and that's it. We live and die by creating. The infinite possibilities of what our mind sees creates a whole new world for us every time we pick up a camera. Be still. We search the world in hopes that we find creativity but the more still you are the more you realize it's everywhere you are. It's within. Professional voiceovers from pay actors on Artlist and they're giving you quality quality voiceovers so definitely look into this feature. I definitely think it's going to be helpful and it's going to change the game for a lot of us freelancers and I just think it's the overall dope thing to have in your repertoire. I know AI AI AI but some AI is good and I'm just I'm just super excited for this. All my music that I use including the music from my recreation of the Moonlight video that was from Artlist and so this is just something else that I can just kind of have in my catalog to elevate my project so definitely check that out and shout out to Artlist. The third and the last tip I want to give when learning how to analyze light is going to be the color. Color is important and when I say color I'm not saying production design color or you know white balance or anything like that. I am specifically saying being intentional with your color when it comes to lighting and the reason why that is important because we all know that when lighting lighting sets the mood the tone and give emotion for the viewer so a particular lighting is very important when you're recreating moonlight you clearly don't want that to be super bright you don't want it to be super happy it's moonlight it's night time you know are they going to sleep is something crazy happening it may be more of a blue tone than it is any other but when you're recreating sunlight or when you want to go for a happy feel or a bright feel you're not going to shoot something super dark like again you really have to think about this and you have to think about what mood are you trying to give and then how your lighting can help aid in that and so with color you have three different ways to look at it and I really kind of focused on two so one you have warm lighting warm lighting creates reds yellows or orange tones so it evokes a sense of romance comfort nostalgia warmth hope happiness all of the above so you might see the warm lighting when it comes to rom-coms or dramas or coming of age stories bright fun happy loving those kind of things give you the warm lighting and then of course you have cool lighting which is clearly the opposite of warm so you have your blue your green your gray tones again look at the color wheel so on one side you have warm on the other side you have your blue your cools and so with that that conveys the feeling of loneliness or coldness dull gloomy creepy where like you literally can feel all of these emotions by looking at images and by looking at scenes so that plays a part when you are trying to light and when you're looking at inspirational images you want to make sure you find the ones that define the mood that you're trying to give when you recreate this scene and so that sums up pretty much how to analyze light for me this is just my process I'm sure there is a bigger process and a lot more steps but these are the three things that I look at when I am truly trying to analyze light learn lighting from inspirational photos that I might find is deeper than just finding these photos but really how can you recreate this or when you're showing a client and you're showing them we can get it to look like this you want to make sure that you know how to get it to look like that and so that is the overall goal light direction quality of light and color how are you bringing emotion mood and tone through your lighting and not necessarily through post-production and all of that so hopefully this video helped you all let me know if you want to see more videos like this I'm trying to give you the best of both worlds of showing you how I lit something but also giving you a deeper perspective of like learning the foundation and basics of things because I think that gets you a little bit further and so hopefully y'all like this share below in the comments like subscribe and share with your friends and I'll see y'all in the next video love you bye