Category: Studio Lights Education

This issue introduces two more alternative light positions, top light and foot light.

Let’s talk about the top light first, which refers to the light coming from above the head and roughly perpendicular to the horizon.

Top Light: Expressing Fatigue of Characters

Think about it, when is the sun directly above your head?

Of course it was sunny noon. After half a day of study and work, people need to eat and rest for a while, and people get tired most easily! Therefore, Dingguang is often used to express the mental fatigue of the characters.

There is a clear shadow under the actor’s nose, which can confirm that this is the top light effect.

This is a scene in the movie “Graduate”, the actor rushes all the way to his girlfriend’s house in the rain, trying his best to save the love. In the close-ups, the wet hair, panic eyes, panting expression, and of course, the light effect, showing that he is extremely tired at the moment and unable to control the progress of the event.

When looking at the light, I often ask, does the light here have a basis for life?

Of course there is! Although it has not been shot, it can be assumed that it comes from the lighting on the ceiling, and the film techniques that have the basis of life, including the use of light, are more able to withstand the test of time.

This example also tells us that if you only want to take pictures of people beautifully, then you should pay attention to avoid top light, otherwise you may have a tired face.

How to avoid the top light effect when filming at noon on a sunny day?

The teacher is rushing homework, and he has to shoot the film at noon to keep up with the progress, and he doesn’t want the top light to interfere. What should I do? See an example

Observing the light and shadow on the ground, it is not difficult to see that this is a scene at noon on a sunny day, and the light is relatively strong. Cut to a closer look:

What did you find?

The exposure is one level brighter, and the shoulder backlight is unique, all of which are right! But have you noticed one thing? The light projected on the character is a bit different from the ambient light.

If you try to walk into the woods at noon, in addition to the messy light and shadow of the branches, there will be an obvious top light effect, and the value of the face will be destroyed in an instant.

In this example, add a soft light cloth over the person during shooting (see Issue 009: Soft light and hard light in the movie) to soften the strong direct light, which not only effectively eliminates the top light, but also wipes it off. After removing the messy light spots on the branches and leaves, the appearance returned to normal.

Of course, there is an easier trick, which is to find a shaded area to shoot. The light in the shadow area is scattered light, which is relatively soft and has no clear sense of direction. Naturally, the top light effect does not exist!

Top Light: the Performance of the Characters is Tyrannical and Terrible

Let’s see, if the top light is strong and it is located directly above (or slightly behind) the head of the character, what effect will it produce?

The recessed part of the character’s eye sockets is in the shadow, and the sides of the cheeks are also shaved off by the shadow, and the shadow under the nose is added to form a skeleton. Therefore, top light is often used to portray terrible characters.

Look at what the photographer does. The first step is to make sure to use the upside down shot to show that the father is strong. The second step is to use close-ups to emphasize the expression of the father, and also delineate the lighting area for the lighting engineer. The third step is overhead lighting. Carefully move the light to a position slightly behind the top of the head, so that the eye sockets are in shadow, and shadows appear under the cheeks and nose. At the same time, the background is darkened to create a strong contrast effect and let the emotions It becomes more intense, ok! That’s it.

Foot Light: Performance of Weird and Horrible Effects

Foot light refers to the light below the person’s eye level, and is often used to express weird and terrifying effects.

In daily life, we are more accustomed to the position of the light source above, such as sunlight, moonlight, and most lighting scenes, when we suddenly see the light from below, or feel a little horrible, as if from hell.

It’s scary to make funny faces with bare feet. This is the truth that the little friends also understand. But the heroes who were quietly drifting by on an electric car at night, the red, green, and red feet on the dashboard shined on their faces, Weibei knew that he scared passers-by.

There is a scene in the movie “Looking for a Gun”. On the night Li Xiaomeng was killed, policeman Ma Shan found his wife washing her face in the middle of the night. He walked over to talk to his wife. Is this lens like a ghost film?

It’s not like, to be precise, this is how ghost movies are shot! The night, the blue lights, the woman in white clothes, the disheveled hair, and of course, there are indispensable feet. Observe the nose of Ma Shan’s wife, there are obvious shadows, which is an important sign of bare feet.

This scene made Ma Shan’s wife look very strange and terrifying, and deepened the audience’s suspicion of her. The use of light is still somewhat based, and it can be assumed that the foot light comes from the reflection of the sink water.

To give another example, from the movie “Old Nowhere”, the ruthless assassin went to a hotel to kill. His weapon is particularly weird. It is a chilling air gun that will not leave traces of bullets after the attack.

