Lighting for digital video and television - 3rd ed

Lighting for Digital

Video and Television

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Lighting for Digital

Video and Television

Third Edition

John Jackman

AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON

NEW YORK • OXFORD • PARIS • SAN DIEGO

SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jackman, John, 1957-

Lighting for digital video and television / John Jackman.—3rd ed.

p. cm.

Ref. ed. of: Lighting for digital video & television.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-240-81227-4 (alk. paper) 1. Video recording—Lighting. 2. Digital video—Lighting.

3. Television—Lighting. I. Title.

TR891.J33 2010

778.59’2—dc22

2009046286

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-240-81227-4

For information on all Focal Press publications

visit our website at www.elsevierdirect.com

Typeset by: diacriTech, Chennai, India

10 11 12 13 14 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

v

Contents

acknowledgements����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� viii

INTRODUCTION������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ ix

Chapter 1 Why Is Lighting Important for Television and Video?��������������������������������������1

Exposure and Contrast...........................................................................................3

Beyond Basic Exposure����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������6

Chapter 2 Human Vision, the Camera, and Exposure�������������������������������������������������������11

What You See����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������11

What the Audience Sees......................................................................................13

Fitting in the Window............................................................................................17

So What Happens if We Don’t?..........................................................................18

Inside the Legal Video Signal..............................................................................19

Proper Exposure...................................................................................................28

Controlling Contrast.............................................................................................30

Controlling Color.................................................................................................... 35

The Kelvin Scale.....................................................................................................37

Chapter 3 Volts, Amps, and Watts����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������41

Standard Connectors...........................................................................................48

Power Tie-Ins and Contractor Connections....................................................53

Electrical Safety.....................................................................................................53

Chapter 4 Lighting Instruments��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������57

Open-Faced Instruments.....................................................................................57

Lensed Instruments..............................................................................................60

Fluorescent Instruments.....................................................................................64

Hmi Instruments................................................................................................... 67

Ceramic Discharge Metal Halide.......................................................................69

Soft Lights�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������70

Specialty Instruments.......................................................................................... 72

LED Instruments..................................................................................................... 74

Cookies and Snack Boxes Aren’t for Lunch.....................................................75

Chapter 5 Lighting Controls and Uses��������������������������������������������������������������������������������77

Gels���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������77

Diffusion�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������82

vi Contents

Chapter 6 Basic Lighting Techniques����������������������������������������������������������������������������������91

A Sense of Depth...................................................................................................91

Basic Lighting Setups..........................................................................................96

Lighting Ju-Jitsu, or the Art of the Reflector.................................................101

Using a Kicker for Modeling.............................................................................103

Using Soft Lights................................................................................................103

Hard or Soft?........................................................................................................105

Chapter 7 Interview Setups������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������109

Basic Three-Point Interview Setup................................................................109

Hard or Soft?.........................................................................................................113

Simplifying the Soft Look..................................................................................116

But Wait, There’s More!......................................................................................119

Chapter 8 Solving Common Problems������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 121

Hot Spots: Film Folks, Be Vigilant!..................................................................121

Eyeglasses............................................................................................................123

Practicals and Light Sources in Frame..........................................................126

Lighting Dark Complexions...............................................................................128

Too Much Light in All the Wrong Places!.......................................................132

Different Color Temperatures in the Scene..................................................134

Chapter 9 Studio Lighting��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 139

Power System and Grid.....................................................................................142

Fluorescent Instruments...................................................................................146

LED Lighting.........................................................................................................147

Designing a Lighting Plan with Flos or LEDs..............................................148

Flat Lighting.........................................................................................................149

Chapter 10 Advanced Lighting Setups�������������������������������������������������������������������������������157

Establishing Mood..............................................................................................163

Lighting Darkness: Interiors.............................................................................165

Lighting Darkness: Exteriors.......................................................................... 168

Daytime Exterior Contrast Management.......................................................173

Light Surgery........................................................................................................176

Chapter 11 Lighting Low-Budget Locations���������������������������������������������������������������������179

Make Location Lemonade................................................................................180

Low-Budget Lighting Principles......................................................................181

Low-Budget Lighting Process.........................................................................182

Using Existing Light and Improvised Cheap Lighting................................190

��

Contents vii

Chapter 12 Specialized Lighting������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 193

Product Shots......................................................................................................193

Food Shots............................................................................................................197

Lightning and Fire...............................................................................................199

Automobile Interiors.........................................................................................204

