The struggles of Lighting

The struggles of Lighting

Coming into Digital Video Production this semester sounded like a very exciting class which would involve learning all the aspects of film production. Thus far, my prediction was correct but the one aspect I did not anticipate was dealing with the frustrating part of setting up the lights.

It goes without saying that lighting is vital to film shoot and can change the way a scene looks. If the lighting is lit terribly, it is noticeable and can ruin a shot. What makes lighting challenging is the vast amount of detail that is involved. When you light a shot it is not good enough for the just the person to be lit, because that creates a shadow. A good film shoot involves lights being set up at all different angles with different amounts of heat.

Thus far, the most challenging aspect in the re-creation production is matching the light exactly to the way it looks on screen. Every one of our creations is from a professional television or movie shoot, with experienced and well knowledged gaffers on the set. What can be frustrating is that once the light are all set up for one shot, they have to be change again for the second shot, with a completely different lighting diagram. In the three projects that I have been a part of so far, it has taken 20-30 minutes to set up the lights for a 5- 15 second take.

The one solution that can think of to solve this lighting enigma, to have the director of the project meet up with their film crew prior to the film shoot. By doing this the director can go over every shot frame by frame and discuss where they want to lights to be. Even if the plan doesn’t goes right, at least the crew has an idea of how to set up rather than go in blind.

Another way to beat the lighting frustration is to scout out your location before the shoot. By doing this it gives the director a visual of how they want to set up the lights and understand the environment they are working in.

Overall, lighting is a frustrating and tedious process. However stress can be relieved if careful planning and preparation is involved.