After the incident, the killer sat on the bedside, and an overturned table lamp on the ground constituted the light source of foot light, which seemed real and credible! I have to admire the photographer’s meticulousness, not only to shape the atmosphere, but also to give the basis for the real light source.

In this picture, the killer’s position is centered, shot upside down, and in the shadow area, which looks terrifying and terrifying. The foreground (desk lamp) and the background (bathroom) constitute a bright-dark-bright light zone, which makes the picture very vivid and not dull at all!

The desk lamp in the foreground and the background scene lie on the ground in a symmetrical position of the dead person. The audience’s attention can easily switch from the bright lamp area to the dead person on the ground, and then back to the killer in the center. Even the audience’s attention is quietly manipulated. Photographer, awesome!

Backlight, strictly speaking, includes forward and side backlight. To facilitate understanding, the light from behind the characters is collectively referred to as backlight.

The main function of backlighting is—

to outline the outline and express a beautiful and warm atmosphere.

In the movie “The King of War”, the male protagonist Yuri tricks the model Ewa to a beautiful island, creating an accidental “encounter” scene. This scene is the beginning of their love, and photography must present a romantic atmosphere. Let’s take a look at how the light is processed.

Looking at Yuri’s close-up shots, toasting, smiling, light-colored clothes, and blurred surroundings, his attention is completely focused on the charming model, completely ignoring everything around him.

To say a little off topic, when you are shooting film and television works, don’t abuse the lens that blurs the background, because the blur without thinking will make the picture look cheap. The emptiness and reality of the background have their specific meanings, and the blurred background often means that the protagonist is immersed in his own world and forgets the environment.

In most cases, we recommend taking a realistic shot of the background. Not only makes the picture more informative and lively and interesting, it also respects the audience without depriving them of their visual choice, and also respects the early stage selection and the hard work of the artists.

Now we return to the subject of light. Notice that Yuri’s head and shoulders are outlined by a bright light? This light is the backlight.

The backlight has completed the task of drawing the outline of the character. The backlight distinguishes the character from the environment, making the hero look strong and vigorous.

Look at the Eva sitting opposite Yuri, the same light-colored clothes, the blurred female background, the eyes are bright and bright, and it is obvious that he has a good impression of this uninvited guest.

As for the light, it is still treated with backlighting. The difference is that the backlight mainly hits Eva’s hair, which looks charming and moving.

Two backlights hit the character, it is sure to be beautiful, but is there a reasonable basis for the light? Look at the picture below to understand.

The two sit opposite each other, and the positional relationship is very clear. Think about it, where is the light source of this scene? Are you drawing left or right?

Observing the shadows on the tree trunks, you can see that the light source is on the right. So the problem is, Yuri is roughly in the backlight position, and the outline of the light behind him has a real basis. Eva is roughly in the light position. Where does the backlight come from behind her?

Don’t be too serious, this is a movie, a dream-making trick. In fact, even the backlight behind Yuri was the result of re-lighting. The natural light at that time might not have such a tough texture. Through this example, I mainly want you to understand that backlighting is usually used to outline the outline of a character, to modify and beautify.

Let’s look at another example, also from “The King of War”. Yuri participated in the International Arms Trade Conference for the first time. He was just an unknown man. At the trade fair, he met Simmy Wise, an arms tycoon with a prosperous career.

Look at this backlight, outline the tycoon from the crowd, absolutely exquisite lighting, meticulous contrast and level, portray the characters calmly, full of style!

Look at Yuri again, this guy was absolutely awkward at the time, admiring Wise. Look at his surprised expression, then look at the flat effect created by the low-contrast light in the picture, showing a weak and weak look. Of course, backlighting is impossible to use on him, and the two are not on the same level at all.

Backlight outlines the outline of the characters, men and women are different

Specifically, the backlight generally outlines the shoulders of men and looks like a man. For women, the backlight usually hits the woman’s hair, making the woman look charming.

Take an example from the movie “Walking in the Clouds”. The backlighting of this film is super beautiful, and there are beautiful backlighting effects everywhere. Those who are interested can find it to watch it several times.

Now let’s get to the point. In this scene, the male protagonist Paul visits the home of the female protagonist Victoria. When he is coldly treated by his parents, the kid feels uncomfortable. He walks to the small courtyard to breathe, and Victoria follows him.

Paul looked at the distance with his hands on his hips, motionless. Pay attention to the backlight behind Paul, which outlines the line of the character’s shoulders, which looks very tough. This is a common light effect that shapes tough guys. Victoria approached slowly at this time, but Paul didn’t notice it.

Victoria continued to approach without speaking.

