From the course: Creating a Short Film: 07 Cinematography

Unlock this course with a free trial

Join today to access over 22,500 courses taught by industry experts.

Blocking and bouncing light

Blocking and bouncing light

From the course: Creating a Short Film: 07 Cinematography

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Blocking and bouncing light

“

- In this movie we're going to look at how to work more with light. There's a lot more to controlling light than just diffusing it. Blocking light is also an important skill in cinematography. Part of lighting is deciding what gets lit and what doesn't get lit. To block light we often use something called a flag. This is kind of like the silks we looked at earlier except that flags are meant to block light completely. This is helpful if your light is light in the background or spilling onto something else. Here's a good example. In this test with Bitsy, while we were setting up the backlight, the light was spilling onto the background. Now because it was spilling onto the background, it reduced the contrast between the background and her backlight. So my trusty assistant Elijah Tiegs set up a flag on a C-stand to block the light so that it doesn't shine on the background behind her. Now this keeps the light on her but darkens the background. This makes it so that the backlight really…

Contents