8 Film Looks Using 1 Light

hey guys my name is brady and welcome back to the classroom today we're going over a way to get eight different looks while using just one light some of these uses are a little bit more practical some are a little bit more creative uses to really just spice up those unique shots but all of them can be done with either just some modifiers or some reflectors but like i said before one light so let's dive into this the light that i'm going to be using for this is the nan light forza 200 it's a daylight 5600 kelvin single source fixture so it's pretty standard for any key light so let's dive into the first look we all absolutely love sun flares or at least i personally absolutely love sun flares so to add some spice to your shot you can use your light source and put it outside shining through the window to really emulate a sun and pointing that at the lens to get some really really cool sun flares especially on anamorphic lenses as you can see but don't worry you don't need anamorphic lenses to get this sun flare look a lot of spherical lenses cast some really cool flares as well but diving in to get this particular look i took a forza 200 and i put the fresnel attachment on it and what a fresnel attachment does is essentially just focuses in the beam to a really tight beam angle as the sun might as it's shining through the window as the sun rays are naturally you definitely don't need this attachment you can definitely do it with just a standard reflector dish but it just adds a little bit more to the authenticity of it so i put that forza outside shining through just a little cut in the curtain shining at the camera so it had a nice flicker of flare as sarah walks by and the flare kind of goes in and out and really pops the second she walks by it and this was literally the only light that we had here for this shot was that one shining through the window as the sun the rest the ambient room lighting was just natural daylight shining through the rest of the house so now your shot has a little bit more texture and isn't as flat and adds some spice to things especially on like a cloudy day when everything is really smooth and even there's not that much contrast adding in some fake sun does a really really good job another option using hard light meaning it's not being cast through any diffusion to soften it up is come at an angle to your subject and what that does is create a lot of sharp contrast and edges and oftentimes using hard light really does a great job portraying either like rugged or grungy or scary characters oftentimes in horror and thriller movies and by doing that you've got a really bright side of the face and also a really dark shadow driven contrast out of the face and a lot of that shadow leaves the viewer kind of in some mystery or sorry the subject in some kind of mystery it's definitely far from a very pleasant soft light but it definitely serves its own unique purpose and please take note of my wonderful acting clearly it looks like i'm off to commit some kind of really bad crime roast me in the comments i don't know but moving on so the next look is extremely versatile and i might argue it being the most commonly used lighting technique and one name for that is the rembrandt lighting or rembrandt style rembrandt triangle you may have heard it as and ultimately that name came after a painter in the netherlands in the 1600s named rembrandt van reine and he was notorious for creating his paintings in a way that the lighting direction would be cast on his subjects on his uh portraits where the light creeped over the nose and rolled off so nicely to leave a nice pleasant little triangle on that shadow side of their face adding a lot of dimension to the subject's face and that style of lighting blew up and exploded especially in a photography and cinematography world in the centuries since guys sarah just brought me the most childish dinner ever it's a hot dog with mac and cheese anyway to get this look soft light is crucial so i personally use my parabolic softbox if you don't have anything like that diffusing the light with even something like a thin white bed sheet just to soften it up that's really important and then second to that the direction that the light comes is just as important so you want to direct that light in a way that's kind of 45 degrees high and then 45 degrees to the side of your subject just enough to get the side light that wraps it around the face and go ahead and move the light around to really experiment to see when that soft roll-off and triangle that you see here really appear and then also to keep the light looking natural and not so sourcy the light the practical light in the background motivated me to put on a color temperature orange gel onto the light as well just to match that so it looked like the light was coming from the practical that you see in the background so everything again once more didn't look sourcy and looked real and natural and in the same scene another look that we can get is really a soft edge light or a soft rim light and this does a great job at accentuating your subject's profile and showing off their body language a lot more than just facial expressions and seeing their actual face and to get this you almost move the light source still being soft and diffused as it was before but you almost move it behind the subject and bringing the light source high enough up so it's out of frame and this is a really cool low-key look to play around with to really switch things up a little bit and to get a little bit more control of your light you can use a grid and really essentially what a grid does on the front of your diffusion is direct the light to where you want it so it's not going to be spilling throughout the room wrapping around her face because we don't want that or bouncing around on the walls so i use that grid really to keep that uh to keep that outline on the profile really distinct and just keep it isolated look number i think five and i know i've touched on it before but i want to touch on it once more and it's a little bit more creative way creative technique and that's by motivating your