Fiction Adaptation: Lighting Workshop & Slow Motion

To understand how light can be shaped and coloured, we used tungsten lights with coloured gels to see what effect different colours and angles mixed together would have:

Coloured lights:

For these shots, we used three lights, set up in the three point lighting arrangement -- orange as key, pink as fill, and red as the backlight.

To create the shadow, both the orange and the pink light were bouncing off the ceiling, diffusing some of the intensity and creating a separation.

This is because orange, pink, and red, as colours which are next to each other on the colour wheel, create an analogous colour scheme, since they are similar in tone, yet they can still create tints -- however, these tints and shadows appear united with the rest of the colours, creating a style of matching tones (Risk, s.d).

This type of colour scheme is typically constructed using a dominant colour -- here the orange keylight -- with a supporting colour, the pink keylight, along with another, the red, to fill in and highlight the image, creating the separation from the background (Risk, s.d).

To create a 3D colour like effect behind the subject, we also used three lights, set up similar to the three point lighting arrangement, but with the orange light bouncing off the ceiling, acting like a backlight.

This therefore created an effect which seemed to blend the red light, which was raised and acting as a key light, with the blue, which was lowered and acting as the fill, since they were slightly diffused by the orange.

Since red and orange are warm colours and blue is a cold colour this creates a complementary colour scheme, which is when warm and cold colours or colours from opposite sides of the colour wheel are combined to imply conflict because of the tension caused (Risk, s.d).
This can be seen in these shots since the red appears to overpower the blue, since the red covers a smaller area, causing it to be more intense. Therefore, the subject seems highlighted in red, with the blue being confined to the background and the subject's shadow.

Spotlight:

To illuminate the subject as if by a spotlight, we used a blue light raised to a height so that there were hard shadows on his face and neck, as most of the light's intensity was spread over the top of his head.

This lighting technique creates a "chairscuro" effect, usually used in film noirs since it "emphasizes shadows and harsh lighting to create a sense of depth and volume" (Machado & Le, s.d).

However, since it is only one ray of light, which can be shaped, it is also known as "volumetric lighting", which describes rays of light, such as those coming through a blind, but they can also be created using artificial lighting (such as here), as long as the light can be controlled and is intense (Cawley, s.d).

Slow motion:

Slow motion shots are typically used in film to suspend the audience's disbelief, giving them time to think and therefore highlighting what they are feeling at that moment (Shi, 2016).

To get these shots of water in slow motion, the frame rate of the camera has to be increased. To do this on the Panasonic DVX200:

1. Go to scene file in the menu
2. Ensure VFR is switched on -- this gives the option to change the frame rate
3. Increase the frame rate to 120 frames per second

This process creates the slow motion effect by capturing the frames quicker than they would be captured at a standard frame rate, such as 24 frames per second, and then replaying them in an instant (Shi, 2016). In this way, slow motion is able to better capture crisp details, such as the bubbles in the water as it falls into the glass.

References

Cawley, J. (s.d) 'Volumetric Lighting -- Part 1: The Basics.' In: Zacuto. At: https://www.zacuto.com/volumetric-lighting-part-1 (Accessed on 11 December 2018).

Machado, R. & Le, J. (s.d) 'Film Lighting Basics: Soft Lighting and Hard Lighting in Film.' In: Zacuto. At: https://www.zacuto.com/film-lighting-basics-quality (Accessed on 11 December 2018).

Risk, M. (s.d) 'How to Use Color in Film: 50+ Examples of Movie Color Palettes.' In: Studio Binder [online] At: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/how-to-use-color-in-film-50-examples-of-movie-color-palettes/ (Accessed on 11 December 2018).

Shi, D. (2016) 'Slow Motion Becomes the Star in this Film-Making Review.' In: Vice. [online] At: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/yp59nj/art-of-slow-motion-video (Accessed on 11 December 2018).