 Welcome back to another LPM 101 class. My name is Megan. I'm the video producer and editor here at LPM and I'm so excited to talk about one of my favorite aspects of video creation which is lighting. So to jump right in we're going to be discussing the basic three-point lighting system which includes the key light, the fill light, and the back light. The key light is going to be your primary and brightest source of light. It sets the overall exposure for your shot and all the other lights are really there to complement it. The key light is typically placed to the side of the camera, lighting the front of the subject at a 45 degree angle from the camera as shown here. Now at this point in your setup light is only hitting one side of your subject. That's where we have to add others to create a more evenly lit subject or to balance out that key light. This is where your second light, the fill light, comes in. The fill is going to mirror the key. It's placed on the opposite side of the camera to fill out the shadows that the key makes. This light is typically not as bright as the key light but that also does depend on the mood you're going for within your piece. A dimmer light is going to show more dimension and more shadows while a brighter light is going to give you more even coverage of light. And you know sometimes a fill light isn't even a light. It can be a reflector, a bounce card, a white wall, just really anything that that key light can bounce off of and just fill those shadows that are coming in the opposite direction. But we'll get into that a little bit later. Next we're going to be talking about our back or hair light and it does essentially what the name says. It's on the subject from behind creating a sort of halo effect around the crown of the head. A good backlight will create a rim of light behind the subject separating them from their background and giving the shot a greater sense of depth. Another great light to add, which now makes it a four-point lighting scheme, is the background light. So that's different from the back light or the hair light because you are lighting the background space. So if you see there is a light shining on my background here to give me a little more depth and to separate me even further from my background. So if I am closer to my background that might be a great light to add. Once you've got the basics down it's kind of fun to play around with the different things you can do with lighting and soon you'll notice that a lot of films use lighting to convey a certain mood or tone to the piece. That's because light can add or subtract humanity in our minds. Think about your favorite movie series. My personal favorite is The Dark Knight. Now a lot of darker, more low-key lighting scenes are used in this movie as you can see here. This is used to create a more dramatic tone which is really what you want in a superhero or action film such as this one. Now let's talk about old-school horror films. You ever see this lighting scheme? This is a classic. It's used to distort the face, make it look more menacing and exaggerate the features. And it's used time and time and time and time again to kind of subtract humanity to make you scared, to make you feel something and to convey that sort of mood. And you can do this with your projects too. Now something else you might want to consider with lighting is the color of the light that you use which is also used to convey mood or tone. Think about the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Yellow is used a lot in that movie whenever the main character is around his love. It's used in the beginning when they are children and at the end when they reunite, I'm sorry if I just spoiled that movie for you but it's very old. But anyway they use a lot of yellow to give you the sense that whenever yellow is around this character is happier or this is the destination that the main character is trying to get to. If blue is used it's often to convey a more sad or somber moment. And the more you think about color and how it makes you feel the more you'll start to realize how color is used to manipulate how you think about films and videos and how you can use it too to convey any sort of mood that you're trying to get across in a more subtle and creative way. Since lighting is arguably one of the most important parts of video productions but not all of us have access to all of the different lighting sources that we may want to use let's talk about some ways you can fake good lighting in your production. First use sunlight. Sunlight is one of the best available light sources that you're going to come across. It's harsh it's direct you can dilute it if you use diffuser use a sheet let's something over a window but that is going to be one of your greatest key lights if you don't have access to an actual light source. Next use reflectors as I previously spoke about fill lights reflectors are anything that light can bounce off of you can find them in your home a white wall is always a great reflector white loves to bounce light off of it while black likes to absorb it so anything white is a great reflector and can be used as a fill light so say you are working with sunlight sunlight is coming through the window bouncing off of a white wall opposite of it you have a great two point light scheme right there. Also something you might not think about is aluminum foil aluminum foil is very shiny it likes to bounce light off of it too if you don't have that white wall or white foam board you can use aluminum foil easily as a nice fill light. Next is changing the settings of your ISO or gain on your actual camera now ISO or gain is essentially pumping artificial light onto your subject so if you're in a really dark area and you can't find a light source you might want to pump up the ISO on your camera to add some artificial light back into the shot so you're able to see but you have to be careful with this anything above an ISO of I would say 800 tends to add a lot of noise or grain into your photo or video which if you're not going for that look and you might not want to pump that up and lastly would be editing your lighting in post but it's always best to get it done right in production so you don't have that headache in post production. There's so much more to learn about lighting and there's really no right or wrong way to do it but it is important to learn the basics. Thanks for watching and let us know if you want to learn more about the ins and outs of lightings but until then it's lights out.