Take a look at this scene. It can be said that the lighting engineer is in full control of the actor’s scheduling. The men and women must go to the appropriate positions set in advance, so that the backlight hits Paul’s shoulders and Victoria’s hair at the same time.

But the actor can’t move anymore. When he moves, the light effect is gone! Hi! Who cares about him, just stay like that for the sake of beauty.

Backlit silhouettes express strong atmosphere and tough shapes

Take the example of “Walking in the Clouds”. At the end of the film, the vineyard of Victoria’s home was reduced to ashes by a fire, and the family was devastated and distraught. This is the climax of the film’s mood.

Of course, according to the Hollywood ending, we must leave a bright tail and wait for the audience to leave the theater contentedly. The film progresses to this point, and there is still a conflict that has not been resolved.

One is that Paul, a poor boy, was not accepted by Victoria’s father. The second is that the Victorian family suffered such a devastating disaster and 10,000 acres of vineyards were burned down. What can be done?

Do not worry! The screenwriter has already arranged. At the end, Paul ran to a hill and found the surviving mother vine-the root of the vineyard’s first grape buried deep in the ground-and finally saved the entire family and won his own love.

Well, the story is there, the key is to put on a cool look to make the protagonist more handsome in the finale.

Backlit panorama, the figure is in silhouette, only the outline can be seen but the details are not visible, and the contrast with the surrounding light is huge, like a sculpture, full of weight. Coupled with boarding high places and shooting up the camera, the hero is born!

(To Be Continued)

What is the light position? Very simple, the relationship between the light source and the angle of the subject.

forward light:

The characters are flat and weak, lacking a sense of three-dimensionality.

Film photography rarely uses forward light as the main light, it will squash the character and weaken the character’s momentum. Many actors, even if they don’t know anything about the art of movie lighting, will hate smooth light like a conditioned reflex, because the forward light will make their eyes uncomfortable.

Of course, forward light is not useless. Squashing characters and depriving them of momentum is also part of the narrative. For example, in the movie “Looking for a Gun”, the policeman Ma Shan lost his gun. He hurried to his brother-in-law’s house to find out about the situation, and first took pictures of Ma Shan and asked his sister aggressively.

Then came the poor little sister and brother-in-law under the light of the sun. They were squashed by the light and stood side by side in front of Ma Shan, with a helpless expression on their faces, which was very funny.

Front side light:

Taking into account the character image and the three-dimensional sense, it is the most common light position for modeling.

The front side light is a regular choice for photographing people. In other words, if there is no special consideration, the front light position is generally used as the main light of the character. There is a small skill to recognize the front side light, to see if there is a “V”-shaped area on the person’s cheek.

The light texture and contrast are different, and the depth of the “V” is also inconsistent. You need to pay attention when watching the film.

The front side light takes into account both the character image and the three-dimensional modeling, but the ability to portray emotions is weak, or there is no obvious emotional tendency. Look at this screenshot in “In the Mood for Love”, have you found the “V” on the cheek of the character?

Side light:

Show the contradictions and struggles of the characters

Let’s take a look at the side light first. What does it feel like when the light is projected onto the face of a person at a 90-degree angle?

The bulge in the middle of the face divides the face into two distinct areas, one bright and one dark, commonly known as “yin and yang face”. It sounds terrible, and the emotions conveyed are naturally negative!

Specifically, negative emotions are embodied in this way: light and dark appear on the faces of the characters evenly at the same time, and the conflicts of light and shadows express the fierce struggles and conflicts in the characters’ hearts, or portray the distorted and divided psychological world.

We can also roughly associate light and darkness as good and evil, life and death, right and wrong, angels and demons, etc., and write these violent conflicting messages on the face, not the side light.

Yuri, the protagonist in the movie “King of War”, has hated and even feared violence since he was a child. He wanted to keep his family away from weapons and violent conflicts throughout his life, but he relied on arms trafficking and bloody conflict to get rich. This character is a typical symptom of a split personality. When dealing with the character’s use of light, the side light is used throughout the film.

The first scene of the movie is on the ground full of bullets. Accompanied by fierce gunfire, the protagonist stands alone in front of the ruins, carrying a suitcase from the back.

Then, the protagonist turns around and begins to tell the audience the story of him, a warmonger.

This is the protagonist’s first appearance in front, close-up, overhead angle, showing a humble appearance. The light on the face is from the side light angle, the contrast between light and dark is huge, and the highlight part is close to overexposure. This shot portrays the war-monger’s guilt, split personality, and internal contradictions, which set the tone for Yuri’s character image in the entire film.

It was the first time that he witnessed gun violence by Russian gangsters and was horrified!

