Film Lighting Techniques — Nailing that Cinematic Look (with a Fill Light)

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Film lighting techniques can be simple, especially with a simple three-point lighting setup. But that doesn’t mean that you still can’t achieve that cinematic look. Cinematic lighting can be achieved with the 3 main light sources — the key light, the fill light, and the backlight. This combination is used in a large majority of film lighting setups and each light fulfills a function. What we want to explore in this video is just how important the fill light is to the overall look and feel of a shot. Of all three lights, the fill light just might the most important.

Contrast ratio is the relationship between the key light and fill light — in short, more fill light yields a low contrast lighting, while less fill light will achieve more high contrast lighting. Contrast ratio is all about determining the mood of a scene and that’s where the fill light’s purpose becomes so important. So many film lighting techniques revolve around adjusting contrast ratio through raising or lowering the level of the fill light.

Another aspect of film lighting techniques is the placement of each of these lights. In many cases, the key light is placed on the “smart side” of the subject — that is to say on the opposite side of the camera — and the fill light is often pointed at the subject from the same side as the camera (i.e., the “dumb side”). This is not a hard and fast rule in cinematic lighting but it does wonders for creating a layer of depth in the image. For many reasons, you can switch it up (e.g., dumb side key and smart side fill). It just depends on the scene and how you want to capture the moment.

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