Lighting Technique for Daniel's Kite and Under the Sun Film shoots

When it came to lighting Daniel's Kite this semester. I wanted to make sure I could distinguish my style of lighting within certain scenes of Daniel's Kite.

Firstly for the bedroom scene, I wanted to use Three point lighting.

As you can see from this screen shot. Three point lighting has been used. There is the fill covering the back walls of the set. The key light is shown on the fort and the back light is shown on the bed area. I feel that this helps to show that there will be two main areas of action taking place within the bedroom scene. These are within the fort as well as the bed area.

For the three point lighting, it has been harder to light up the subject, as there are three main focal points within the bedroom scene. The 1st being the fort, 2nd being the bed and the third being a fill light lighting the whole set. I feel we have been able to achieve this though by slightly re-adjusting the lighting into different position and angles to make sure we keep the actors well lit at all times. This is vital for when we film as we don't want our actors to be over or under exposed. As author Paul Wheeler says, "It is important, before lighting a scene, to be able to visualize the lighting ratio you are going to use. It is very time consuming to have to change your ratios after you thought you had finished lighting the set; it is unprofessional and the delay makes you unpopular with the production office" (2005, P.107). This will be vital for myself and the rest of the group as we don't want to look unprofessional by delaying the shoot as we do not know the lighting well enough for each shot and scene. That is why I feel using 'Three-Point Lighting' will be the correct lighting set-up to undertake in this scene.


Secondly for both projects, I want to make sure that the colour temperature used for each film is visually appealing. To achieve the cinematic look to both films I'm going to make sure that each scene film has the right style of colour temperature used for that scene. This would be colour temperature orange (CTO) for the happier/sunnier scenes within both films, and colour temperature blue (CTB) for the more intense/depressing scenes within each of the films, which have a low mood.

Using this Colour Temperature chart will help me to distinguish the different levels needed for the different scenes within both of my films. As Paul Wheeler says, "Colour Temperature is important to the cinematographer for a number of reasons. Technically, it is vital that any light source that is to appear neutral in the final rendition of the scene is emitting light of the same colour balance as that for which the film has been designed. Artistically, it is important that the cinematographer has an understanding of the psychological and emotional effects of the colour of light within a scene and that they have complete control over this colour. In order to evaluate or control anything, we must have a unit of measurement and a means of measuring. We measure differences in colour temperature in degrees Kelvin (K) using a colour temperature meter" (2005, P.120). Therefore in order to make sure I perfect and accurately complete my colour temperature levels for each film, it will be necessary to use a colour temperature meter to read the recordings, on what to use for each scene of each film.



References: Wheeler, P. (2005). Practical cinematography. Oxford: Elsevier/Focal Press. P.107 and P.120.