One day is scientifically divided into twenty-four hours, which are roughly divided into four periods of’morning’,’daytime’,’evening’ and’night’.
It will be written on the film production table:’morning scene’,’day scene’,’evening scene’, and’night scene’ time atmosphere, indicating the lighting tendency. Sometimes the symbols are also written as: (M), (D), (E), (N), which are respectively’morning’,’day’,’evening’, and’night’.
In the process of shooting, due to factors such as production and cycle, it is impossible for photographers to shoot under natural light conditions, so lighting is more or less involved.
But there is also a movie like “Rear Window” where the sense of time is completed by lighting, and there is also a movie like “Days in Heaven” that is completed in magical moments in the morning and evening.
Movie “Day in Heaven”
Table of Contents
Morning time light perception
Light analysis: When the sun has not risen in the morning, there is obviously no direct light, the overall color temperature is higher, and the light atmosphere is slightly blue. According to the standard value, the color temperature should be about 1000~1500K higher.
However, it can also be assumed to be cloudy in the morning to deal with the light atmosphere.
Lighting operation: no direct light, to a certain extent, the contrast between light and dark is larger.
If you plan to shoot the feeling of the rising sun, then you need to arrange some red elements in a part of the picture to create this kind of rising sun. But simply making red elements may look like a sunset. Use an orange filter to lower the color temperature, and a slightly reddish tint is better. When the sun rises, the position of the light source should be relatively low, so the position of the light should be arranged at a lower position.
Day time light perception
Light analysis: Compared with the morning, the sun position of the day scene should be higher, and the sun should be stronger.
Knowing the difference between morning and daylight, using the method of dealing with the contrast between the light and darkness of the subject, you can imitate the difference in the daylight from nature.
When shooting indoor scenes, the main light is usually set to come from the window, so that it looks more natural. At the same time, the sun should be shining from a higher position at this time.
In addition to the lighting treatment of the direct light in the window direction, the effect of bright indirect light outside the house scattered into the room from the lateral direction will be better. The quality of lighting depends on the mood of the audience, so instead of dealing with sunlight, it is better to express the mood of light outside the window. Therefore, in actual shooting, diffuse lighting is often used in order to make the picture look better.
When using’scattered light as the main light’, or’the light perception of the skylight outside the window as the main light’, there is no absolute way to deal with direct light and subtle changes in balance. It is necessary to refer to the scene at the time to make corresponding adjustments. .
If there are doors and windows in the picture, the scenery outside the window will be white and there will be a bright atmosphere effect. If the scenery outside the window is accurate and clear, and the brightness is close to normal, it will make people feel unnatural, and there will be a feeling of bad weather outside.
The film “Twelve Years as a Slave” picking cotton at noon, the light perception of the daytime scene
The main light source is outside the window, and the strong light is softened with tulle curtains
Sunset time light perception
There are various types of light at dusk, red from the setting sun, and the environment becomes darker and blue after sunset. To express the feeling of sunset, the best and fastest way is to cover the lamp with amber filter paper. The story script suggests that’evening’, the main light is generally set as the light source of the setting sun.
Lighting method:
Cover the amber candy paper in front of the light. The main light should be from the side light or the back light direction to easily express the presence of the sunset. When dealing with the shadow part of the subject, the auxiliary light should be set to its standard color temperature, so that the main light and auxiliary light will have a color difference effect. If there is no chromatic aberration between the main light and the auxiliary light, a red’color mask’ is applied to the entire screen, which will give the impression of color cast. Sometimes, a brown filter is added directly to the lens, or white balance is set to make the whole picture red to express the evening.
If you are in an outdoor natural environment, there is no main light illumination processing for shooting the’evening’, which is to directly use the natural setting sun to illuminate. It is recommended to avoid the actor’s forward light angle, because the light position is relatively low at sunset, and the equal amount of light tends to be serious when the actor is irradiated from the front. (The key to lighting is to avoid equal amounts of light) The solution is to adjust the shooting direction so that the light-receiving surface of the object on the screen is in the side light state, and at the same time, the actors must cooperate with the face to face the setting sun to act, so that the visual effect is better.
The light perception of sunset time in the movie “Day in Heaven”
Night scene processing under fluorescent light environment
- The main light is set on the actor’s head
- The character auxiliary light uses a’foam board’ to reflect the secondary light. It is advantageous to place the foam board at a high place directly behind the camera. Its purpose is to make the projection of the actors fall under the white wall.
- The foam board is a surface light source, which not only serves as a supplementary light for the characters, but also increases the amount of light in the entire room. (Character auxiliary light, background background light) This will increase the brightness of the background, causing the problem of the distribution of light and shade between the background and the actor’s face, and lack the feeling of night scenes.
- Use a black flag between the reflector and the actor to intercept a small part of the bottom light-a gradual shadow in the background, so that the upper part is dark and the lower part is bright.
- Blue filter paper should be added to the light opening of the lamp illuminating the foam reflector, which can increase the color temperature of the auxiliary light and the base light, and express the cold color impression of the fluorescent lamp.
The light perception of night scene time can also be completed by table lamps, candles and simulated moonlight light perception. The atmosphere of the night scene in life changes greatly due to the images of various environmental light sources.
Photographers need to consider: What scene will be used for this lighting? Where must lighting be done? There should be light in real life, but what kind of light can be ignored and need not be processed?
Methods to enhance the light perception of day and night scenes
The difference between day scene and night scene lies in the type of light source and its brightness distribution.
Specifically speaking, in the same place, we did not realize the existence of some kind of light during the day, but at night it will produce a strong sense of light. For example, traffic lights flicker and dim at an intersection, and the light leaking from the car when a city light rail train passes. , The advertising light box in front of the store and so on. These lights should exist both during the day and at night, because the sunlight is too strong during the day and will not attract our attention.
The same phenomenon, the brightness of the fluorescent lights in the store and the light in the refrigerator, whether it is day or night, is the same indoors. If the atmosphere of the script is specified as a day scene, the brightness of the light source in the screen needs to be weakened. If the atmosphere of the script is specified as Night scene, then the brightness of the light source in the picture needs to be strengthened to increase the light perception of the night scene.
Night scene fill light
If shooting night scenes, shooting indoors from the outside, if the room has civil lighting, the lighting is different from the type of lighting envisaged in the movie, and lighting means must be used to adjust. This practice is called’fill light’.
There are two options for this kind of “filling light”: one is to illuminate the curtains from the room; the other is to illuminate the walls of the room instead of illuminating the curtains.
The movie “Rear Window” uses indoor light to fill light
On the basis of natural light effects, the movie “Day of Heaven” uses the lighting in the pavilion as the main light source in the picture