All language subtitles for 07-ShowDepthInYourImage.mp4

Now we're going to talk about showing
depth.

And this is all about staggering
contrast through space.

And so what you want to do when you are
thinking about the ways in which you

can stagger depth, is to think three
dimensionally.

And this is one of the hardest things
to grasp when it comes to cinematic

lighting.

How do I think about the scene

in a way where I'm lighting multiple
elements?

And things can either work separately
or they can work together?

And it's a very

much more

complicated way to have to consider
lighting.

The way I like to break it down is I
think about what's in my foreground,

what's in my midground, and what's in
my background.

And sometimes you may only have two of
those elements.

This is basically just like it's, for
the most part, a foreground in the

background.

I don't think there's a strong

maybe.

Maybe this safe over here is the
midground, but it's more or less like

there's a delineation of what's
happening in the depth of field.

Helps sell that, right?

So keys in focus, everything else gets
soft pretty quick.

I'm sold pretty quickly on what's in
the front and what's in the back.

And so

the most obvious way to stagger depth
and stagger contrast is to make the

background darker.

That's a really common way to do it.

Your attention goes to whatever is
bright, that's usually the subject, and

you don't want it to go to elements of
the background.

And so what I wanted to show you are a
few different iterations of what this

space could have looked like

and show you why I chose to light it
this way, more so than

how it could have ended up.

There are a lot of different ways.

You can modify the lighting of the
back.

And you can add lights, you can turn
off lights.

You can

add things like gobos or cookies,

and that can cast a shadow pattern.

And you see this a lot in filmmaking,
it's like, oh, I've got light coming

into the window.

Well, I can either put a light through
a window, or, if I don't have a window,

I can project a pattern of a window on
the back wall.

Those kinds of things happen all the
time, and they're very, very useful.

The only

particular thing about using

things like gobos and cookies is you
need a way to

project that image

appropriately.

And if you want it out of focus, it's
relatively easy.

But if you want it to be clean and
sharp as it is.

Sometimes, like those hard edges to the
Windows, you need a specific kind of

light that's going to do that,
something that we call like a spot

projector.

And they're made by a lot of different
brands, but that would be how you would

achieve that.

So

as you can see, in kind of that left
image, none of the lights were on,

and the right they're pretty much all
on in that space.

So the back one just basically says the
image looks dark, and there's not

really a whole lot happening.

It's

not really particularly visually
interesting.

The one on the right, things are
motivated.

It makes sense to have the rim light,
because on the left, like, there's a

rim light, and there's no background,
like what's happening.

It doesn't make sense.

But I didn't necessarily have to use
all those lights.

And I could have still achieved
motivated lighting, but I didn't

necessarily like it as much.

So

on the left image it's one of the
lights is on.

And so the background seems pretty
flat, but at least there's motivation

to the rimlight.

I didn't necessarily

prefer this.

It was just another option.

And when I go in, I start flipping
lights on and off and seeing what I can

get away with, and how it changes the
scene.

In the right one, I thought there was a
little bit of an improvement

with adding the light in the back.

So what I did was I put a big old pro
tongston

in that back room to put white coming
out the door.

And so this helped me stagger.

Contrast.

It says,

what's happening in the background,
isn't just dark and shadowless and

there's nothing happening.

There is a light in a doorway back
there.

So something back there has depth to
it, and it draws the eye, but it's not necessarily

was my favorite.

If this were like a movie or a scene,
maybe the light being on somebody comes

out of,

because it's meant to draw your eye to
that element.

So that's a way to think about

that consideration of depth.

But for this particular,

this particular image, I didn't feel
like it was the most successful.

Also,

I wasn't a huge fan of losing that back
highlight on the wall, which I thought

was really nice.

And when I only use the one light that
was closest to him, I didn't get it.

And so that was something else to keep
in mind.

Another like, side thing,

you can't really see this, but the wall
I'm sorry.

The door is actually a bright red door,

and it was very distracting in the shot.

And so I just put up a black v flat
over the front of it.

And you can kind of see it as you're
looking at it now, but you probably

didn't see it before,

because it's all out of focus.

And so sometimes things will be
distracting in your scene, you can just

kind of

block it.

And it makes it really easy.

When you separated the subject from the
background, you added the light onto

the hat.

What did you use to do that was in
another light, on a painter's pool or

something else.

So it was,

this,

it's up here.

There was a doorway right here, to his
right, which you can probably see in

the next shot,

that's the doorway.

And so

these were the raw files.

So you can actually kind of see the
boom arm coming out a little bit there.

I would obviously take that out later
on, but it was just, I needed it to

get, like, as far out of the shot as I
could.

But the angle, it was just a small
little thing.

It's not in some of them, like when I
moved it over a little bit, you can't

see it,

but yet, it was coming up.

And it's a pro tongston

and they are pretty powerful hot lights,

right here

with barn Doors on it.

The nice thing about the protongsons,

they fit the standard pro
photomodifiers,

so it just gives me the ability to.

And they also have

hmi versions that they don't run as
hot.

These run pretty warm, but they're
remarkably quiet for filming video,

which is nice.

But the really cool thing about them is
they dial down a bit lower in power

than the strope.

