My New Wave Film

 

 Here is a clip from my interpretation of a new wave film that features monochrome/black & white main images, emphasis on sounds like the music and extended shots with seemingly invisible cuts.

The basic idea behind this was to take some of the shots/pieces that are seen in the American new wave and its influence (political commentary and French new wave) and make it about how life almost has gone backwards with lockdown in effect whilst promoting safety within the current climate. As you can tell by the footage it's all handheld with minimum stability with the movements of the scene as I move.

The thought process was that the American New Wave made commentaries on the scenes or trends within current politics, as we know COVID is the biggest influence and news of this year and it can feel isolating and to some almost like they're going backwards.

Hence some of the shots having almost no one in them highlighting the isolation with the homes and quarantine, then the actual story line of the story seemingly going backwards in time.

So on to the critique of the work, overall I feel that I achieved my goal of making a comment on the impact of the current environment that the government has shown meeting the general type of film made within the 1960's-70's America at the time, it was also low-budget just me, my phone and some help from the internet for sounds further reflecting on the statistical side of the New Wave development. Enough about the theory and backing what about the clip itself and well I feel like I captured a number of points and edits in the piece, for example the sound and visual alignment towards the end of the clip builds scale and emotion around the environment of the character and what's happening to them. The transitions between them help to keep the flow running smoothly and not breaking the audience out of the experience. Another is the overlay on top of the scenes, having the low opacity of the images and clips on top of the video help to build an ominous feel whilst giving reminders of the government impact on the character (which explains the flashes of Boris on the overlay).

Now where did it go wrong? Well from the top there were a few health and safety issues along with privacy problems too, such as for the reverse walking scene I had to keep an eye out behind me whilst walking which limits my visibility and also makes the possibility of capturing something whilst filming with the camera facing the opposite direction. The next health and safety issue was that whilst walking my feet weren't stable at the angle of walking for the shot making it a risk of falling and damaging me or the equipment. As I mentioned earlier there was also a privacy risk and that was similar to what I mentioned earlier about not being able to see the camera whilst walking backwards so if someone or something got into frame that wasn't supposed to be there then that could  cause a lot of issues further down the pipeline.

Other than the issues filming lets go to the editing, going back over the footage captured within the clip did make a few problems like trying to align audio to fit clips and where there's edits in trying to blend them to ensure that the transitions seem more real and like a sequence rather than having it as a series of individual clips. The other one was trying to make sure that video clarity was still good and strong when putting in the black & white filters and overlays on top of the raw video files and having the transition effects at the right points to reflect the general theme of the clip.

To sum up from the review, overall I feel as though I achieved what I set out to do but in future I need to reflect on the problems and issues that I brought up for the next project.

Health & Safety

What and why?

So we've talked a lot about different shots within cinematography and phtotography, but in all of these we haven't actually discussed the main thing that's almost always covered first in any project that's undertaken is health and safety concerns.

Below are some shots of a studio being used and we're going to discuss what are some of the health and safety concerns and factors that have to be looked at.

There's one factor that's common with all of these images and that's the exposure. As you can see there's a lot of light and light sources in all of these images which can cause damage to the eyes if there's enough exposure to high intensity light for too long and if your filming an interview or doing a long photoshoot then this becomes something to consider.

Another thing to consider which is more obvious is electrics. Looking at all of these photos you see a lot of appliances that need plugs or cords in order to work.

This leaves a lot of sockets on and exposed to the room which can cause a few problems if there's any drinks in the room. While it may seem obvious that you wouldn't generally have a drink in the studio while it's active temperature does mean that you'd be more inclined to have a drink, and if something goes wrong like the drink gets knocked then items could get damaged or an electrical fire could break out.

So for safety and general practice leave any drinks outside of the room for safety of you as well as others and equipment.

Last which is related to the previous point is the cables in a darkened room (such as the studio however I adjusted the brightness of the images so you can see setting and appliances etc.) the cables are generally exposed and in that kind of lighting when you're moving around behind the scenes could cause some major issues. As you can see by the images in front of the model and behind the camera is quite dark and when your moving around to try and get a better angle of different effect of the subject you can trip and fall injuring yourself and possibly others as the equipment may go with you.

So general advice would be that if you're needing to move then keep an eye on the ground as you do.