Blue- and Greenscreen.....................................................................................206

Church and Wedding Lighting.......................................................................... 212

Live Theatre Taping............................................................................................ 216

Chapter 13 Imagination and Invention������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 219

Appendix 1 Using a Light Meter for Video�������������������������������������������������������������������������225

Light Meter Basics............................................................................................ 226

Appendix 2 Basic Primer in Signal Monitoring���������������������������������������������������������������� 229

Waveform Monitor............................................................................................. 229

Vectorscope........................................................................................................ 230

Appendix 3 Addresses of Manufacturers���������������������������������������������������������������������������233

Glossary������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������237

INDEX................................................................................................................................................257

viii

Dedicated to my wife Debbie, who has had to listen to me criticize the lighting

of movies and television for donkey’s years, and without whose help and

support my production work—and this book—would not have been possible.

Special thanks also to my technical editor, DP Arledge Armenaki, who helped

make sure that even the most technical stuff was both correct and understand￾able. Special thanks also to Nic Morris, BSC, who helped us make sure that we

included European and British terminology instead of only American slang.

And a special tip of the hat to the late Bob Collins, SOC, who was going to be

our original technical editor. You are much missed, Bob!

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction

I participate in a number of Internet forums related to video production and

often field questions about lighting issues. After a thread where several of us

explained to a beginner why he needed to light his videos, one wag posted:

“Remember, without lighting all you have is a black picture.”

Facetious, tongue-in-cheek, but true! The most common mistake beginning

video shooters do is to overlook the importance of good lighting.

I’ve always been interested in lighting. In my earlier days it was theatrical light￾ing; I just loved playing with the light boards (built one myself) and figuring

out dramatic lighting effects. Then I became interested in video production.

That was back in the days of the Sony PortaPak®, the genesis of “guerilla video”

however, and we didn’t do no stinkin’ lighting. Point-and-shoot was pretty

much all we did outside of the studio. The PortaPaks® ran ½" reel-to-reel tape,

black & white only, about 150 lines of resolution on a good day. The tape deck

was about the size of a mini-tower computer today, with a shoulder strap and

batteries that seemed to last about 10 minutes. Then along came ¾" U-Matic®

and then ¾" SP. And then came the day when a great program I had done was

rejected for network broadcast because of poor lighting in some critical inter￾view scenes.

I got back “into” lighting with a vengeance. My earlier fascination with theat￾rical lighting effects was reawakened and I started to experiment. When the

first 3D programs came out (anyone remember DKBTrace, the original Caligari,

and Turbo Silver?) everyone else was playing with reflective surfaces—but I was

playing with the lights! I’ve been playing with lights ever since.

Once you discover the difference great lighting can make, you’ll be playing

along with me!

—John Jackman

Lewisville, NC

Fall, 2009

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1

© 2010 Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.

D.O.I.: 10.1016/B978-0-240-81227-4.00005-1

CHAPTER 1

Why Is Lighting Important

for Television and Video?

If you’re fairly new to television, video, and digital movie production, you

may not really have a sense of why lighting is so important. After all, today’s

cameras are so light sensitive you can often get away without any additional

lighting. The only thing you don’t understand is why sometimes your shots

are overexposed or contrasty; and you may not be able to figure out why one

shot will look like a Hollywood film and the next will look like a really bad

YouTube video.

If, on the other hand, you’re more experienced in television and event video

production, you may understand a lot about the basic issues of controlling

contrast and exposure—but would find it challenging to light a realistic night

scene or simulate natural lighting in a living room for a dramatic movie. These

situations are very different from flat studio lighting and a classic three-point

interview setup.

Whether you’re a rank beginner with a video camera or a moderately experi￾enced video user who wants to get into the more advanced world of dramatic

moviemaking, I hope this book will prove to be a helpful guide to understand￾ing lighting and how it contributes to effective image making.

The real key to fine lighting is not only to simulate reality, but to communicate

the proper mood and feeling to the viewer. You need to know more than just

basic techniques or tricks; it’s best to have an understanding of how certain

looks will communicate to your viewers. You need to develop an artist’s eye for

light and shadow and color, and the techniques for reproducing them. Ulti￾mately, great lighting is an ongoing learning experience that can graduate from

craft and technique to the realm of art.

