When lighting your scene you must create depth, have a motivated light and shoot shadow side—to name a few things! But how do you approach all of this? An understanding of basic 3-point and 4-point lighting setups will get us going in the right direction.
Take the image below—me in a large garage. We’re going to walk through four different lights to see what they do and also talk about when to use them. The lights we’re covering are key, fill, hair and background lights. So let’s go!
Your main light is called a key light. It’s typically placed at a 30-60 degree angle, and often just above eye-line. But this varies based on what you’re after. The key light typically does at least three things:
Your key light is often where you’re getting needed light for proper exposure. Not always, but that’s often a primary purpose. Sometimes I bounce a light off the ceiling or use a lantern soft box to lift overall luminance, and this has nothing to do with the key light. But often, the key is doing this for you. A key light is typically supporting your motivated light source.
Motivated Light: Every scene's lighting must have a motivated light. Meaning the source of the light we see. If there's a window in the room with sunlight coming in, that's a motivated light source. But it was night in the same room, you couldn't light the same way. It wouldn't make sense.The above applies to narrative filmmaking. For this example where I’m just standing in a garage and teaching? Different story. Light however you want. But for narrative film sets, you must have a motivated light or the audience will be confused. Take this image from RECKONING:
The lantern is the motivated light, and my key light (obviously not in the shot) is angled up and set to the same color temperature of the lantern. This gives me the look I wanted and helps with overall exposure.
The height, angle, intensity and diffusion of your key affects the shadows on your actors in unique ways. And your choice affects the emotions of the scene. A classic way to light is called “Rembrandt Lighting.” Check out the painting of a polish Nobleman:
Rembrandt often placed a small triangle of light on the shadow side of the subject’s face, just under the eye. Gaffers will often do this by placing the key light at a 45-degree angle and a little higher than the actor’s eye line. Looks cool, as long as it supports what’s going on with your story.
It’s all about story.
How can the placement of shadows on your actor’s face help the audience feel a certain way? Don’t just throw up your key light. For example, a couple sitting by a campfire on their first romantic outing vs kids sitting around the same campfire telling ghost stories are both going to require a different approach.
Play with your angles. Experimenting with lights ALWAYS pays off.
Another function of your key light is to provide a catchlight, which is a reflection in your actor’s eyes.
See the key light reflected in her eyes above? You want to do this. For whatever reason, it shows life. Take your favorite animation from Bluey to Pixar and you’ll see this in the character’s eyes. So when you’re lighting, make sure you see the catchlight in their eyes.
So that’s a key light in a nutshell! Let’s turn off the overhead fluorescent lights and turn on only our key in the garage shot example:
Some setups will not require a fill light, but most of the time you’re using one. First, understand that your actor’s face has a key side and a shadow or fill side. The key side is lit by the key light and the fill side is lit by the fill light. Make sense?
The fill light controls the light ratio on your actor’s face. The higher the ratio, the more contrast you have, and this is measured in stops. If you have an evenly lit subject, you have a 1:1 lighting ratio. If you have shadows on the fill side with the key light side 4 stops brighter, you’d have a 4:1 lighting ratio.
For our garage example I’m not using an actual powered light but simply a bounce board to provide a bit of fill, which means I still have a decent amount of contrast going on. Let’s add the bounce board and see how it looks:
See the difference even with a bounce board? The fill side of my fair has illumination, giving more detail to the cheek, ear, etc. With a dimmable LED you can dial this in to the precise lighting ratio you’re after.
Positioning a light source behind your subject can do A LOT. You’re typically placing fill lights on the fill side of your talent. Check out the image below:
The window has a large silk over it, offering a soft glow that highlights the subject’s hair in a pleasing way. Like the fill light, you’re not always using a back light. If you do, remember to anchor it with a motivated light source. You can’t just light up the rear of your actor because it looks cool. Always ask yourself, “where is this light coming from?”
I’ll position a hair light in the garage and turn it on:
As filmmakers we’re dealing with a 2D medium to tell our stories. Unless of course you’re shooting 3D. With 2D limitations we want to use our lights to create depth. This goes a LONG WAY in feeling cinematic vs feeling amateurish. A background light helps with this. It adds contrast and depth to your scene. Take the example below:
The canning closet behind the actor has a window which adds a lot of dimension to this image. If this was a night scene, we could simply place an oil lamp or candle in the closet—a motivated light source that goes with this 19th century film and gives us the background light for depth.
And something you can do is change the color temperature of the background light. Changing the colors of lights in your scene is another way to add depth.
Now I’ll turn on our garage background light and see what it looks like:
A lot better, right? Do I always do a three point lighting setup in my scenes? No. Sometimes on RECKONING the only light I used was a key light. However, the times I put more time and effort into my lighting changed the end result significantly!
I hope this basic run down of 3 and 4-point lighting helps you dial things in even more on your next film! If you’re a beginning filmmaker trying to learn the ropes, I highly recommend you check out our online film school! Write & Direct exists to teach aspiring directors the craft from development through post production. The right way with less month spent and an action plan to keep moving forward!
Also, if you’d like to see a video version of this lesson taken from the film school, here it is:
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