This film can be regarded as a textbook on the use of side light, and it is worth reading. Of course, what is really awesome about the film is the handling of the end. The arms dealers escaped legal sanctions. The film thus raises a huge social problem-who should bear the responsibility for the proliferation of guns, and who is right and who is evil? Or is it both good and evil? Faces divided into light and dark leaves us with huge question marks!

1. What are high-key and low-key?

The brightness and darkness in the movie not only show a strong relationship between light and darkness, but also the layers of the picture are very rich. Usually the pictures presented in this way are called high-key and low-key lighting in movies.

High-key means the picture is bright, and low-key means the picture is dim.

So, is there a picture that is neither high-key nor low-key?

Yes, and there are too many! It is called the midtone, the center part of the figure below, the close-up of the character and the gray area.

There is no doubt that the mid-tone does not have the distinctive personality of high and low-key that dare to love and hate, giving people a sense of moderation and right and left. For this kind of conventional tone that lacks individuality, we can let it go when watching the film, and don’t need to pay special attention. Mainly used for realism, with low emotional color.

The advantage of midtones is that it is easy to retain the details of the picture to the greatest extent. It’s like being a human being. People who have the edges and corners flattened and who are right and left can often get the most benefits.

Remember, high-key and low-key lighting are the most important among the three-tones of high, medium and low.

Back to reality, continue to chat. If you are chatting with people, when someone mentions light, the first thing that pops out of your mind is the movie scene, which shows that you are not literary enough. If someone mentions light, you should seize the opportunity to pull on the art to have a style. At the very least, people like Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Latour who are regarded as the pope by the cinematographer should be lifted out of shock.

Indeed, playing with light and photography is simply too simple compared to thousands of years of art skills! I will talk about this topic specifically later. Have you noticed that the art world generally uses light and dark tones, rather than high-key and low-key to describe the brightness of light. So the question is, why did the film industry create the words high-key and low-key?

The curve in the figure is called the film sensitivity characteristic curve. Simply put, just to explain the meaning of high and low-key.

When the camera shoots a scene, the scenes with different brightness levels are recorded on the film (digital photosensitive element). This curve represents the exposure of still life with different brightness levels.

The curve is divided into three parts, the lower left corner part (dark part area) records dark part information, the middle part records medium brightness information, and the upper right corner records bright part information.

Obviously, if the picture is dim as a whole, the information is mainly concentrated in the lower left corner, the lower part of the curve. This is how the term “low-key” comes from.

If the picture is bright, the information is mainly concentrated in the upper right corner, and the part where the curve position is higher, it is called “high profile”.

2. High-key and low-key emotional function

1) High-profile, the overall picture is bright, most of the scenes are fully exposed, showing positive, cheerful, and energetic positive emotions.

Everyone likes a bright room rather than a dark room. Everyone who visits the mall will find that the light in the mall is always bright, the purpose is to make customers happy and stimulate the desire to buy. In short, the sunny pictures will always give everyone a good impression, and these daily life experiences are fully applicable in movies.

Generally speaking, comedy films, youth films, etc., as well as television commercials for most consumer products, generally use high-profile photography to bring the audience a happy mood.

In the movie “Girl”, although everyone’s eyes are focused on Shen Jiayi, the real protagonist is the pure white school uniform and sufficient light. The high-profile images constitute the protagonist’s fond memories of the middle school era.

2) Low-key, the overall picture is dim, most of the scenery is underexposed, showing negative emotions of negativity, coldness, and mysterious fear.

Take another example of shopping in a shopping mall. In the overall bright atmosphere of the shopping mall, some small shops, such as military stores, will dim the lights, making them look cool and mysterious, attracting potential customers to come in and find out, the reasons will not be repeated. The light processing principle of bars and nightclubs is the same as above.

Generally speaking, tragic tear-jerking films, suspense films, spy films and horror films, etc., generally use low-key photography to bring the audience into an emotional atmosphere of tension and anxiety.

The movie “The Cramers” shocked the audience at the beginning! The low-key light, almost black background, the woman’s melancholy face plunged into contemplation, suddenly bringing the audience into a solemn atmosphere.

Next is the middle shot of a woman touching her sleeping son. The same low-key light, like a religious painting-like lighting method, is emotionally depressing and sad. She is about to leave her husband and start an independent life, a thought-provoking family tragedy kicked off.

3. The experience and ideas of taking notes

1) Pay attention to the formation of high and low-key conditions

Generally speaking, sunny days, outdoor scenes, and daytime scenes tend to be high-key, while rainy days, interior scenes, and night scenes tend to be low-key. Everyone remembers this basic idea to observe when watching a movie, and it is generally not easy to miss information.

