Lighting Continuity

JoshuaNitschke

JoshuaNitschke

Well-known member
Hey guys.

I just started filming...bought my DVX100b just a month ago and made a short as soon as I could, I finished it just last week.

Not very happy with the lighting, but I think it got a little better with each shoot we did (3 shoots, each a week apart).

Anyways, I know there are plenty of books I should read to get a grasp on lighting basics, and I know my open faced lights suck (I'm broke though, so I can't do a lot about that yet), but my question is this:

I know that you are supposed to relight for each angle you shoot from. My question is, how do you keep a sense of continuity with the lighting if you are constantly relighting for the camera?
 
Hi. You generally light for each scene, not each camera angle. There will be times when you have to cheat and add some fill or move a light to kill a shadow, but obvious changes within a scene will not edit well.
 
SOOOO funny to see this thread. I have to share a story. I just did a short (first one in awhile) and the one thing that I found REALLY difficult was lighting continuity. I liked most of my actual lighting but it doesn't really flow. We shot every inch of one room over the course of a day. We had windows in the shot (with blinds, but the light changed continuously.) We jumped around the script so much ( a script that I had barely seen the final version of) that it was HARD to match where the light was supposed to be coming from. I didn't have a shot list to work off of. My director had it in his head and would just tell me what shot we would do next. I believe this is the biggest thing that made the lighting continuity difficult. I could barely get him to tell me what shot we were cutting from and cutting to. He said "You don't need to worry about that so much, I'm editing it." I feel that if I had a shot list, I could then organize the scenes in my head and make sure that certain scenes were lit the same way, even if they were shot at different times over the course of the day. Or I could sketch notes or little lighting diagrams on the list so that I could replicate the same look.

As for your question, Steve is right. You generally light for the wide (master) shot of a scene and make minor adjustments when you do the tighter shots. Watching movies, you can notice just how different the lighting of some wide shots is from the close-ups. Keeping MOST of your lights in the same positions will allow you to keep a much better sense of continuity. Hope that helps.
-Ryan
 
"Keeping MOST of your lights in the same positions will allow you to keep a much better sense of continuity. Hope that helps."

Not to mention more effecient shooting.

Gawd, that shoot must have been a nightmare.... did it ever get finished?
 
Keep an eye out for grain from shot to shot. The DVX is a damn fine machine, but it is still video and the same steps need to be taken. Some make the mistake of changing angles, then changing f-stops with in the same scene. Stay consistant, listen to the others above, and you should be fine. Try hooking up video assist until you get a good hold on the process.
Practice this:
Put one light on a subject, then turn off all of the other lights. Start dialing the iris until you eliminated the grain. Switch to your 1/8 ND and do the same. Again with the 1/64. Fine a "lighting field" that is visually pleasing and base you next usage on that.
I know this sounds wordy, but it may help. Post again if this makes no sence.
Hope it helps,
Matt
 
HybridCreations said:
Keeping MOST of your lights in the same positions will allow you to keep a much better sense of continuity.
-Ryan
Click to expand...

It really depends on what you're shooting and where your light is being motivated from. As long as your contrast ratio remains the same from shot to shot within a scene (if the mood is consistent), and you either motivate your light from the same source or have multiple sources to motivate from, no one is going to notice that the position of your lamps has changed.
 
J.- Eh, it was rough, but it did get done. We did 3 days pretty much like that and got rained out of the fourth. We should be doing that one last day in the next couple weeks. I just saw the rough cut of a few scenes and noticed how big of a deal continuity of lighting is. I don't really blame my director, we were all a little underprepared and disorganized and RUSHED. But I think I realized just how important having a clear shot list can be. I know there's a thread about shot lists somewhere, but how can I convince him just how important one is? (We're teaming up for quite a few projects) I tried to impress the fact that he would have to waste less time explaining things to me so he could focus on performances.

Matt - That sounds interesting. When you say grain, are you referring to noise, like mosquito noise, or more like the grain you get from gaining up?

Iain - Of course you're right. I suppose I was oversimplifying a bit:)
 
Thanks for the info, guys.

Matt, what I think your saying is that the iris should be more on the closed side than on the open side, yes? If I understand how the camera works, if the lighting isn't good enough, and the iris is completely open, then the camera tries to compensate using gain, which introduces grain? So you want to brightly light your scene and use ND filters to help expose properly?
 
Yeah Matt I'm kinda confused with what you're saying as well, I'm just taking a wild guess and saying that you just want to make sure that all your stuff is in the range of the cameras sensitivity as to eliminate grain. Right?
 
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