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Most beginning film makers know that lighting is important to film and video, but most don’t know where to start. If they bother using lights at all, their lighting kit usually consists of a couple of lights which they place without a clear idea of their effect, and they spend too much time on set moving and adjusting them before they are happy with the results. Perhaps you’ve got a built-in lamp on your camcorder – and although it lets you film your friends at night, you’ve noticed that the light is bland and makes your subjects look like they’ve been caught in a hunter’s searchlight.
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What is it about the sound in many student or amateur films that makes them sound so… well… amateur? Even if the fidelity or clarity of the dialogue is good (see my article on ADR), there is often something empty or thin about the rest of the soundtrack – the action lacks depth and realism. The answer could be that the film makers did not add Foley to the soundtrack.
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Lighting – without it the camera cannot create an image. Yet with it comes a host of questions and potential problems – Where do you place the lights? How many of them? What type? What filters and coloured gels do you use? In this article we’ll take an introductory look at the basics of lighting, by defining a few terms and examining a few key concepts. When you’ve finished this article, you might want to check out my other one on three point lighting.
Continue reading “Lighting Basics”