From the course: Video Interview Production Techniques

Natural vs. artificial light

From the course: Video Interview Production Techniques

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Natural vs. artificial light

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- There's a reason why there's an entire industry built around film lighting. Where you place your lights gives your scene character. It sets the mood you want your audience to feel. The same scene can be shot with different lighting to give completely different moods, from an interrogation scene, a romantic dinner, or even a horror film, all due to the lighting. There's two types of lighting that I'm going to talk about in this course. Natural lighting, or light from the sun, and artificial lighting, or light not from the sun. You can achieve a lot using only natural light. It's one of my favorite light sources to work with. I've worked on entire documentaries shot solely using natural light. It's perfect for skin tones, because it's how our eyes evolved to see color. And it's the most powerful light source we have. However, that can be a major disadvantage. If you're filming only using natural light, avoid direct sunlight. It'll cause bright spots in your subject's face, as well as dark shadows on the other side, and it will cause them to squint, which may be uncomfortable for them. Also keep in mind the sun angle and how long you're going to be filming for. The sun moves. Clouds appear or reappear. The light will always be changing. For short interviews this may not be noticeable, but for longer interviews, or multiple interviews spread out throughout the day, the sun is going to move, and your light will always be changing. What you're able to achieve with artificial light is only limited to your skills, the tools you have and the budget. I'm using artificial light right now to mimic natural light. And also to balance out the windows behind me. It gives the room character. It makes the space feel alive. That's the advantage of using artificial light. You can have complete control. You can shape the light however you want. However, that's the big challenge. It takes some skill to make it look right. There're some great courses by authors like Jem Schofield, Greg Pickard and others, go really deep into the how-to of lighting. I really encourage you to watch them and learn the skills necessary.

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