Lighting

What's that?

Well we all know what lighting is, it's just how a scene gets it's light from the surroundings but what types are there and how does this impact the scene itself? Well hopefully by the end of this post you'll understand what the different types of lighting are and to what types of scenes these have the most impact on.

Three Point Lighting:

Now this sounds confusing but it's relatively simple, three locations within a scene where you place some low-key [talked about later] lights in order to light the scene more or give a specific emphasis, or light to it to highlight maybe a shadow or particular person. As you can see above there's how a general three point lighting set-up would look, now this doesn't really necessarily explain everything that well so I'll do it now.

Key lighting: This is your main light, this is always going to be the first one that you set up as this is not only your primary source of light but also a guideline for what angles to move the other two at to get the right effect.

Fill lighting: Now unlike the Key which is normally an intense light this one is a lot softer and is used to fill in a few more areas on the subject that the key might either leave or not give the right amount of light to.

Back light: Last is the back light, while this may not give as an immediate effect it's clear that it does something though which is that it gives it more of a dimension to the image making it look more real than the flat image that just the other two would give.

Below is an example of the lighting setup we just talked about:

Obviously this image has some good and bad points, on the one hand the model is centred with a good amount of light to highlight the models face as well as creating a more three dimensional image and there's enough shadow behind to put emphasis on the highlights (such as the light reflected in the eyes) and the overall features. However this is not without flaws either, the big shadow at the back draws the audiences eye to focus more to that than the main subject itself. The lighting is soft enough that not all the features are clearly defined, and linking to that there's no theme or placement for the lighting it's generic enough to pass for a decent quality yet without a subject it doesn't hold as good a meaning.

Generally this is what a normal lighting set will be like, but there's also lighting types too which give different effects and meanings to the scenes with each one. So lets go through them each in turn and discuss the various effects that each has.

Edge Lighting: This lighting is more solid than the other two types that we'll be looking at later but basically long or short of this type is that one portion of the face is highlighted (inside of the light) and another that's pretty much encased within shadow making the contrasts higher,  the actual source of the light can vary between natural (or high key) and artificial (low key) so long as there's an off set for the shadow to make the highlights appear lighter and then the shadows darker to ensure that the Edge lighting is achieved. This type of lighting does normally create some interesting connotations.

One of which is the idea of duality, having the character highlighted with this split type of lighting showing maybe the more known side whilst demonstrating that there's another side that isn't normally scene or that it's much darker than the character themselves.

Here's an example from film vs an interpretation from me:

In this image we see a more clearly defined version of edge lighting that gives a better visual example of the technique, the lighting is probably a bit darker than necessary to show the lighter half but it still gives the representation in enough detail to show what the light is about. The shot is good, it helps to prove the point of the technique and show off the impact that it can have in the right scenes. But this isn't entirely faultless, the lighting could've been a bit brighter to make sure that you can see the image clearly and then you have more of a sharper and hardline shadows which draws away from the image as it's bold against the backdrop so that could've been lightened up a bit more.

In this image you can see that edge lighting is still present but that it's a lot softer and maybe not as bold as can be expected (like the image above) but it still gives a good demonstration of edge lighting within an outside setting. 

This is a shot from the trailer of Batman (2021) and the connotation of duality that I mentioned earlier works well with this shot in the context of the scene, as there's someone there for Batman which is the side that's shaded and hidden, while Bruce is in the light and in the public eye yet still retaining some of the darkness hinted at in the character themselves.  

Rembrandt Lighting: 

So this is similar to edge lighting but requires a bit more effort behind it, there's usually a light or two active and then a reflector is used to achieve the light used to create a similar feeling to that of Edge lighting but this has a different end result to the other as there's more light on the other half of the character with a triangle of light on their face.

In terms of what light is being used of either high-key or low-key there isn't that much difference in terms of effect between this and Edge that we discussed it just involves more play with angles and light intensity to make sure that you get that triangle of light in the shot that defines the actual lighting type itself. However the backing is different because it isn't actually a seemingly recent development within the industry, it came from a Dutch artist of the same name in the 17th Century who used this type of light in his paintings.

Here's my attempt at mimicking this effect vs a use in film:

So here is an example of Rembrandt with the light triangle by the light outlined to show off where it is, as you can see there is a lighter and darker side of the face but this time around there's only a small section of light in the darkened section which gives a more dramatic effect and shows off maybe a certain point of the character.