The lighting of low-key atmospheres (rainy scenes, interior scenes, night scenes) is more complicated and will cost more. Therefore, for low-cost films, night scenes, rain scenes, and interior scenes in the script are often changed ruthlessly by the producer. Unless it is necessary, the director will generally obediently compromise.

Of course, there are now more financing channels for movies, and directors spend more freely than before. There are fewer creative ideas castrated because of costs. But everyone must pay attention when watching movies and learn to think about it from the perspective of the producer. The money spent on rain scenes, interior scenes, and night scenes is not worth it. Is it really necessary? Can it be changed? If you find a reason to be low-key, congratulations, your understanding of this scene has reached a new level.

Don’t be convinced, you will know what a hero is short of breath when you don’t have enough budget for shooting homework.

2) Be good at catching the most typical examples

The overall style of a film is low-key, and there are many dimly lit scenes in the film. So the question arises. When writing film review examples, what examples should I cite to illustrate the problem? The answer is, give the most typical example.

For example, there are a lot of low-key images in the movie “Looking for a Gun”, showing the suspenseful atmosphere of the town and the anxiety of the policeman Ma Shan after the protagonist loses the gun. Night scenes, interior scenes, and rainy surrounding scenes are extensively used in the movie. There are many examples you can use when explaining the low-key light of the film. Which example should you choose to expand in detail?

3) Focus on the contrast between high and low profile

Tonal contrast is a common gameplay of film light. A high-key (or low-key) scene followed by a low-key (or high-key) scene, through the contrast of light and dark, expressing the strong contrast of emotions.

For example, at the beginning of the movie “The Godfather”, the inside scene, the gang godfather played by Marlon Brando is in a secret meeting with his men. The room is dimly lit and the atmosphere is mysterious and oppressive.

In any low-key style film, there must be one or two high-key scenes, which are the most important scenes. In any high-key style film, there must be one or two low-key scenes, which are the most important scenes!

 

First demonstrate why there must be one or two scenes that are different from the overall atmosphere. One reason: the film needs dramatic conflict, and there must be changes in mood. If you grieve to the end or laugh to the end, the dramatic tension will disappear.

Reason two: the film needs a visual rhythm. If it is on to the end, the audience will be visually fatigued, but will not feel that the picture is bright, and the sentiment will be greatly reduced. If a small number of low-key scenes are reasonably designed and appear at the right time, the audience’s eyes can be relaxed, which will help convey the overall mood of the film, and vice versa.

Cinematography is about Painting with Light.

Open any interview with a cinematographer, and the topic they are most interested in must be related to light. Talking about creating awesome light effects in a certain movie, I was even more excited than winning the grand prize!

When writing film reviews, light analysis is also an important angle. Therefore, in this article, we will talk to you about the light in the movie. The examples are not the same as the video courses, and the topics we talked about are broader.

When you were a kid, you played hand shadow play, the trick of using a flashlight to cast shadows on a white wall.

Turn on the flashlight and a clear shadow will be projected on the wall. In the example above, the shadows are clear and the outlines are sharp. Block a napkin in front of the flashlight, wow! The shadow has changed. See below:

The shadows are blurred and the outline is gone! Obviously, the light texture has changed. Before the napkin was blocked, the light was hard and the projection was very clear. After blocking, the light became soft and the projection was very blurred.

Slide your finger up, look at the shadows in the first two pictures, remember the different visual feelings, we introduce a concept, that is, hard light and soft light.

Hard light: light from a point light source

Point-shaped light source, in general, is a light source that has a small light-emitting area and can condense light, with a clear sense of light direction. Common ones include flashlights, car headlights, and incandescent bulbs.

These are all artificial point light sources, are there any in nature? Of course, the sun on a sunny day is a typical point light source, and the light emitted is hard light. (It is said that although the area of the sun is large, but it is too far away from the earth, we regard it as a point instead of a surface).

Soft light: light emitted by a planar light source

Recall the example of hand shadow just now. The light changed from hard to soft because the hard light emitted by the flashlight was filtered by a paper towel, and the light changed from a dot to a surface.

There are many similar situations, let’s take a look at a soft box. The light passes through a layer of soft light cloth to form a luminous plane, which emits light evenly. Open the soft light cloth, there is actually a light bulb with a point light source hidden inside. The principle is similar to the blurring of the hand shadow just now.

The same is true in the cloudy sky in nature. The thick cloud layer is like a huge soft light cloth, which softens the hard sunlight of the original nature, and evenly shines on the ground, and the shadow becomes blurred.

