Three Point Lighting

Earlier in the week we had a lesson that was vital in order to allow us to use the lighting equipment. This lesson was to introduce us to the use and understand the correct way to use lighting when filming. 

We first were told about the correct and incorrect ways of setting up the equipment as well as cooling times which is around 20 minutes. when using the red heads they are able to be placed on top of the tripod for the blondes but it should never be the other way around due to the weight of the blondes. Speaking of blondes and Redheads, we also learned a brief insight to the industry and the sexism that came with it e.g Blondes and Redheads are the nicknames for the different lights.

We learnt that we always need the safety grill on the front of the light at all times just in case of the bulb spontaneously bursting, the grill will guard shards being thrown into the air. also a good pair of gloves will be vital when moving the light or barn doors or even changing gels when it is still switched on.

We then went onto learning the equation that will need to be used on a daily occurrence when using lighting which is Volts x Watts = Amps. Being able to tally up the amount of amps you will need will need to be taken into account to stray away form electrical fires and blown fuses.

Moving onto rigging we were taught how to safely and securely detach and attach the lighting up to the scaffolding, two people will be needed, one on hand to hold the ladder and collect the light from the bottom and another to go up and retrieve the light. You will need to always make sure that the lights are switched off when changing the lights but you must also make doubly sure that the safety cable is always at hand and securely attached. Though if you are not wanting to move the lights physically to another point you can use a certain tool in order to reach up and tilt, darken and pan the light in either way you would like to make things easier.

Later on in the day we then had to set up our own Three Point Lighting in two separate groups. We had to film our results of using Key light, Filler light and Kick light. We used Conner Welsh as our subject and began to move the computer monitors out of the way so we have a blank white plain behind him. Once we had everything set up we filmed two different takes one with a red piece of gel and all the lights and another with only one light being used yet still filtering with a red gel to try and create moods. looking back to our results we were told that plug sockets and shadows were very clear though in some ways the Darth Vader shadow was used well due to the content that we had Conner talking about. Another thing we found was the way in which he was placed in the room helped the 3D effect and brought Conner out, where it would of been harder for the second group yet they found a great way of using there Kick light to add the three dimensional effect they were looking for. 

Now that we have been through and got the grasp of the correct way to use lighting it is now a component that we have access to for our individual films, which i will be taking advantage of to create my moods.