In this book, we’re going to travel through the world of television, video,

and digital movie lighting in a fairly methodical way, so that you build an

understanding of the “why” behind the “how to.” If you’ll come along for the

2 Lighting for digital Video and Television

journey (rather than cheating and just flipping through

to find a setup diagram or two), by the time we’re

finished you’ll understand the principles behind

the techniques. At that point, you’ll be able to

improvise, to create new techniques for unique

situations, rather than having to fall back on

some textbook diagrams; and it means you’ll be able

to do a better job at any lighting scenario.

Why is lighting so important to great video? There are a number of different

reasons, some of which have to do with the camera itself and the way the imag￾ing system translates light into an electrical signal, and others of which have to

do with the fundamentals of human perception. But just as important is the

fact that we’re creating an illusion. Like a magician, we’re trying to convince the

viewer of something that isn’t quite true. We’re trying to make it seem as if col￾ored plasma flickering across a flat glass screen are actually lions and tigers and

bears and people, the great outdoors, the grandeur of space, and the depths of

the sea. We’re trying to create the illusion of depth and size in a tiny flat plane.

And even more difficult, we’re not really trying to capture what the eye sees.

We’re trying to capture the mind’s interpretation of what the eye sees, which can

be a wholly different thing. But more on that later!

Figure 1.1

Owen Stephens, Society of Operating Cameramen (SOC), lights an intimate lunch in Naples,

Florida, with his Pampa portable fluorescent instruments.

Like a magician,

we’re trying to convince the

viewer of something that isn’t

quite true.

Why Is Lighting Important for Television and Video? CHAPTER 1 3

Good lighting is important for quality video in three different ways:

■■ First, you have to have proper exposure, enough light to generate a sig￾nal from the CCDs and raise the signal to a proper level, but not exceed

the limits.

■■ Second, you have to create the illusion of depth through use of

highlights and shadows so that the viewers forget they are watching a

36” 3 20” rectangle of glass with flickering plasma behind it.

■■ Third, you have to use tricks and illusions to create mood and feeling

with the lighting, just as the music director will create mood and

feeling with the music.

Exposure and Contrast

The most obvious way in which lighting is important for video is in basic

exposure. Like the wag said, “without lighting all you have is a black picture!”

You have to have enough light on your subject to excite the electrons in the

camera’s imaging chips to a certain level. It doesn’t matter that you can see it—if

the camera can’t see it, your video is toast. You’d think this would be obvious,

but it’s amazing how many people will try to create a night scene by just shoot￾ing in the dark.

This is probably one of the most common

“postmortems” that I do, when folks bring

me their videos and ask what went wrong. The

producer of an independent short brought me

some raw camera footage to review a scene

his crew had shot out in a field at night with

a Sony VX-1000 (Figure 1.3), the first popu￾lar DV camcorder—and one that was notori￾ous for its poor low-light performance. They

had (almost) all the right equipment, but they

really had no idea how to use it, and the result

was dreadful. They’d shot in a field with no

easily available power, so they brought a small

generator and several lights. Unfortunately,

they didn’t bring enough “stingers” (exten￾sion cords), so when they got the generator far

away enough that it wouldn’t interfere with the

audio, they couldn’t get the lights very close to

the subjects. Then, rather than concentrating

the light all on one side (which might have

just barely worked), they distributed them

around to create a flood of weak, flat lighting.

Then they turned on the AUTO EXPOSURE

control on the VX1000—a true beginner’s mis￾take. Since the VX1000 was very poor at low

Figure 1.2

The Sony VX1000 revolutionized digital moviemaking, but

had very poor low-light characteristics.

4 Lighting for digital Video and Television

light situations to begin with, the AUTO circuits kicked in full gain to try and

make the scene look like a fully lit room, rather than a dark night scene. With

the gain all the way up to 118 db, the result was a flat, grainy picture that

looked like surveillance video. The one thing it didn’t look like was a night

scene. “What can we do?” wailed the producer, who had now wasted a whole

day on this scene.

I drew a diagram, using the same lights they had used but lots more stingers to

bring the lights closer to the subjects. I put most of the lights in a group on one

side with ¼ blue gels. I used one ungelled light as a kicker from the rear on the

other side, leaving the camera side unlit. Then I showed their young shooter how

to expose manually. The results were pretty good, giving a feeling of a moonlit

night. I think they even gave me a credit in the roll!

But just as you must have enough light, too much light or too much contrast can

be a problem as well. If a backlight is too intense compared to the key, the

highlights will be “hot”—over the electronic definition for full white—and may

“clip” so that there is no detail in that area of picture. If the camera operator

Figure 1.3

Lighting diagram for the VX1000 night shoot.