In a similar situation, in the shadows on sunny days, the direct light is blocked by obstacles and irradiated uniformly in the form of diffuse reflection, forming a soft effect of surface light.

Well, please remember that hard light is the light emitted by a point light source. Soft light is the light emitted by a planar light source, and hard and soft are the difference in texture between the two.

Show you a group of film and television lamps. The upper left corner is a small tungsten lamp, which emits hard light. The power is usually between 650W and 1000W (called 1K). Depending on the color of the lamps, they are commonly known as red-head lights, yellow-head lights and blue-head lights.

On the right is the three-primary color lamp that has become popular in recent years. A row of tube arrays form a planar light source that emits soft light. It is often used for lighting and still life shooting in the range below the mid-range of people.

Below is a traditional movie dysprosium lamp with high power. 5K is commonplace, and 10K and 15K are not surprising. The front of the bulb is equipped with a focus-adjustable lens group to keep the light in a clear sense of direction. These guys are cumbersome and expensive, and only rich crews are willing to buy them for filming.

   Have you noticed that traditional lamps are almost all point light sources that emit hard light, Why? In fact, it’s very simple. It’s easy for hard light to soften. Add a layer of soft light cloth to get it done. Soft light becomes hard light? Humph, that’s basically impossible!

Hard light shapes contour lines, soft light expresses soft texture

Let’s take an example from the scene where the protagonist digs cobblestones in “The Sun Also Rises.”

   This scene is a typical sunny outdoor scene, the light source is the sun. Sunlight is projected into the frame from the left of the painting, and a sharp shadow is formed on the right side of the big tree, which has a particularly strong sense of direction. The pebbles in the lower right corner are exposed to direct light and appear very bright, which is the visual focus of the picture.

Cut to the characters to see, the hard light leaves a solid shadow on the characters’ faces, emphasizing the contour lines of the faces, and the characters appear three-dimensional and have a sculptural feeling.

To give another example of the interior scene, from the movie “Listen to the Wind”, the scene where a beautiful female agent meets with the Director of Operation 701, first of all is the environment.

The high-power dysprosium lamp produces a particularly strong sense of direction and hard light. Through the narrow windows, the room is divided into bright and dark light areas with clear outlines. The picture is full of lines and strong atmosphere.

Next cut to the actor screen. Because it involved re-identification of identity, he was given a middle shot in uniform. Everyone pays attention to the light in combination with the above picture. The light source comes from the right side of the frame, which is the window in the picture above, and the figure is in the center of the frame. The light texture is tough, and the boundary between the light receiving surface and the shadow is clear, and the characters appear strong and powerful.

Looking at the heroine, the character is located on the right side of the frame, and there is no aura of submissiveness. The reason was that the real identity of the man in front of her was actually his boss, which surprised her. This is not the key. Let’s compare the two characters and see how the heroine is used up. It’s obviously soft light!

  It stands to reason that the use of light is based on some objective basis. The light source at the scene obviously comes from the high-power dysprosium lamp (simulating the sun’s rays) outside the window, and it hits the actor with a hard light, which is good. Why do you become soft when you meet a beautiful woman?

The reason is very simple, because the soft light expresses the soft texture, which can make the actress appear affinity, especially the skin becomes smooth and delicate. Obviously, this is the result of re-lighting the actress.

We can roughly associate hard light with men and soft light with women to remember, hard light outlines and is masculine! Soft light shows the details, and there is feminine beauty!

Whether a film focuses on hard light or soft light depends mainly on the subject matter. Usually spy films, police and gangster films, and suspense films use hard light more. Soft lights such as romance films, youth films, comedy films, etc. are used more. Everyone sees the cute effect of the hero and heroine in the movie, which is a masterpiece of soft light.

Of course, it is inevitable that a film uses the same texture of light from beginning to end, and it is more often a strategy of “soft and hard”. Let’s give an example of “soft and hard” as the end of this article.

The example comes from the movie “Looking for a Gun”. This film is a suspense theme. A large number of scenes use hard light to portray the atmosphere and performance of the characters. What you want is the elusive shadows left by the hard light and the depressing feeling.

“For me, photography represents’writing with light’, it expresses my inner thoughts in a certain sense. I try to express the real me in terms of my feelings, my structure, and my cultural background. To narrate the story of the movie through light, try to create a narrative method that parallels the story. Therefore, through light, shadow and color, the audience can consciously or subconsciously feel and understand what the story is saying.”–Vittori O Storaro

As a comprehensive art form, film is essentially about the use and exploration of “light and shadow”. The impact of light on film quality is obvious. As one of the movie elements, light and shadow, by mobilizing various performances of light, appropriately display the inner emotions of the characters, and play an irreplaceable role in the theme expression, atmosphere creation, and style creation of the movie. Reality is presented to the audience as perfectly as possible.

