Women In Film & Television Lighting Workshop

October 31, 2018

Women in Film and Television (WIFT) Florida strives to provide their members and the Florida Film Community at large with advanced opportunities through networking, educational programs and events held throughout their 6 branches. On October 27, 2018 Bill Williams, founder of A Cut Above Video Productions, Inc. hosted and presented the Space Coast Branch with a lighting workshop at A Cut Above Video’s Melbourne studio that focused on tips and tricks to quickly resolve lighting issues that arise during production.

“Many valuable lessons can be learned in a classroom, but the best way to learn is from hands-on experience.” cited Bill at the workshop.

Four demonstration stations were setup that each presented challenging lighting issues.

There was a studio setup with a black background that presented how various lighting configurations could produce different looks. Included was the use of practical lighting fixtures and background elements demonstrating how to light a black background.

“The big lesson here is to separate the subject from the background and to balance the artificial lighting with light sources that may be present within the background, a household lamp for example.”

Attendees were also shown how to light a near black background with an interesting light pattern to enhance aesthetics of the image produced.

A second station was setup at a desk with a large widow next to the desk. The challenge was to light the subject without blocking the natural light coming in through the window and balance the artificial lighting with the natural lighting.

“Though production scenarios with an uncontrollable light source, such as a large window, are rare in the field, they do happen, and it is imperative that you know how to balance natural and artificial light in both intensity and color”

The third setup was outside. There was a demonstration of lighting with all-natural light in full sun with reflectors and an optional daylight balanced HMI fixture. That setup was then moved into the shade and the lighting reset again with reflectors and optional HMI fixture.

“Outside lighting is a challenge because the typical fixtures used indoors to not have enough light output to overcome the sun, and they are often the wrong color. Using reflectors to fill dark areas with natural sunlight will help, but oftentimes a large HMI fixture with a high intensity light output will balance the subject.”

The final setup was a setup with food. There lighting and basic food styling was demonstrated. That setup included lighting shiny surfaces like a wine bottle, how to balance candle light and what makes red wine look red on camera.

“Many people that are not in the industry do not realize how hard it is to make food look appealing on camera. This is sometimes due to the hot lights drying out food, to fix that problem many photographers and videographers will spritz the food with cooking oil to give it that appealing glimmer. While this may be shocking to wine connoisseurs out there, adding water to red wine will enhance the color of the wine when lit properly.”

With more than 30 years of lighting and production experience, Bill noted that knowing how to work quickly during a production scenario is key to the industry. “This workshop demonstrated practical solutions to lighting challenges, and gave those attending the hands-on opportunity to use simple solutions to solve real-world problems.”


For more information on how to become a member of Women in Film and Television and other workshops coming up go to https://www.womeninfilmfl.org/.

 

© 2018 A Cut Above Video Productions, Inc.