So this image works well in showing off the technique but there's still a lighting and shadow issue that makes the image more darker than necessary and background shadows more bold making them a bit more of a focus. 

Here's an example from film that's using primarily natural light to make this hence why the darker side is a bit lighter than normal, but the effect is still the same in that there's the light in the darkened section of the image. This light adds a bigger dimension to the image making it  appear more bold and seemingly three dimensional, now lights like this and the Edge are more primarily seen in film noir styles as the effect works even better because it's there's no real colour pallet other than shades of white, grey and black. Having these films using this light gives better emphasis to the mood or the lights in the room drawing the audience into the scene and the characters in it.

Butterfly Lighting:

Now this is of a much different tone and style to the previous two, primarily because there's a few less and different methods to make sure that it's achieved. So to get it the process is quite simple and requires a bit less to get the achieved effect, basically how this works is that the subject is in one spot and then you take the key light (check diagram above if you're confused) and raise it above the subject to get a bit of shadow at two sides of the face. It was more of a 50's film trend than a more modern one.

Here's my interpretation vs an example from film:

Here's my interpretation of butterfly lighting, as you can see it's much better than the previous two as it's got a clear and bright image with lights focusing down on the face and giving shadows to the edges of the face.

In terms of what worked, you can clearly see that there's a shadow on either side of the face and that the light is centered on the main portion of the face.

However there are a few things wrong with it, like for example the position of the light isn't as centered as it could be to get the best effect possible and it was maybe a bit too high as there seems to be a focus of light on the forehead rather than the entire face but the effect is still reached even with these positioning errors.

Here is a picture of an actress popular from the 50's called Audrey Hepburn, and this as I mentioned earlier was a very popular style for actresses of the 50's in like glamour and fashion as it gave highlights to the shape of the face. It's also used to highlight the beauty of a love interest within the plot as it draws interest and emphasis to the face of the character.

As you can see, the light is at a height where the neck has a light shadow and then a more defined where the head is and then there's a clear line down each side of the face giving it the outline to draw attention to the middle part of the face where the characters eyes would be.

Well that about wraps up lighting styles and techniques, hopefully you learned something new and how lighting can give certain impacts to your piece. 

Shutter Speeds and Aperture

Shutter Speed

What is it?

Shutter speed is just pretty much what it says on the tin, it's how long and fast the lens is exposed to light. For example 1/50 which is the standard for film and photography the numbers basically mean that the sensor within the camera will be exposed to light from the scene for a fiftieth of a second before snapping for the next one for however long the shot will be.

But these speeds do have another effect and that's the effect of motion blur, if you use freeze frames or just viewing footage then you can see that there's a definite blur within the movement captured. As an example of this I have attached some screenshots of two frames from two different shutter speeds, one at 1/60 and then another at 1/125 so that you can see the change between them.

In this image you can see that there's some blur occurring alongside the motion making it difficult to pick out details within the object.

Whereas in this image there's a more significant amount of blur even with things such as the forearm which doesn't feature that much movement within them.

So this shows how important the shutter is within film and how even a small change to the frames can have a massive impact upon the quality of film that's then made and left at the end of the production.

Now onto the Aperture.  Now I have covered this previously but not to an extent where I feel that it would be useful, so the way aperture works is by controlling the depth of field through controlling light flow to the sensor. The bigger the aperture (the lower the number) the more blur will be in the image and vice versa.

These diagrams have a mush clearer version of this method and how it all looks. 

So as you can see the aperture plays a rather big role in how the clear and bright an image is but it also helps you play with what ranges are available for your shots giving you the ability to get more meaningful ones or more focus on one character.

Here's an example of some aperture tests that I did:

As you can see from these shots in order of brightest to darkest the higher the number on the aperture the more clarity you get from your image but the overall brightness is lowered whereas the lower the number gives you more brightness to light the image with but some of the image will be lost or blurred out.

Hopefully now you understand that with aperture the general ruling is the higher the better but be prepared to fiddle with your light set up but if you go lower you may need to adjust your subjects range to the camera.

