BOOK REVIEW: “How to Shoot Movies Without Shooting Yourself in the Foot”

This book is not for everyone. If you don’t eat, breathe and live cinematography… maybe you should read something else. Seriously. This book may not be for you. (But if it is… you’d better not miss it.)

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Placing the Fill Light for Faces

In this article I wrote about classical key light placement and classical portraiture to illustrate how artists and cinematographers have traditionally gone about lighting faces. Fill light is often derided as the light that simply opens up the shadows, but it can do much more than that. It can have a shape and beauty all its own, and it can save you when your key light placement is not optimal.

Green Screen Lighting on the Cheap!

Before you go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a cheap light kit online or through a catalog, consider the option of making your own portable, durable and ultimately flexible low-voltage lighting kits. You’ll not only have more control over how much light you want to put on your background and your subject, but also how much you want to spend!

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: What Makes Soft Lights Cast Soft Shadows?

It’s one thing to understand that soft sources make soft shadows. It’s another thing to understand why. Fortunately a friend from the insect world can help us if we will look at soft light through his eyes.

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Soft Light vs. Hard Light

In a previous article I described how to place a hard key light. In this article I’ll look at why soft sources are a bit more realistic in color cinematography, require less precise placement, and can help define the volume of a space.

Pulse Width Modulation is NOT Your Friend

Here’s the deal: there’s this thing called “pulse width modulation,” and under certain conditions it doesn’t play well with rolling shutter cameras. Most of the time it’s no problem, but we don’t get phone calls from post when there’s no problem. Here’s how to avoid that phone call.

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Placing a Hard Key Light

The most important thing you will ever learn about lighting is this: LIGHTING IS NOT A FORMULA. Learning about lighting, though, is a process of becoming aware, and in this first of many articles I’m going I’m going to try to increase your awareness of one specific thing per article. The more awareness you have the more easily you’ll be able to adapt your lighting to your circumstances because you’ll see, with your own eyes, what you need to do to make an image that satisfies your inner artist.

I think the best place to start is with classical key light placement. This knowledge is not something you will use verbatim as this is not a style that is in vogue at the moment. The underlying principles, however, should be of daily benefit.

Choosing the Right Green Screen Materials

Okay, you’ve seen the green screen “Kits” that come with some cheap lights, stands and a green screen cloth backdrop… or someone tells you to just go down to Home Depot and get a couple gallons of their “greenest” paint - a couple hundred bucks and you’re good to go, right? WRONG! A setup like that will be of little use if you’re seriously trying to get a decent matte. Without the right green screen materials, even the best lighting and camera won’t help you.

The entire green screen process is a careful balance of color & light - a very narrow spectrum of colored light that reflects back through the lens and is easily matted (or “keyed”) out with sophisticated software.

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