1

Introduction

Lighting on location is a m ixture of technology and technique. It is a skill required by cameramen, and in the world of freelance cameraman where ‘you are only as good as your last programme’, it is essential that all cameramen have a good grasp of the principles and practice of lighting on location, in order to ensure continuity of work. Many video cameramen operate without the luxury of large budgets supporting ideal resources. Consequently, there is often a need to work with minimum crewing levels, requiring multi-skilling abilities. Hence, this book explores the areas of skill and knowledge needed to cope with this situation.

The objective of any location shoot obviously is to get a good result. However, safety of personnel, equipment and the location should also be a high priority. Invariably most lighting problems, however complex, can be solved by returning to basic principles – the material of this book.

Location lighting is, like most jobs, all about solving problems. An awareness of potential problems is a definite plus when venturing away from the more controlled environment of a television studio. The aim of the book is to introduce some of the problems and solutions and shorten the learning time-frame. Learning the ‘hard’ way is generally a drawn-out process, requiring many years of practice before ‘all the pennies have dropped’.

Video cameraman have to be able to cope with a wide range of lighting problems, often short-handed, requiring a knowledge of many impinging areas of concern. This book is structured to lead the reader through the ‘facts of light’ and the technology associated with lighting, before looking at lighting technique.

After over thirty years of being involved with lighting I have to confess that ‘the pennies still drop’ – I hope the readers will find the text useful and informative.

Hunter and Fuqua in their book Light – Science and Magic explain the key to success in lighting, namely, understand light and the technology – the magic will follow! How very true…

Alan Bermingham

Note: All measurements are quoted in metric unless custom and practice dictates imperial. A basic conversion table is included on page 278. Male gender is used throughout the book to avoid having to use ‘he or she’, but common gender is understood in all cases.

1.1   Overview

Lighting is an important part of the television production process. Good lighting is essential if the viewer is to believe the reality of the pictures being presented. Bad lighting may distract the viewer or prevent the ‘illusion of reality’ being created. Lighting for television on location may be for single-camera or multi-camera shooting, by a director of photography (DoP)/lighting cameraman/lighting director to ensure continuity of lighting style.

The overall aim of the director of photography/lighting cameraman/lighting director is to produce pictures, which are artistically and technically ‘pleasing’, i.e. the pictures look right!

So how can this aim be achieved? Making a television programme is very much a team activity, as part of the production team the first requirement is to know what is required of lighting for the particular production.

This illustrates the need for good communication and planning if the lighting person is to understand fully the director’s requirements, e.g. the correct interpretation of a drama script, or to be able to make a creative input to the programme ‘look’.

A director will expect his lighting person to have well-defined responsibilities, knowledge and skills. These are listed below.

How Can One Become a Director of Photography/Lighting Cameraman/Lighting Director?

Lighting is a coveted job in television, providing enormous job satisfaction. Consequently, anyone wishing to progress in lighting must be able to demonstrate flair, interest and knowledge better than the competition. Some recommendations are listed above.

The aim of this book is to introduce the reader to the basic principles and practice of lighting on location for television cameras. Lighting is a mixture of art and craft. One has first to visualise the final result and then realise it by using the appropriate hardware.

The lighting process is dictated by time, technology and technique, and the technique used will be influenced by the time and technology (hardware) available. Very few lighting problems have unique solutions; what works one day may not be as effective on another day for a variety of reasons. There is a need to have a flexible approach to lighting problems, constantly looking for new solutions to old problems.

Often some of the best results are obtained by ‘breaking the rules’. However, the ‘rules’ need to be known before they can be broken, deliberately!

The techniques offered in this book should form a good basis on which to build and develop your own particular style of lighting.

1.2   The Need for Lighting on Location

With the excellent sensitivity of modern CCD cameras there is often a misconception about lighting on location, namely ‘why do we need extra light when the cameras are so sensitive?’ Another comment, very valid of course, is ‘you cannot improve on Nature!’.

Natural Lighting

Unfortunately, Nature may produce lighting which is unsuitable for direct shooting. It may:

• contain too much contrast between the highlights and the dark tones
• contain shadows which are too dark, resulting in no shadow detail seen on camera
• be contrary to the lighting in previous shots, i.e. lack of continuity of light direction, colour of light or quality of light (direct sun – overcast)
• be unflattering due to the harshness or the direct sunlight and/or the steepness of the sunlight, e.g. mid-day sun at summertime
• be totally overcast, resulting in pictures with little contrast and little separation of planes within the picture
• be insufficient for cameras if supplementary lighting is required, e.g.

  – moonlit scenes

  – scenes lit by street lighting

  – candlelit scenes

  – scenes with no natural lighting.

Working with Natural Lighting

It is necessary to consider each scenario and decide if supplementary lighting is needed to maintain or create the illusion of reality (not necessarily absolute reality). Depending on the circumstances, it may be necessary simply to modify the natural lighting to achieve the criterion of ‘the picture looking right’! That is,

• reflect the sunlight or skylight with suitable reflectors
• diffuse the sunlight with diffusion media on frames
• reduce the sunlight/skylight with veils/nets/neutral density material
• block the sunlight/skylight with appropriately sized black flags.

Unfortunately, Nature can be unpredictable, and there is a need to be aware of the wide range of possibilities of lighting condition which can exist. For example, in the United Kingdom there can be over a hundred times the incident lighting level on a bright sunny day compared to that on a dull overcast day. Clouds passing in front of the sun can reduce the lighting level by as much as 3–4 f-stops (a factor of 8–16)!

Continuity of lighting condition is often a major problem with large variations during the day of:

• incident lighting level – illuminance
• colour of the light – colour temperature
• quality of the light – hard/soft light
• scene contrast – shadow density
• vertical and horizontal lighting angle.

There is a need to anticipate these effects and provide some means of coping! It is very important that on-site recce meetings are done at times which have a direct bearing on the shooting time-scale so that potential problems may be identified (see Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Lighting problems of location shooting

Clearly, situations with no natural lighting will require to be appropriately lit. Where natural lighting exists, one should make judgements on what is required to make it ‘look right’, i.e. assess what Nature has provided (or may provide) before wheeling in an array of lighting equipment. The adage ‘keep it simple’ applies to lighting as well as to many other areas of television production.