Rules of Shots in Cinematography

What's What

In this post I will be breaking down the types and styles of different shots throughout film and TV talking about the technique, how effective they are as well as some of my own shots. Hopefully it will teach you something new.

Anyways enjoy!

Shot/Reverse- Toby Maguire's Spider-man  So in this shot you can see a character having a conversation in the mirror with two opposing characteristics, one being happy and manic and the other being down and confused. The way that this shot works is that when there's one shot after there's a similar shot but at a reversed angle to show the flip of the scene hence showing the duality of the character. This type of shot is more generally used for conversations between characters as it gives the impression that both pieces of dialogue are happening at the same time, like the one in the clip above.                     

 Here's my interpretation of the shot reverse technique with the two splits of the same character interacting together and the jumps showing that it's at the same time but the outcome is almost completely different to what's expected. Overall I fell that we demonstrated and captured this rule well as it shows what it is and what it can do along with the effect it can have when used effectively.

180 Degree Rule- The Dark Knight  Here we have a scene which is another dialogue section but the rule still applies, basically when the camera moves in this section it's only allowed 180 degrees movement within the area of the scene. Here in the scene between Batman and Joker the cameras that switch views between them have a cut but that's just for between the characters where as if you look at the actual movement then it follows this rule and actually loops back while the conversation carries on. Generally when using this the characters tend to show more of a body to what ever side the camera on but when you have multiple so long as you have a bit of room the effect will be the same.

Here's my interpretation of this rule:

 Here there isn't as much camera movement and that's probably one of the biggest downfalls of the piece example but the basics are all still the same where the characters are leaning more towards the side with the camera and generally working in that direction showing off the rule just as well. This demonstration has worked well because it shows off the rule and how it might be edited but on the other hand there's very little camera movement so it's less accurate then it would be other wise.

30 Degree Rule- Various  This type of angle is much tighter than normal, as you can see if the camera does move then it doesn't move very far or at that much wider either but it's mainly used to highlighted certain characters or features within a scene. As you can see in the video above there's a few different scenes where this is used but they're not as wide ranging in what they cover making the audiences eyes focus on the thing that's in focus right in front of them in the scene. 

Here's my interpretation of the rule:

 So as you can see we've narrowed the scope but kept the scene similar to the last one to show that you can still have a similar type of scene but you have to be careful in what you include to this so that it's not too crowded and makes the audience loose immersion within the scene, having the rule as well allowed us to give focus or highlight one character within the scene. Now issues with this shot is similar to the last where we really didn't demonstrate any real movement of the camera to show off what the angle is or how impactful it can be.

Cutting On Action- Unknown  This one is just a brief note as it's used more by TV channels for their shows for adverts, so they can keep their audience hooked on what's going to happen when it cuts back to them. However this doesn't mean that it's only television that can use this rule, some films do this too where they cutaway from a piece of action to a different scene for other characters, it's a good one to consider for some light tension building or comedic effect but isn't really one of the best to use a lot.

Crosscutting- Inception  Now this is an interesting technique because of what it can do to a scene, as you can see in this scene there are times where it cuts away and back quite frequently but why? Well that's because this rule tries to make multiple things happen within the same space, almost like they're going on at the same time. This is the effect that it creates having a cut that's quick enough and close enough to the last creates this feeling that both things are happening within the same time making each cut or change synch together like in the scene above.

Here's my interpretation of this:

 This isn't as much a cinematic or big example as the one above but it still demonstrates the rule well, having these things edited so quick and close together with n invisible cut helps to create that sense of both have happened within the same time frame. The big thing though is that this looks similar to a shot/reverse shot but it's not as the shot/reverse shot is more to do with characters interacting and dialogue whereas this is more built for sequences like the scene above.

The actual footage itself I feel works well to demonstrate this rule but I feel like if we had worked a bit more to tackle the seemingly synchronicity of the technique then it would have had a much clearer display but this works well as an active example of the technique.

Establishing Shot- Harry Potter  Well we all know this one, almost every film has them and always look really pretty. Establishing shots. They are all about one thing, setting a scene of a location where your characters are based such as the Harry Potter example above, there's little to add here but how they're taken now that can change from a camera on a track to a drone flying over head with the camera angled face down.

