Lighting training

We attended a lighting training session in college in case we had any studio scenes and wanted to have the perfect lighting. We were taught various techniques and key lighting elements that would effect our footage.

Firstly we were taught about key lighting. The key light is the first and usually most important light that is used in a lighting set up. The purpose of this is to highlight the form and dimension of the subject (in this case Me, shown above). No matter what, key light is needed in any studio shot unless you are looking for a sillhouette which is caused if key light is not used.

The key light can be focused (hard) or diffused (soft) depending on the desired effect and can be placed at any angle relative to the subject. The most common set up in lighting is the three point lighting.

The three point lighting includes the key light, fill light and back light. The fill light is used to balance out the contrast of a scene and provide some illumination for the areas of the image that are in shadow. The fill light is often softer and, by definition, less intense than the key light. a fill light that is a small fraction of the power of the key light will produce very high-contrast or low-key lighting, while filling with half or more of the key light power will produce a high key, low-contrast tone.

Finally we learnt about back light the final part of the three point light. Back lighting refers to the process of illuminating the subject from the back. In other words, the lighting instrument and the viewer are facing towards each other, with the subject in between. This causes the edges of the subject to glow, while the other areas remain darker.