The movie itself is also an art to watch. Vision plays a leading role here, and the audience gets a completely different visual experience from these interlaced light and shadow images. Therefore, film creators continue to explore the pursuit of how to use light to create a perfect image, and how to use light to better serve the story.

Most of the lighting in the movie is based on natural light and artificial light to complete the character and plot. Many scenes in the film fully combine the two to portray the appearance or psychological changes of the characters. The two light sources exhibited completely different aesthetic effects. Due to the technical limitations of early movies, the way of using light at that time tended to use natural light, which had the advantage of being natural, real and rustic, creating naturalistic style images. With the advancement of film technology, creators have begun to try to add a lot of artificial lighting effects to make the picture clearer, richer and more intriguing. Nowadays, computer CG technology can even be used to artificially create some peculiar light and shadow effects.

Natural light is generally the reflection of outdoor sunlight, rain or glass to the sunlight, so it can best show the real picture performance. At the beginning of the film in 1895, images were nothing more than a means of recording. At that time, creators knew very little about the modeling effects that light can achieve, let alone subjective control of light. The short films shot by the Lumière brothers were all made in natural light. However, due to the poor sensitivity of the early film, the correct exposure can only be completed under strong light, and the final image effect is mostly uncontrollable.

After the appearance of the initial lighting fixtures, the picture presented is not only black and white. Due to the initial use of artificial light in the movie, the level of the picture creates a certain three-dimensional effect. In addition to black and white, different shades of gray are added, which can be said to be a leap for the directivity and richness of the film. However, the use of artificial light at that time was still not perfect enough. In addition to illuminating the subject, it also had a certain degree of falsehood. Therefore, the focus of the film was still around the story and the performance of the actors.

The advantage of artificial light is that it breaks the limitations of natural light, and at the same time enhances the richness and narrative of light and shadow. The light created with this light source has more subjective creation consciousness, which makes the pictures in the movie more powerful in modeling expression, spatial creativity and artistic appeal.

In the classic Hollywood period of the 1930s and 1950s, it was a period when Hollywood implemented a star system with stars as the center of film creation. In order to better shape the star’s screen image, the requirement for artificial lighting is particularly important. At that time, it was also a golden period when artificial drama light was brought to its extreme. Since then, drama light has become a typical sign of light consumption in classic Hollywood.

Most Hollywood movies in the era of large studios have commercial production attributes. To produce more movies and improve the efficiency of production, a systematic and complete lighting method is needed. In such a creative and capital environment, the lighting methods in the stage play and the film lighting are integrated and used for reference, and gradually formed a complete set of modular lighting system. This kind of lighting system is the traditional theatrical lighting effect lighting method. Under the artificial shaping and portrayal of light, not only the beauty of the stars in the movie is fully displayed, but also the character characteristics of the characters and the creation of a specific atmosphere have been sublimated and improved. This makes the different levels and depth of expression of light and shadow in the movie enter the audience’s field of vision.

However, with the end of World War II, film technology has also been further developed. With the emergence of color films with strong photosensitive performance and large-aperture lenses, the picture of the film presents a richer layer and richer light changes. The development of technology has provided great convenience for film creators to use natural light, and promoted the transition of film lighting method from artificial dramatic light to natural light effect. It broke the traditional Hollywood lighting mode of traditional dramatic light effect. At this time, the audience also has a new understanding of the art of film. They need to get a realistic experience in the process of watching the movie. This also directly leads to the change of film shooting and the concept of light use. The sense of simplicity makes the film’s picture more natural and true, and more touching.

However, the natural light effect in feature films is not like documentary films that use natural light to strive for reality in light and shadow. Natural lighting effects still advocate lighting and there must be a light source basis, but the traces of artificial lighting cannot be seen in the picture, and the pursuit is true and natural. On the basis of this theory, although the documentary style pursued by the Italian neo-realism style and the French new wave movies are all shot using natural light sources in the existing environment. However, due to the film technology of the time, this kind of film seemed a bit too rough. After the 1970s, with the general development of film shooting technology, Spanish photographer Nestor Almendros began to explore how to make the film in natural light and low-light lighting environment can still maintain the coexistence of exquisiteness and realism. . In 1978, Nestor Almendros and director Terrence Malick’s film “Days in Paradise” was a classic work using natural light effect.