light to be illuminating the room as if a tv would pretty much your motivated light is based off of a television so to do that i took the forza 200 this time i just had a reflector dish right on the front of it and i actually bounced it away from our set away from sarah and then bounced it off of a white reflector and really waved it around and flapped it around and that essentially just changes the intensity that's coming on her as a tv might so it helps if you have a monitor to like look back on and see what's going on with your light and see how you're doing and just play around with it that way and also another alternative a lot of led fixtures nowadays actually have an effect for tv like this forza does and really all of the nan light forza lights have that and ultimately what you can do is just point it directly at your subject and diffuse it there and have that tv mode on and it really almost does the same thing just taking one step out of the way and while we're on the creative train for a little while let's stay on that once more and talk about this look that's definitely very unique uh but it's a really good way to think outside of the box even though you can't use it for every single shot and that's motivating your light based off of a car's headlights either driving by or pulling up and to do that i took the forza outside and i had a fresnel attachment since cars headlights are pretty focused and direct and all i did was just swing that by the window that sarah was sitting on the couch by the rest of the scene was just lit by that practical lamp that you see there and i made sure to direct it in a way that would cast a lot of reflection and shadow on the wall and her as well and you can see in the window the lights brushing by but that's really it a super unique way to emulate a car driving by or something like that really bring the scene outside of the room and outdoors and see what's going on out there it's just a fun little touch that i wanted to add since i've done that in one of my recent projects and another creative look with the fresnel or really any other hard light source it doesn't have to be that focused is to backlight your subject so i got sarah playing the piano and i brought the forza outside and backlit her and just kind of snuck the light right behind her a little bit and moved the camera around to get that occasional light flare or light light hit sorry and that was the only light i had there and then one other element that i added was haze and haste did a really good job of bringing up that ambience as the light hit it so it wasn't just really dark and delight and sarah playing piano and that was it it added a lot more atmosphere and i've also noticed that haze does a really good job of still acting as a little bit of a bounce or a reflection or some sort just to wrap the light around her face a little bit more and bring up that shadow ambience so i was even really impressed and surprised and excited about this shot being only one light and it was a super cool way to do it so that's another creative touch and that brings us to our last one which is a very practical usage and that's top light and top lighting does a very awesome job of looking very natural and ambient especially when it's diffused so one way that you can get top lighting is just point your light fixture directly at the ceiling and let the ceiling do the job of bouncing and diffusing and dispersing that light and it does a great job of filling in a lot of the shadows in the frame and bringing up that room tone and if you really want to spice it up a little bit and get a modifier lanterns do a really awesome job i've got the nan light lantern and i fixed that overhead just pointing straight down to fill in the entire room and then also if you kind of want to direct the light almost like the grid and the previous scene there's something that's like a skirt so you can just tie that skirt around and it directs it it keeps it from spilling on the back walls and another cheaper alternative to one of these lanterns is even those chinese lanterns i think they're like five dollars at home depot and you can do that with a trash bag around it and that can also tie off you know like a little fabric grit or a negative fill grid to still control some of the lighting and that's a significantly cheaper alternative and there you have it eight really really fun and exciting both practical and creative ways to light your scene with just one light and between you and me i was pretty impressed with the outcome i mean i got excited about a lot of the shots so there you have it i hope this was helpful i hope you found this helpful and if so feel free to like this share this subscribe if you have not but one more thing is i also made a discord i think that's the name of the app sorry i'm new to it i'm not completely familiar but i made a discord for the community due to popular requests and i made it as a place that people can connect make friends give advice ask for critique or gear help anything like that so i'll leave the information down below it's called brady's classroom but everything is going to be down below for you to find it please join it join the community i don't want it to just be me talking to the camera and then off and in neverland we're all a family here so with that i want to wish you one more happy holidays because i think you know we're creeping up on the holiday holiday season and end of the new year i don't know i'm rambling class is dismissed i'll see you guys later take care bye

Channel: Brady Bessette

Views: 342,456

Keywords: cinematic lighting techniques, cinematic lighting, lighting a scene with one light, one light cinematography, low budget lighting for film, low budget lighting cinematography, different lighting setups one light, rembrandt lighting, how to rembrandt lighting, back lighting videography, how to fake cinematic sunset, nanlite forza 200, nanlite forza 60, nanlite fresnel, vazen anamorphic, vazen 28mm, film looks with one light, 1 light setup cinematography, cinematic 1 light

Id: 43mIwnKQ9dQ

Length: 10min 31sec (631 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2020