Book for lighthing?

Once you understand the concepts of Key, Fill, Back, and Background, that's really all you need to know. Then go practice. You can read other books if you want, but you won't learn THAT much, at least not as much as practicing for a couple hours or watching someone who knows what they're doing

google "3 point lighting" and then go practice
 
I would not use three point lighting for a movie set, talking head maybe. In Altons book you'll find 8 points of lighting. Anything less is not going to give good results IMO.

G
 
Cheesesailor77 said:
Once you understand the concepts of Key, Fill, Back, and Background, that's really all you need to know. Then go practice. You can read other books if you want, but you won't learn THAT much, at least not as much as practicing for a couple hours or watching someone who knows what they're doing

google "3 point lighting" and then go practice
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Exactly. Why buy a book when there is so much free information out there?
 
This book was recomended to me by my IATSE friends a few years ago, I still find It helpfull today, it's considered to be the "ASC Manual" of sorts for lighting/grip

Title - Set Lighting Technician's Handbook

Author - Harry C. Box
 
shawneous said:
"Painting with Light" is an amusing history of lighting book. QUOTE]

If that all you got from that book maybe you should read it again. The information is dated when it comes to the fixtures, but the principles are just as relevant now as they were then. John Alton did more to transform our industry in terms of lighting then any other single individual, he is the reason for many of our current techniques. The rest of your reccomendations are good, but if I had but one book to learn lighting from it would be John Altons, get the bsaicis down then you can create your own style from there.

CoolLights said:
Exactly. Why buy a book when there is so much free information out there?QUOTE]

There is quite a bit of information out there, unfortunatly there is a lot of bad information out there as well. I visitied one site reccomended in another thread here and saw a woman sitting in a chair right in front of a corner in the wall. Each wall was lite with a different color and the author was explaining what a great effect you can get lighting in this manner. Well once I quite laugh and picked myself up off the floor, I realized that there would be some people visit this site and think it is a noraml lighting scheme. First you never grow a line out of someones head. secondly two different color lights unless you have previously established there existance will look totally unreal and take people out of the story. Third you never have such hard cuts on background lighting unless you have to define space.
In a book by an expert you are not going to get bad information like this. The information is organized to maximize your understanding. There's a lot of lessons that have been learned by those who have gone before us, you can learn from them by paying a few dollars for a book, or you can spend much more time and money and make the mistakes yourself. Once you have the base knowledge, get some lights and go out and light, you'll have much better results much quicker and build your own style sooner. Painting With Light is one of the text books I use in the lighting class I teach and it works. The labs my students have to lite are difficult objects and subjects and they continually blow me away at the depth of understanding they have of lighting principles and the images they can create.
With this final thought "Education is never as expensive as ignorance" I'll get off my soapbox. Bigshiny spoon, I think your taking a step in the right direction in getting a book. There are some good suggestions here, check them out on Amazon and get the one(s) that appeal to you. I think you'll be time and money ahead.
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Gopher_Greene said:
There is quite a bit of information out there, unfortunatly there is a lot of bad information out there as well.
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Wow, thanks for the heads up. Better practice safe surfing then.:thumbup:

Can we see a link to the site with the light sticking out of the girl's head. Maybe we'd like to join in the laughter...
 
I agree with Shawneous Lighting for Film and Digital Cinematography whilst a bit expensive is a really good book for learning
 
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