25/4 - Lighting Experimentation

Today I booked out 3 constant LED lights with stands, as well as a tripod and 3 different coloured gels, to get ready for filming.

I ideally want to finish filming this week (next week at the very latest), so I can move onto the editing and the promotional part of my project.

The editing will take the longest so I want to allocate a couple weeks to do it, learning from my previous mistakes from my last projects.

Practise:

I wanted to test out how the light will look against the sofa, in the location I am shooting my film.

If I’m being honest, I really have no experience or idea what I’m doing when it comes to lighting, so I needed today just to test out different settings/colours/positions of lighting.

I set my camera on my tripod using a tripod connector (pictured to the left), that I bought myself, and placed it at the angle I wanted it. Using the tripod gave me a much better angle that I was looking for, rather than the test angles I tried out last week.

Image of the tripod adapter used to mount my phone to the tripod.

I sat at both ends of the sofa and also stood up in front of the camera when testing these different lights, as I wanted to see how the light specifically affected my face and clothes. These are the positions my characters are shown in my film so hopefully that explains why I’m doing the same pose in every test.

Test #1:

I first tested out seeing how it looked on the camera, only using natural light from the window, coming in from the right hand side

Test #1, only using windows natural light.

Test #2:

I then placed a light to the left side of the camera, a bit more forward and tested out how it looked at different intensities. I still had the curtains open with the light coming through the window. The LED had a clear sheet over the top, have I haven’t incorporated any coloured gels.

Something to mention as well is that the TV was on, so some artificial light potentially might have affected how the scenes looked. The below diagram shows how the lights looked in this specific test.

Diagram of lighting positions.

Test #2, using a LED, and natural light.

Test #3:

I kept the light in the same position, and kept the curtains open, but put a red sheet over the top of the LED, to try and make the colour warmer and less harsh.

Test #3, using a red sheet on the LED.

Test #4:

I then took away the natural light from the window, as most of the shots are at night so I needed to test out how the lighting looked without the day light.

Test #4, using a red sheet on the LED, without natural light.

Test #5:

I then turned on two lights in my living room, and lowered the LED, to try and make the light look more comfortable and not light I was in a studio space.

Test #5, reducing LED % and using living room lighting.

Test #6:

I then added an additional light behind the camera, hoping to brighten up the subjects face a bit more. I turned light #1 off, and kept the TV on.

Diagram showing placement of additional light.

Test #6, adding additional light behind camera, 20%.

Increasing height of light, and reducing to 10%.

Test #7:

I then added a red sheet over the top of the light.

Diagram showing changes in lighting effects.

Test #7, red sheet added to light #2, 20%.

Test #8:

I then turned back on light #1, so now both lights have a muted red effect.

Diagram showing changes in lighting effects.

Test #8, both lights with a red sheet, light 1 30%, light 2 20%.

Test #9:

I then turned off the TV, to see what the lights look like without any added artificial colours from the TV.

Test #9, TV turned off.

Same lights, working with the camera angle.

Problem solving, moving camera backwards.

Test #10:

I then added a red colour gel to light #1, to add more red into the scene, and seeing how it looked on my skin.

Test #10, coloured gel on light #1.

Test #11, Problem Solving:

I then shut the door, as there will be scenes where the door is slammed shut, so I needed to see how the lights affected the scene when the environment changed a bit.

However, you could see the reflection of the red light in the door frame, so decided to move the light forwards a bit more to try and hide it.

Diagram showing changes in lighting.

Test #11, moving light forwards.

However, my skin was way too red, so I moved the light back again and tried to think of another way to hide the red reflection in the door frame. I don’t own any black or white boards used in actual lighting photography to block out light, so I use the next best thing I had, which was a white throw.

Looking back now I know I should have used something black, to absorb the light rather than reflect it, but at the time it was the only thing I had.

Using a white throw to try and reflect light away from the door.

This didn’t really work, as I didn’t have anywhere to hold up the blanket, but when I was holding it up myself, there as a point where it did successfully block out the light.

Instead I decided to lower the camera, hoping to maybe cut out the door from frame, only capturing the sofa.

This didn’t work, so in the end I decided to open the door slightly to hide the reflection.

Lowering the camera tripod.

Test #12:

I didn’t light the way the colour was affecting the scene at an angle, so I then changed the lights so light #2 had the coloured gel, and light #1 had a red sheet instead.

Test #12, light 2 coloured gel 20%, light 1 red sheet 30%.

However I soon realised you could see the reflection from light #1 in the door frame, just this time it was white rather than red.

Test #13:

I then moved light #1 back to the wall, and it definitely reduced the impact of the reflection. I also had to keep the door slightly open though, so you couldn’t see it.

Diagram of lighting changes.

Test #13, Moving light to the wall to try and hide door reflection.

Both lights at 30%.

Test #14:

I then added a yellow coloured gel onto light #1, as I wanted there to be a warmth to the scene, as well as red for love.

Diagram of lighting changes.

Test #14, adding yellow gel to light #1.

I found that the front of my face was too bright red though os reduced light #2 from 30% to 20%.

Reducing % of light #2.

I really liked this effect.

Test #15:

I then reintroduced the natural light form the window to see how it effected the scene.

Test #15, reintroducing 7pm window light.

Test #16:

My final test of today was just to see how the light looked without any LEDs, but with my living rooms lighting, and with he natural light.

Test #16, natural light + living room light.

Conclusion:

Overall, I think I have definitely learnt a lot from my lighting experimentation today. It has definitely made me a lot more confident going into filming tomorrow, and I now now how strong each light should be/where they should be placed.

There are some things I am looking back on that I think I should have changed but I will tackle them tomorrow when I film.

I am looking forward to trying out these different effects for real.