MOTION PICTURE AND VIDEO LIGHTING Second Edition Blain Brown Amsterdam • Boston • Heidelberg • London New York • Oxford • Paris • San Diego San Francisco • Singapore • Sydney • Tokyo ELSEVIER Focal Pres is an imprint of Elsevier I Publisher: Elinor Actipis Associate Acquisitions Editor: Cara Anderson Publishing Services Manager: George Morrison Senior Project Manager: Dawnmarie Simpson Assistant Editor: Robin Weston Marketing Manager: Rebecca Pease Cover Design: Dennis Schaefer Interior Design: Dennis Schaefer Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK Copyright© 2008, Blain Brown. Published by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 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Table of contents The History of lighting 1 Controllable Light 2 Early Film Production 3 Introduction ofTungsten Lighting 5 The Technicolor Era 6 HMI, Xenon, Fluorescent, and LED Sources 8 Kino Flo and LED 9 lighting Sources 10 Fresnels 10 Tungsten Fresnels 11 The 1O K and 20K 11 The5K 11 Juniors 12 1K 12 650, Betweenie, and lnBetweenie 12 lnkie 12 HMI Units 12 12K and 18K 12 6K and 8K 13 4K and 2.5K 14 Smaller HMis 14 When an HMI Fails to Fire 14 Xenons 15 Brute Arc 16 Open-Face Lights 17 Sky pan 18 2K Open Face 18 10 00-/600-/650-Watt Open Face 18 PAR64 19 PAR Groups 20 Dino, Moleeno, and Wendy 20 Maxi Brute 20 FAYs 21 Ruby? 21 HMI PARs 21 Soft Lights 22 Studio Softs (8K, 4K, and 1 K) 22 Cone Lights 22 Space Lights 23 Fluorescent Rigs 24 Color-Correct Fluorescent Units 24 Color-Correct Bulbs 25 Cycs, Strips, Nooks, and Broads 25 Miscellaneous 29 Chinese Lanterns 29 Crane-Mounted Lights 29 Source Fours 29 Sunguns 30 Soft boxes 30 Jokers 31 LED Panels 31 Dedo Lights 31 Balloon Lights 32 Barger Baglight 33 Scrims and Barndoors 33 Spacelights and Chicken Coops 34 Fundamentals of Lighting 35 What Do We Expect Lighting to Do for Us? 35 Mood and Tone 36 Full Range ofTones 36 Color Control and Color Balance 37 Adding Shape, Depth, and Dimension to a Scene 38 Shape 38 Separation 38 Depth 38 Texture 38 Exposure 39 Directing the Eye 40 The Lighting Process 40 The Process 40 What Are the Requirements? 40 What Tools Do You Have? 42 What's the Schedule? 42 What Are the Opportunities 43 How to Be Fast 44 Lighting Fundamentals 44 The Basic Elements 44 Quality of Light 48 Hard/Soft 49 Other Qualities of Light 52 Direction Relative to Subject 52 Altitude 52 High Key/Low Key (Fill Ratio) 53 Specular/Ambient 53 Relative Size of Radiating Source and Lens 53 Modulation/Texture 54 Movement 54 Subject/Texture 54 Basic Scene Lighting 58 Medieval Knights Around a Campfire 59 The Plan 60 Flicker Effect 61 Group Scene with Fire 62 Science Fiction Scene 64 Film Noir Scene 64 Aces and Eights 67 Detective Scene 67 Young Inventor 67 Miscellaneous Scenes 70 Potter 70 Beauty Shot 71 Pool Room 71 Pool Room CU 72 Intimate Room Scene 72 Black Cross Keys (Sitcom Lighting) 73 Reality Show Set 73 In or Out 73 Day Exterior 76 viii • Table of Contents From Under the Floor 77 Ambient from Above 78 Confessions: Training Scene 79 Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: Alley 80 Creating an Exterior in the Studio 81 X-Men Plastic Prison 82 Stage Rigging 85 Large Night Exterior 85 Complex Stage Set 85 Lighting HD, DV, and SO Video 86 The Video Engineer and DIT 87 The Waveform Monitor 87 The Vectorscope 91 Iris Control 91 Electronic Pushing 92 White Balance 92 Transferring Film to Video 93 Lighting for Multiple Cameras 93 Monitor Setup 94 Monitor Setup Procedure 95 The PLUGE 95 Camera White Balance 97 Establishing a Baseline 97 The Test Chart 98 Exposure Theory 99 The Bucket 99 F/Stop 100 Exposure, ISO, and Lighting Relationships 100 Lighting Source Distance 101 ISO/ ASA Speeds 102 Chemistry of Film 103 Film's Response to Light 104 The Latent I mage 104 Chemical Processing 105 Color Negative 106 Additive vs. Subtractive Color 107 The H&D Curve 107 The Log E Axis 110 What Is a Log? 111 Brightness Perception 111 Contrast 1 12 "Correct" Exposure 1 14 Brightness Range in a Scene 116 Determining Exposure 1 16 The Tools 1 17 The Incident Meter 117 The Reflectance Meter 1 18 The Zone System 1 19 Zones in a Scene 120 The Grayscale 120 Why 18%? 120 Place and Fall 123 Reading Exposure with Ultraviolet 125 The Shutter 125 Table of Contents • ix Theory and Control of Color 128 The Nature of Light 128 Color Perception 129 The Tristimulus Theory 129 The Purkinje Effect and Movie Moonlight 131 Light and Color 131 Additive and Subtractive Color 131 Qualities of Light 132 Hue 132 Value 132 Chroma 132 Color Temperature 132 The Color Wheel 133 Color Mixing 133 Film and Video Colorspace 134 Color Harmonies and Interaction of Color 134 Interaction of Color and Visual Phenomena 135 The Laws of Simultaneous Contrast 136 Metamerism 137 The Cl E Color System 137 Standard Light Sources in CIE 137 Digital and Electronic Color 138 Control of Color 139 What Is White? 139 Color Temperature 139 Color Meters 142 Color Balance of Film 143 Color Balance with Camera Filters 143 Conversion Filters 144 Light-Balancing Filters 145 Correcting Light Balance 145 CTO 145 Tungsten to Daylight 146 Fluorescent Lighting 146 Correcting Off-Color Lights 147 Arcs 147 HMI 148 Industrial Lamps 148 Stylistic Choices in Color Control 148 Electricity 149 Measurement of Electricity 150 Potential 150 Paper Amps 151 Electrical Supply Systems 151 Three-Phase 151 Single-Phase 152 Power Sources 152 Stage Service 152 Generators 153 Generator Operation 154 Tie-ins 154 Tie-in Safety 155 Determining KVA 156 Wall Plugging 157 Batteries 158 Battery Capacity 158 X • Table of Contents