And

this, compared to the modeling light.

This is just a b one modeling, which is
how I used it.

It's not as powerful as this, so it
kind of goes modeling light, this light

strobe like in terms of power.

And so sometimes I just need something
that's

less.

Or,

as you're going to see in the theater
shoot, we had a lot of house lights to

deal with of the theater, and it uses
tongues and bulbs, and they're all very

warm.

And I wanted the light to feel very
cohesive across.

And so I use lots of gels.

And so with this,

all of these lights are in a much
closer color temperature, like the b

one modeling light.

It's not as warm as a regular tongues
and, but it's warmer than a strobe.

And so this becomes my key at a pretty
low power, but everything else, for the

most part, is running at a pretty
consistent color temperature.

And so it just kind of helps mesh

everything together color wise a little
bit better.

I'll talk about this a little bit
later.

But

with

this kind of work,

color

is

really important to

me.

And so you don't want the elements of
your production to fight with each other.

And so you don't want the lighting to
be different unless it's meant to be different.

But also,

color temperature is one of the first
things that I change when I'm setting

up.

And I rarely,

rarely use color temperature as

correct,

like I rarely use white balance as
correct as neutral.

Rarely

color

gives you the opportunity.

White balance gives your color the
opportunity

to have an emotional component.

We have an emotional response to
different forms of color.

Blue makes us feel a certain way.

Warm colors make us feel a certain way.

And so why would you not want to
utilize that?

If you can.

And so white balance is one of the ways
that I do that.

And so I regularly change the white
balance right off the bat to make the

environment look how I want.

Think of like, you know, the load of
the rings have the very cool posters,

like they were very bluish as coal.

White balance will give you most of
that effect.

Any movie that's set in the desert is
usually really warm.

And so it's all about the way you
manipulate

light.

I think

I remember hearing Eric almers talk
years ago about how he's a big fan of

using, like, a daylight white balance
for everything.

And so when you're shooting in the
sunrise, or he's shooting in, sunset is

still using that daylight white balance

and so, or a consistent white balance.

And so what that'll do is it gives you
the ability and the want to work with

different color temperatures of light
and appreciate different color

temperatures of light, because they can
lend themselves differently to what the

image might look like.

So I'm a big fan of that.

The overhead light

was obviously a warmer

color tunston, and your strove

was probably more daylight.

Is there a way to

gel that strode with the other?

I didn't hear, because I didn't use the
key light.

This wasn't actually firing as a
strobe.

I was only using the modeling light.

So it was a little bit

warmer than a regular strobe, but not

as warm as a tunsen, because it's the
bee one uses in LED.

But yes, and you'll see that during the
theater shoot,

we cto, we use warming filters on
almost all of the lights to match the

continuous lights.

And so when I'm doing this kind of
work, that's when I would use my much

more mild

filters.

I know a lot of people when they use
gels, they think about throwing in all

of these crazy colors and making things

purple and vibrant.

Red that's cool is totally a place for
that, and there's a place for it in

this, because a lot of filmmakers,

cinematographers who use really
aggressive uses of color, but the way I

probably use it more often than not, is
a way to correct and balance

the different lights that I have.

And I've got some fun ways to show you
how we took a bunch of different kinds

of light sources and got them close.

I will say

we used a few more lights than we were
anticipating with one of the sets.

So I didn't have as much

consistently colored warming gels.

So, like, some are a little bit more
red, some are a little bit less orange

as I would like.

But I could at least get them close
enough that the correction later on was minuscule

versus making something that was
really, really way off.

I could say, oh, this is a little bit
yellow.

Let me just tweak it a little bit, so
that yellow is a little bit more red,

or vice versa.

And so it just gives me a much

smaller change to make.

And so it's a little bit easier,

right?

Excellent.

So again, just to kind of touch on that
one more time, kind of my five simple

takeaways for cinematic lighting,

make the image a little bit darker.

Utilize that low key sensibility.

If you can

don't forget that shadows are your
friend, you're probably not going to be

doing lots of high key

butterfly light or broad lighting in a
lot of these instances.

It's going to be using using shadow a
lot more aggressively.

Control your film.

Know what that looks like, how dark you
want your shadows to be,

separate your subject from the
background.

That's probably one of the bigger
things, like, I'm a big fan of

making the light work for the scene.

But I also really love this is a little
bit of a departure, like painterly

sensibilities.

And when painters would paint, they'd
use a window there's one light, so I

didn't use a lot of rimlight in.

The work that's meant to feel like a
painting.

So when I'm doing this kind of stuff,
filmmakers regularly use that rimlight.

So what I need to do is figure out a
way that I can incorporate something

environmental that makes the rimlight
make sense.

For me.

That's what I need, like, I need that
association.

And so that's what I'm always trying to
create.

And then show depth.

How are the ways in which I can showcase

the depth across the image separate out
that foreground, midground in

background?

And so taking all of these
considerations into place, the left

image would be like how you'd come in.

And you'd set up that one main light
and try to shoot it how maybe you're

used to, photographically speaking.

And the one on the right is our
version.

That's following these more cinematic
Rules and helps tell that

story a little bit more clearly