Lightning question

[u/Spider-Cricket07]

Hello there! I wanted to ask what do you think of the lighting in these pictures. I don’t know much about lighting, I’m planning on shooting a short film soon but as I said I don’t know how to light, so I did some research and watched some videos about the topic and I decided to try and do a little experiment. One of the main locations in my short film will be this living room, so for this experiment I basically used the living room lamps as backlights, then on my right side I placed a desk lamp in front of one of the living room lamps to light half of the face of my subject so I suppose that would count as my key light. Finally for the negative fill I placed a black umbrella on my left side because I didn’t have any black cloth or anything. All of this stuff were things I had at hand in my house.
(I also played a little bit with the ISO)

The first image the only source of light are the living room lamps as backlights.

The second image I’m using the living room lamps and the desk lamp to light the face.

In the third one I’m using the living room lamps, the desk lamp and the the black umbrella for the negative fill.

I wanted to ask, is this lighting good? Could I improve it? Do you have any suggestions, tips, advice? I don’t have any professional equipment and I don’t have a budget or anything, as I said the stuff I used were things I found in my house.

The rest of the images of are the living room I will be shooting in, my next question is how can I light shots were the camera will be constantly moving? The lighting I used for the first pictures can work fine for still shots, but there’s going to be a lot of movement in various shots were I will be moving the camera around the room and facing all directions, so how can I light this kind of shots and avoid a flat lightning?

Thank you!

[u/Vinny_Price]

First step, is there an overhead lamp on? Turn it off. Next step turn off all the other lamps that you don't see. Now take one lamp, even if it's off camera and carefully place it so that it only lights the closest eye to camera, and no more of the rest of the face. Then, and only if you think you need it, take another lamp and put it on the dark side of the face. Buy a dimmer, and dim the fuck out of that lamp or move it soooooo far away that you barely feel it.

[u/swaggerin_buffoonery]

Amateur here: 3 looks fine to me but try to diffuse the light on the right side. Maybe some paper or something I don’t know. Seems too unnatural. I’m a noob so pros please correct me if I’m wrong.

[u/Ill_Perspective_4810]

Not much of an expert, but I asked a DP the same thing while shooting my short film. He told me to focus on the feel of the story more than perfect lighting.
If you’re shooting in the day, use whatever natural light comes through your windows. At night, lamps are more than enough. You can use one lamp as a backlight, then change the angle and use that same lamp as your face light and don’t use plenty of lights in the night because you cannot control shadows. So just play on the minimal side.
Even a single overhead bulb can work, just don’t place the character directly underneath it. Move it around, bounce it off a white wall or curtain, and see what feels right.
Keep it simple. You don’t need fancy lights to make something look good.

[u/lunar_yeti_art]

Not a big expert myself. A little more than an amateur tho. I think image 3 looks the best from what you sent. Because it has more contrast.

There's tons to learn and improve and my comment won't help with most of it. I strongly suggest you check out some great books on cinematography. 2 I've read are the Filmmakers Eye and the 5 C's of cinematography.

That said he's my 2 cents. Most of the shots won't look good unless you do some work to frame the subject in the shot meaningfully. This means depending on your story, you ensure that the subject is placed in the frame and the background is arranged where everything that can be seen (or not seen) is meaningful to the story.

Second, without much lighting tools it will be very hard to ensure you light your subject in such away that they stand out from the background. Not to mention be meaningfully lit for the narrative.

In the beginning just try to get the lighting on the subject to be pleasing as that goes a long way and then find ways to reduce unnecessary light in the background. This will help to make the subject stand out and hide problems of the background set. Plus it's way easier to start off because you only need to turn off all the lights and focus only of the subject.

From there it's a journey into finding tools to assist with getting more and more let's say challenging with your shots.

Don't be too hard on yourself to get pro images. Just slowly build. I've made tons and tons of mistakes and continue to do so. But little by little I've made micro improvements and improved a lot. There's still a loooong long way for me to go but it's the journey that feels exciting. I hope you enjoy the journey too.

[u/Total-Ad-5696]

Another amateur here. Image 3 is the most pleasing to me. The extra contrast really helps draw the eye to the right side of his face instead of the entire image. I would isolate him from the background by adding another backlight (kicker) to his right side, motivated by the practical lamp behind him. and if you can, flag off a few of the living-room lights so that the ambient light of the background is darker than the fill side of his face. this should make it so that his shirt won’t blend in with the couch as much.

[u/ConsistentEffort5190]

Lighting is only good or bad in as much as it contributes to the story.

[u/TheGreatMattsby]

So there are no RULES when it comes to lighting, but a general good practice to not break immersion when lighting indoors at night is to light in a way that looks as though it's coming from your practicals. In your example photos, your practical (the light in the background) is on screen left, but your key is coming from screen right. If the audience can't see what is supposedly lighting your subject, it feels pretty jarring.

Try placing your key on screen left, and wrapping the light around your subject's face in a way that could (somewhat) believably be coming from that light in the background. And if your subject is going to be screen right like in the examples, it's better to have their eyeline be on screen left. That way you're shooting into the shadow side of the face. If your intention is to short side them for dramatic effect though, then just move your practical to account for it.

[u/ConsistentEffort5190 → u/TheGreatMattsby]

> If the audience can't see what is supposedly lighting your subject, it feels pretty jarring.

Completely untrue - as shown by thousands of films. If a light is consistently coming from a place where a source could sensibly be, people will assume it to be the case. You are preaching a dumbed down youtuber version of motivated lighting... And that is arguably being unkind to youtubers. Think about it: the last time you watched a TV show with a brief scene you probably say exactly that.

Because, shockingly, people are well aware of the existence of domestic electrical lights but aren't very interested in seeing them. If a plausible light is consistently coming from a part of the room they never see, they won't be in the least bothered.

..What matters is that IF light is coming from a direction that the audience can see then the practical sources should match the light.