Simple Lighting Techniques

What I noticed in Thursday's filming session was the way the lighting was considered for the film.  We have been shown how to use the Kino and Dado light kits but I have only ever used them for three point lighting for interviews and once as a fill light for a drama.  So it was really interesting for me to see them put to good use to create the gothic, Victorian bedroom atmosphere.

In some of my experimental films I have used light in different ways to create effects and atmospheres.

At home I have a Props Box in which I keep all manner of things that I think will be useful or interesting for future film projects.  I have everything from a nun's wimple to melted down dolls to masks and replica guns and crime scene tape.  I have also collected a number of things that create light or distort light.

Some of the straight forward things that I have are things like red and yellow bulbs and different styles of Christmas lights, some that flash, some that slowly change colour some that look like lanterns etc.

 I also have an orange flashing light, the sort of which is found on emergency vehicles.  This is battery operated and uses what look like Christmas lights bulbs with two reflectors, but it is still powerful enough to be effective as an emergency vehicle light when the house lights are down or it is dark when filming outside.

I also have a battery operated strobe light which I bought from Home Bargains for, I think, £2.99.  You can get more powerful, electric ones from Maplin for about £20, but I thought of a bit of a cheat that saved me paying the difference in price.  I used the strobe light to create a lightening effect so the light box itself  isn't actually seen.  Rather than just have it flash on and off, rapidly from the side, out of frame, pointing towards the shot, I got a long length of tin foil and crumpled it slightly and held it upright, so it was about four foot tall, then pointed the strobe light towards the foil and set it going.  This caused a wider spread and brighter reflection which looked more natural as lightning, and less like a strobe light from a disco!

Other props that I have that create interesting light are a small plasma ball which is good when filmed close up, all mad scientisty, and a fibre optic lamp that creates nice sweeping lights when the fibre optics are blown by a fan.

The fibre optic lamp:

You can see how I've used some of the lights in a film I made last year called The Undiscovered Country.  I made this film when I was inspired by our experimental module.  It wasn't my submission piece, just something I made at home, but I like some of the quirky stuff I put in there, including the use of lights.  I like the use of the natural light and shadows on my wall, and also the fogged up car headlights which I filmed through a bus stop after it had rained.

I am a huge fan of the films of Derek Jarman and a lot of his early short films were experiments with lighting and reflection. 

Derek Jarman began his film career as a set designer for Ken Russell on his film The Devils (1971) having studied as a painter at Slade School of Art.

Jarman was fascinated by light and colour and would experiment with these in his paintings and his films throughout his career.  In the early seventies Jarman began making short films such as the Art of Mirrors (1973) and Garden of Luxor (1972) which displayed experimentations with the way light and reflected light affects darkness and colour on screen, and how they are seen by the viewer.  Jarman used these lighting and reflecting techniques to create moods within his scenes in his films.   In the book Film Studies: The Essential Resource (Bennett, Hickman and Wall, 2007) it sums this up perfectly, stating: “In films such as Caravaggio and The Last of England, Jarman emphasised a painterly technique which employed composition and lighting as its principle tools in a way quite contrary to the mainstream”.

The Art of Mirrors (1973)

 

In his film The Tempest (1979) Derek Jarman uses candlelight, firelight, reflected light, colour filters and shadows to dress the set (the light forming an important part of the set design) and to create the mood for each scene.  In the scene where the virginal yet spirited Miranda whom is stranded on an island with her banished father Ferdinand the Right Duke of Milan is wondering through the house at night, the warm glow of the candlelight illuminates her against the bleak background of the old ruined house / castle.  

 The Tempest (Derek Jarman 1979)

 The Tempest

There is a really informative website that I found called Drama InfoWeb which has lots of clever ideas and basic advice about special effects for stage productions.  The website has a whole section dedicated to lighting, and most of the techniques throughout the site can be used for film.

The lighting section covers things like colour wheels to create water ripple effects, ultraviolet light and strobe lighting, it also has diagrams showing how to rig up certain lighting effects, for example using a strip light starter motor with firelight candles to create a flicker effect.  The site tells you how to create all the effects safely and tells you the hazards to look out for.