Film and video see light and contrast differently than the human eye. To make a scene appear natural on film, it must be lit artificially. Lights are needed to properly expose scenes, especially at night or with low light levels that the eye can see but film cannot capture well. Different lighting techniques like a soft front light combined with a hot backlight, using mixed colored temperatures, or silhouetting a subject against a bright background can be used to craft mood and tell the visual story.

1. J E M M A S H A W A N D Z A R A B H A T T I
LIGHTING

2. WHY DOES FILMMAKING NEED
LIGHTING?
• The reason for which lights are necessary in filmmaking is
that film does not respond to light the same way our
eyes do. Specifically, film and video see things in a much
more contrasting way.
• In other words, they cannot cope with the lighting contrast of real
life: if you shoot a scene without artificial lights, either the shadows
will go completely black or the highlights will go completely white.
• All of this means that if you want a scene to look natural,
ironically the only way to do that is to have enough light
to make film see the scene the way our eyes see the
scene.
• For the best results, the mood of the film must be
carefully crafted with lighting, amongst other things. Not
to mention the fact that there are many situations in
which natural light will not result in exposure at all.
• For example, there is no way you can do an exterior night shoot
without lights, even if there is a full moon.

3. SOFT FRONT LIGHT
/ HOT BACKLIGHT
• A popular technique in film
lighting is to use a soft
(diffuse) light source from
the front and a stronger,
more directional light from
the back, so that your
subject has a hot edge. The
soft frontal light is known as
the fill light; the strong light
at the back is known,
unsurprisingly, as the
backlight.
MIXING COLOUR
TEMPERATURES
• Using lights of different
colour temperatures can be
used to great effect. This
simply means using lights of
different colour in the same
shot. This was used to great
effect by James Cameron
in the steel mill scene of
“Terminator 2″, in which he
used blue and orange light
(motivated by moonlight
and molten steel
respectively).

4. BACKLIGHT
• Backlight is generally
essential in film, because
without it everything tends
to go muddy. But there are
also plenty of exceptions
— e.g. “Minority Report,”
which has some beautiful
shots with no backlight.
• Lack of backlight can work
well if the scene has a
chiaroscuro quality to it,
like Caravaggio’s
paintings.
SILHOUETTING
• Silhouetting means dark
subject against very bright
background — is it usually
quite a dark technique.
• For example: di Caprio’s
meeting with his dad in the bar
in “Catch Me if You Can.”
• The dark mood of the
lighting reflects the subtext
of the scene: as his dad
now knows that his son is a
fraudster, and di Caprio is
upset because his dad
refuses to ask him to stop.