This document provides an overview of lighting techniques for television production. It discusses key lighting concepts like the properties of light, color temperature, lighting ratios, and how lighting can be used to establish mood, draw attention, and enhance three-dimensional effects. Specific lighting setups are also covered, such as three-point lighting, back lighting, fill lighting, and high-key versus low-key lighting. The document aims to give production staff a working knowledge of lighting fundamentals and instruments.

1. PRODUCTION TRAINING
8TH
WRAP UP
By
Shahzad Ali Raki

2. TV
LIGHTING

3. What is Light
Light is a form of energy ,that associated with
molecular motion
1. Light Travel in straight rays
1. Light Travel in Packets (photon)

4. What is Light?
Light = different wavelengths of energy.
Red has the longest wavelength and blue has the
shortest.

5. Light Theory
• White light is a mixture of full; red, green & blue
wavelengths.
• RGB can make all colours in the visible spectrum. Mixing
of primary colours= makes secondary colours:
Cyan, Magenta & Yellow

6. How We See Light – The Eye

7. Importance of Light
• Without light it is virtually
impossible to make television images.
• Lighting=technical and aesthetic
function
• Proper light creates excellent
pictures

8. Objectives of TV Lighting
To fulfill the technical requirement i.e.
Sufficient level of illumination for the camera’s

9. 3-D Prospective
 The TV screen is two dimensional.
 Set design
 Proper use of light to emphasize texture,
shape and form

10. To thru attention to key object in a scene
The use of light and shadow can
reveal and conceal important
elements in the scene,
The director uses light to guide the
viewer’s attention within a scene.

11. To establish the mood of a scene
• Lighting makes a sense of
emotional to viewer
• To fix the time of the action
• It conveys feeling about time
i.e morning, evening, night & season.

12. Amount of light
• The amount of lighting a shot
will determine how clearly we see
the images
• The type of light affects the color

13. BRIGHTNESS
• The intensity or brightness of the light on a
subject affects how well a camera can see it
• Too little= too dark and underexposed
• The image will be soft and underexposed
• Will create a grainy look (this is called picture
noise)
• Bright light creates sharp and clear images

14. BASE LIGHT
• The existing light in an environment is called
base light.
• If you turn the lights off in a room you lower
the base light
• If you turn more light on then you raise the
base light
• Base light is often all you will have to work
with, but that doesn’t mean you can’t think
about lighting

15. DIRECTION
• The direction of a light source affects the way
light and shadow fall on a subject.
• Direction is determines by how you position
both the subject and the lighting fixture.
• Light from the side produces dimension and
texture where as light coming directly in front
(from the angle of the camera) will reduce
texture and shape.

16. QUALITY
• The quality of light refers to whether it is hard or
soft .
• Hard light creates sharp and well defined dark
shadows.
• It brings out the shapes and textures of the
subject
• Hard light is created by sunlight and directional
focused lighting fixtures

17. SOFT LIGHT
• Soft light is diffused and creates very few or no
shadows (like a cloudy day)

18. COLOR
• Light also determines the color an object will
be
• White light is an equal mixture of colors
across the full spectrum of red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo and violet
• Our eyes compensate for these differences in
color temperature
• Cameras don’t
• The type of light affects the color of the object

19. Although light can be any color
between ultraviolet and
infrared, There are two colors
we are concerned with:
5,600oK for daylight and
3,200oK for tungsten lamps.
Camcorders are programmed
with these two values as their
white balance presets.
Infrared
Ultraviolet
5600o K
3200o K
Color Temperature

20. COLOR TEMPERATURE
• The exact color and tone of light is called color
temperature
• Color characteristics are classified on a KELVIN
(K) color temperature scale.
• This scale measures the degree of red or blue in
the light (not the heat or brightness)
• The higher the color temperature the more
prominent the blue tones

21. Color Temperature
For example, in the photo on
the right,
both sources of light (sunlight
on the right; a standard light
bulb on the left)

22. Example of Color Temperature
Warm
(2000-3000K
Mid-range
(3000-4000K)
Cool
(4000K +)

23. Intensity Control Through Varying Distance

24. Light CoherenceCoherence, often
most neglected of the three variables.
In the photos above the objects are exactly the same. Two of the
variables of light are also exactly the same: intensity and color
temperature. The only difference is the third variable: the coherence
of the light. The first photo was shot with soft light, the second with
a hard light source.

25. Hard Light

26. Primary Factor of Lighting
• texture, fill in harsh shadows and separate from background
• Not too large contrast light and dark
• Create an even base light
• Working knowledge of two type of instruments
• Reasonable understanding of Understand 3 point lighting
to illuminate subject, give shape, add olor temperature

27. Foot Candles- Light’s Measurement
• Amount of light collected in a one
foot radius of a standard candle.
• Using a light meter, you measure the
objects.
• Example-Suit 15 ftc/Wall 700 ftc…
46:1 ratio

28. WHITE BALANCE
• Most cameras will white balance automatically
but some will have the option to do this
manually
• To do so you would select the color temperature
for the dominant light source,; place a white
object or card in that areas; point the camera at
the white object completely filling the screen and
perform the white balance function

29. Lighting for Television & Video
Design & Practice

30. Aesthetics
• Shadows
• Falloff
• Color
• High Key / Low Key lighting
• Patterns

31. Patterns
• Kukuloris (“Cookies”) or Gobos
24” or 42” sq.

32. Shadow projected on
background
Viera & Viera, p. 35.

33. Shadow
• Indicates distance, time, mood.
Zettl, H. (2005). Sight, sound, motion: Applied media aesthetics, 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Thompson-Wadsworth, p23

34. Falloff
Facial texture
Fast falloff Slow Falloff
Zettl, H. (2005). Sight, sound, motion: Applied media aesthetics, 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Thompson-Wadsworth, p28

35. Soft & Hard Light
• Dramatically different shadows and moods

36. Background Lighting
and CompositionBkgd. divided into B & W,
separates characters
Bkgd. Light used to create composition;
where does the light bkgd. lead you?
Photographs, Viera & Viera, p. 34
(The Third Man, Studio Canal Image, 1949) (8 ½, Corinth Films Inc., 1963.)

37. Background Light
• The same ¾ key, fill, background set up
• Different intensity for different moods
Bkgd.
Key
Fill
Photographs, Viera & Viera, p. 33

38. Cameo
• Black background, subjects sharply set off from
bkgd. No fill, no bkgd light. Sometimes a kicker.
Zettl, p. 43

39. Chiaroscuro
Zettl, p. 41
Here, light seems to radiate from a single candle hidden behind the
left woman’s hand.
Three functions:
Organic, Directional, and Spatial / Compositional.

40. Back Key- back light is dominant
• When light comes from behind.
• Frontal fill
Viera & Viera, p. 25

41. Eyelight, cont.
• Without eyelight,
eyes would be lost in
shadow.
• Give a sense of
“aliveness,” twinkle
Viera & Viera, p. 37, 81/2, Corinth Films, Inc. 1963

42. Eyelight:
Do you see a difference?
No eyelight
Eyelight

43. High Key / Low Key

44. What kind of lighting is this?
a. Low Key

45. Thank you!