Here's my interpretation:

 As I said earlier there really isn't a whole lot to do with this one other than camera stability and time, too long and it'll be boring too short and well it can throw the audience out of the moment when the scene changes so overall I'm happy with the outcome of this as a demonstration into what an establishing shot looks like.

Match On Match Action- Friends  Now this is an interesting one, this involves a multi-camera set up and more close editing to get right. So as you can see by the clip basically this rule is where you have one shot with the character doing the action (like opening a door and walking into the room) and then the next shot is them continuing where the camera left off. Friends is iconic for this type of shot as that's primarily the type that's featured within the show.

Here's my interpretation:

 As you can see this is a similar format but with less on screen so you can clearly see the effect as the clip goes, the cut between entering the door and the camera changing to inside the room is clear so that you can see what we're matching with the door. This I feel works well as a demonstration although it would work better if the clip ran a little bit smoother in-between shots of the scene.

Temporal Overlap- Family Guy  Ah the heart of any good action film multiple shots of the same explosion, also called temporal overlap. Now this is where there are multiple almost quick shots of the same explosion some even going back before and then replaying but with how quick the edits are within this and how the sequence is put together it almost doesn't matter because it all looks as though its at the same time. Now could this be confused with the Crosscutting shot? Possibly as both follow a similar format to one another but thing is the crosscutting is of different things happening at once whereas this is more like multiple cuts of one sequence.

Kuleshov Effect- The Dark Knight Rises  Now this one is interesting because it's one that we see but never really pay attention to as it just fits in all the right ways. This rule (or effect) is from two shots like crosscutting but is more to do with emotions than the actual sequence itself, it's where we derive meaning from two shots that work in sequence with each other and then the audience gains meaning from that. So in this example between the fight with Bane and Batman we see cuts back to Catwoman who's emotions are on full display for us to see about the choice that she made. This then connects with the audience and makes them emotional too as it's almost like its a comment on how helpless they are for the situation at hand like she feels.

Montage- Hot Fuzz  Here we are the final technique or rule, The Montage. Now this came from the Soviets who seemingly managed to bend the laws of time and space to get a sequence of shots from point A to point B while creating meaning and giving the audience the needed information on what was happening. Hence why Hot Fuzz is a good example of this as it has this sequence of shots for the first five minutes with the protagonist narration to guide the audience through what's being played to make sure that they don't get lost in what's happening in between.

Hopefully this has given you an insight into what some of the rules are and how they can impact what you're creating if used right.

 

Basic Camera Set-up and Pull Focus

Details

So we go back to the origin of the camera techniques that have been discussed here so far, and that's how cameras actually work and some of the basics of the industry of cinematography / photography in order to get an understanding of what there is and how it works together.

With that lets look at a role which is a necessity in the actual area. The Director of Photography or DP for short.

Now the Director of Photography is basically someone who takes charge of all the cameras and shots, so they decide the lighting and camera positions and mis-en-scene before doing either multiple pictures or takes before changing things or moving onto the next, But they cover much more like understanding the script to get meaning from the shots that they take, they also have to work fast but precise as there will be time and budget restrictions.

This doesn't mean however that it's all stress and worry, DP's make their own styles that can become iconic and have its own fan following. So long as they understand the basic rules of lighting and camera movement and techniques then they can manipulate them to suit their style best.

Now on to some camera and photograph basics.

First thing to think about is Lighting, the sun is the biggest brightest light thing known anywhere so if the settings that you have when you take a photo in the sun produce a seemingly normal photograph then in lower lighting (such as with a dim bulb) then the image will appear underexposed giving it an entirely different meaning.

The next thing to look at is the Aperture, this blocks or allows light to enter the lens, so the narrower it is then darker the image and vice versa.

A third thing is Shutter Speed, now when people say frame-rate they think it's actually related to the shutter speed. This is not true, what shutter speed actually manages is the length of exposure that each frame has so for example a 1/50 would be one frame every fiftieth of a second.

The last thing is a bit more complex. In a camera (video to be specific) there's a chip inside called the CCD chip which acts as an almost grounding agent for the image being recorded, now this works in a similar way to the aperture in terms of exposure in that if it becomes sensitive to lighting then it will still make bright images but from smaller sources.

