3 Lighting Set-ups for 1 Shot - Cinematography Basics

In this cinematography basics video, we're taking a look at how you can create 3 different looks from the same composition.

Cinematography Basics is a series of short tutorials and lighting breakdowns to help you understand and improve your understanding.

In this video, we're taking a look at how we can create three different looks out of the same composition.

This is a great exercise to practice, and to see how different lighting setups can alter the mood and feel of a scene.

I wanted to try and create a daytime look, a warm evening shot and finally, something a bit more stylised.

We'll start with the daytime look.

For all of these shots, I kept the camera in the same position, with the mostly the same settings. They were filmed with the Sony A7 iii on a 35mm 1.8 lens. My shutter was set to 50/s (180 degrees), the aperture was set to f 2 and my ISO was 200. The only setting I changed, was the white balance.

The lights I used were a mix of practicals and an 80w daytime bulb with a small softbox, plus an Aputure MC.

To add some depth to the scene even before lighting, I framed the shot between to objects and added a plant slightly further back. I also angled the camera so that the bookshelf would create some leading lines towards the subject.

For the daytime look, I set my camera's white balance to 5600 kelvin, I wanted it to be very soft and so I set up my daylight bulb in its softbox but instead of using the diffusion sheet it comes with, I aimed it through a much larger piece of unbleached muslin. The reason for this was that the bulb isn't very strong and if I was to double diffuse it, I would have lost a lot of the output. This created a much larger and therefore softer output. I didn't add any negative fill as it was a fairly wide shot and the shadows were falling quite naturally without any. I ended up covering the TV with some black fabric to avoid the reflection of the light. You can also still see the window within the frame, which helps sell where the light is being motivated. I also added in the Aputure MC behind the camera to bring out some detail in the foreground objects, it's very subtle but makes a difference.

Because I lit the scene, rather than the subject. It allows for the subject to be able to move around a bit more freely and the shadows will fall naturally.

So that's look 1 - Daytime, let's move onto the warm evening scene.

For this setup, I removed the daylight bulb and turned on a couple of practicals within the scene. These were typical tungsten household bulbs, nothing special. These give off that warm evening look that I wanted. I also bought in another practical to act as a rim light, just to the right of the frame behind the subject. This helped to separate the subject from the black background and add a bit more three-dimensionality to the shot. I moved the Aputure MC just out of frame behind this practical and adjusted it's white balance to tungsten which matched the light in the frame. The practical in the shot doesn't have much output and so this helped to add to that rim light. I didn't do anything to modify the other practicals as they were naturally bouncing off the walls were they were positioned. The only other additional light source worth mentioning is the laptop itself, which offers a faint fill on the subject.

For the third and final look

I wanted to try and create something a bit more stylised and so I adjusted the hue of the Aputure MC to a bright pink/purple. I wanted it to appear as though the light was coming from the laptop and so I position the light where it would be hidden from the camera. I used the small diffusion material that comes with the MC to help soften the light a bit and maxed out the output to 100% as it would be one of the only light sources in the scene.

At first I tried the shot with the rim light from the previous setup still on and in shot and then I tried it without. Personally, I preferred the look without. This was a tricky shot to balance exposure as I knew a lot would be falling into shadow and I didn't want to overexpose the face. While this look isn't for every situation, I thought it was a good example of how adding colour helps to add more interest into an ordinary scene.