This diagram can probably explain this concept better than me:

Now, with those covered we can talk about pull focus. This is a method where by you pull the focus of the camera from one thing to another like maybe a character from the foreground to the background or vice versa. Below is an example from the 1987 release Predator:

Here we can see some characters in focus (background) motion to Arnold Schwarzenegger's character and the camera changes focus to reflect this too as the audiences focus is now back on him rather than the previous character.

I went out and tried to get my own example of a pull focus in a less noisy way, below is the footage that I managed to capture:

In this footage you can see a bit clearer than the Predator example the actual transition mid-shot between the two areas of focus. Now for a good set-up to get a similar results you would need to use what I like to call the 'Default set' which is just standard settings for the camera to get the best shots possible.

For example adjusting your light meter (seen below) to the perfect setting so it's clear what your changing it to.

In order to do this type of change in focus, with a standard DSLR Canon just adjust the focus ring around the outer edge of the camera until you get that change. It might be worth while practicing a few ties so that you can make sure you get the clean transition between them.

Hopefully this has helped you understand your camera's a bit more and taught you something that you didn't know.

Have a great day.

ISO Uses

Content

So ISO, what is it? There's a common myth that if you have bad lighting you should turn up your ISO in order to compensate, this is not true or advisable as this will lead to 'noise' being on the film which lowers the quality and overall makes it appear worse than keeping it at recommended.

What does it actually do? It makes the lens and therefore the camera itself more sensitive to light and will make it either over or under expose images but the general rule of thumb is that you should keep it between 100-400 and work with the appature or Shutter Speed rather than risk over-exposure and adding noise to a scene.

This image helps to demonstrate this point better and gives you a clearer picture of what effect that ISO can have on pictures.

On the left is an image with an ISO set to 100, the image is clean and crisp with detail and the colours are whole. On the right is an image that's full of noise (the grain over the front of the image) which has ruined the detail and diluted the colours of the sky and the building making appear to be of a worse off quality and almost seemingly from another camera.

To try and emphasise this point more I shot a few of my own videos to try and show you what effect ISO can have in different environments.

Here is an image with the ISO set incorrectly: 

As you can see by the highlighted spots on the frame there's a lot of grain and noise on the image and that's because of incorrect ISO settings for the lighting and environment making it a worse looking final product overall.

Here we have an example of a good use of ISO within the environment, having a low ISO in high key lighting will produce good results as the camera becomes less sensitive to light meaning that the chances for noise and grain within the image are low.

It will also produce a more detailed image as the shadows will be more defined while the light still gets through the lens with just enough exposure for it to be a clear image

However these examples aren't really an exact science, there's still so many factors that could affect them. An example would be for the high ISO I shot at night with a singular point of low key light (a ringlight) which would give worse results than multiple at equal distances like as backlighting, or the fact that I didn't do multiple test shots of the day photograph to better test for the best ISO setting for that moment.

This doesn't mean that the footage looses impact, the points are still made within a dark setting and lowkey lighting (like a studio with a singular point) a higher ISO would be preferable as it would make the camera better able to detect and then use the lighting available, whereas a more highkey lighting setting would require a lower one to draw out the images quality and reduce the amount of noise seen in the final product.

Hopefully this has given you a better understanding of how impactful the ISO settings on a camera can be for the product you're producing.

Have a great day.

Lighting for Various Scenarios

Given the many different types of location around the world and the lightings that come with it it's always best to think about what to use and where it'll be a good fit compared with others. Using three examples hopefully I'll be able to show you why lighting is important and what effect it can have when used. (All links and screenshots for research can be found below)

Talking Heads:

Now when people say talking head, I'm sure you think to shows where it's either debate or host + guest. While these are true a more common form is that for interviews, this is literally just like the image above not a full profile but maybe half or just the face. This means that when lighting for this the primary area you'll want lit is the face of the interviewee.

Now there are a couple of choices that I will get into later but first I want to talk about placement, not matter what light source you end up picking chances are that you'll need to think about where you put the light as this will effect camera exposure and the actual person themselves. Too much and the video will be overexposed, too little and then the video won't be able to capture much as it'll be too dark. So a highly recommend and almost standard position is just behind the camera angled towards the interviewee, as this gets the light on them but also doesn't make the camera overexpose the image.

In terms of the lighting itself you have a number of good choices, some used more frequently than others such as a ring-light mainly used by people on Instagram and YouTube but can be used for interviews too. It works well with some of the more common and more likely used lights like LED light panels in order to complement each other.Typically a LED light panel that I mentioned before will be used in a three round set-up just because they're slightly cheaper and give a full clearance whereas a ring light will still have a shadow area.

A final thing to consider when lighting for this type of interview is background, having a backdrop will massively affect the amount of light across the entire interview time but the key deciding factor is colouring. Having a black backdrop will absorb the light making it a darker scene and therefore a more serious and sombre tone for the interview. Whereas a white backdrop will reflect it back and light up the backend of the space as well making for more of a brighter tone and maybe a lighter topic.

Hopefully this will help you next time you film an interview.

A Night Time Shoot:

Now night, dark and not much exposure or reliance for the sun which gives you more flexibility when it comes to set up but like I said it's dark which makes it more difficult to show highlight maybe more key areas if modelling or can be used for a different effect and tone all together depending on where that light comes out at and the intensity.

For complete coverage I'll do both photography and filming just to make sure that I don't miss anything important.

Photography, on the face of it usually a bright subject, with studios and lights everywhere on white backdrops. But this doesn't mean that there's no reason not to use night for it, depending on where you go will determine what you need and where to put it, for example in a city shot you may not need that much extra lighting but using a tripod and lens hood will be musts to get the most out of the time there. Both of these will help with stability and for added measure the hood will also protect from lens flare form bright off shot sources.

However say you're promoting a product but you want a darker area so you use an alleyway in order to get the right shadows, then you run into another problem which is the light. As mentioned earlier having a tripod and lens hood will be a saviour no matter where you are but lighting the area will need to be considered, having a small portable light source will be handy even if it's a flashlight or a phone attachment as they are easy to get hold of and will give the right light needed.

For filming the same concept still applies, tripods and hoods will be a must in order to get the best product out of your time, but there's a new technique that will boost it to a new level.

So we're back in this alley way and you have your filming equipment set up: camera, tripod, lens hood, light source and subject but you feel it's bland. This new set up should help with colourings. Depending on what your going for will determine what colours, modern party then maybe strobe with brighter colour sheets or if it's more of a sombre moment then deeper colours like dark blues might be better off being used.

The reason for considering using colours when filming is that it adds that little bit extra to the scene and the reactions from the audience, it also helps in creating atmosphere and meaning lifting it up and bringing it forward.

Hopefully now you can see the importance of lighting in a night shoot for both photography and film and how adding or taking away can give it something extra.

Portable Documentary:

Now as the name suggests this is a filming setup where movability is key, now cameras are the easy part having them either handheld or on a body-rig but either way working with the camera is the easy bit now trying to get the best lighting that you can out of the scene while still trying to be portable is the more difficult part to this whole thing. Big lighting rigs like the one we discussed for the talking heads portion won't be as practical as others just because of transportation and time consumption in setting them back up to only collapse them again after a small segment.

Now for recommendations in terms of how to get the most use out of it, obviously the most well known and used lighting but the natural lighting from all around. This is one of the most common sources just because it's easily accessible for everyone and that 9 times out of 10 it will always cover enough area for your shoot without needing much more extra light, but in the cases of lets say a shadow overcasting the scene when you need light then you'll need some sot of set up, so you'll probably want some small ones.

One that you could use is a video light, these can be attached to a twist type of tripod and those can come in small sizes making them very portable and have enough brightness to cover whatever scene or setting you have. But because they're small this reduces their effective range and therefore limits what you can do with just one and will probably increase the amount spent on the production.

Now depending on the type of documentary glowsticks could be a good alternative, they still give the light needed but can also give a good and cheap alternative for colourings to give the scene a different tone or to emphasise a certain point made within the film. But again due to the small nature of them they'll still only cover a small effective area but then there's a bigger issue, glowsticks don't have the same time potential as the film light. The film light is battery powered meaning that only can it be recharged but it also can last a while in terms of life whereas once you snap and shake them glowsticks they only last a few hours if that so it's not cost effective either as you'd have to buy loads to counter balance the quickness that they run out.

From this your best bet will still be the film light just because you'll get more out of what money you put in, plus it adds colour sheets for cheap extras.

Hopefully this has given you a good insight into what lighting is good for what type of production.

Have a good day.