“Days of Heaven” greatly reduces the use of artificial light sources. When shooting day and night scenes, the inherent light source in the picture is generally used as the main light source. The artificial lighting in the film only plays a role of supplementary light, so the endless wheat fields, pure pastoral scenery and wheat fields at dusk in the film appear to have a sense of life, real and simple, like a landscape painting. . The movie image unfolds like a picture of life, giving the audience a strong sense of situational substitution, and the light effect created can more impress the audience. Almendros’ lighting method not only has the texture of oil painting, but also the skillful natural light effect shooting technique complements the story theme that director Terrence Malik wants to express. In the end, he won the 51st Oscar for Best Photography with this “Days of Heaven”. The lighting method of natural light effect also developed to a nearly perfect level during this period, becoming a representative work praised by the industry.

And when the film is lighted to the film noir, it shows a completely different creative method and light effect. Film noir is actually a film genre developed from Gothic movies. The main storyline reflects the game life and the playfulness of deconstructing society, which is largely derived from the dark, negative, and pessimistic theme of Gothic culture.

At the same time, using black humor to explain the ups and downs of life adds a sense of ridicule and mockery of the world. From the aspect of appearance characteristics, film noir mostly focuses on exploring the dark side of society and human nature. Therefore, the lighting tone of the film is relatively gloomy and gloomy, and the overall composition shows an apocalyptic gloom.

The masterpiece of film noir is Carol Reid’s “The Third Man” filmed in 1949. Carol is definitely a master of the film noir genre. Although the story structure of the film is a black suspense drama about crime, the use of photography and lighting far exceeds the type of film itself.

Photographer Robert Krasko creatively used an unconventional tilt lens in the film “the Third Man” to appropriately show the uneasy atmosphere pervaded in the film to the audience. In addition, it is also very innovative in the use of black and white contrast of light and shadow, which is more in line with the lighting style of early Gothic movies. The bizarre style of the film is easily reminiscent of “Dr. Caligari’s Cabin”, the originator of German expressionist films. At the same time, since most of the film is shot in real scene, the light source only shines on the most important role. Therefore, in the film, you can often see the intensity of the night and the dazzling of the light separate and tear each other, but in terms of situational performance, the audience feels an inexplicable confrontation and puts emotions in a tense atmosphere.

This kind of light and shadow effect, the most classic shot is Harry’s appearance, this shot has become a must-read scene in movie textbooks. It carries through the suspense to the end in one go, and fully exposes the mystery created by the protagonist’s absence to the audience at this moment.

In addition, the light and shadow arrangement of expressionism in the film also came in handy here. If the darkness in front of the lights is not used as an emotional contrast, the audience’s sense of substitution and shock may be greatly reduced.

In the dark shadow on the street corner, Martins, the sheriff and others waited for Harry to appear. At this midnight, a huge black shadow appeared on the corner of the street, and the close-up on the right side of the screen was a horrible monster statue, which suddenly made the atmosphere of the film very tense. Then the scene changed, and the shadow that caused countless guesses was just an old man selling balloons. At this time, the relaxed rhythm of the film brought a soothing variation to the tense plot through the creation of light and shadow.

Compared with the lighting of natural light effects, such black-and-white images can better reflect the significance and importance of light and shadow for film creation. “The Third Man” has achieved the top level of film noir in both photography and lighting design. It deserves the name for being able to win the Oscar for Best Photography. Whether it is natural light effect lighting or artificial light lighting, the lighting of the film is designed to match the director’s intention with the story conveyed by the film. In the process of lighting, “not only should we know under what lighting conditions can we see the object, but we should also know under what lighting conditions can we better express the object”.

Every development of lighting methods is the result of continuous exploration and updating by photographers and lighting engineers of all ages. In order to create a more exquisite film picture and bring the film’s texture to the finishing touch, it is enough to show that the film’s lighting rules play a vital role in the success or failure of the film. Since the birth of the film, the use of light has played a very important role in the creation. From the simple lighting at the beginning to the development of the film, it takes on multiple responsibilities such as the narrative and emotional rendering of the film. Today’s film lighting not only sets the genre tone for the film, but also becomes an indispensable part of content creation.

The Role of Color

Because of its distinct perceptual characteristics, color is most easily accepted by the public. In the hands of directors, color becomes an overall symbol and ideographic factor. Through the transformation of environment and clothing color, it shows the transformation of characters’ character and deduces the release of human nature. The technical level of a film mainly depends on its proper comprehensive use of several colors.

Color is an important element of film language. However, in the film and television art, it is relatively late for color to play the ideographic function beyond its original color. For a long time, color only plays its realistic function of reappearing objective things in the film. Later, in the continuous artistic practice, the modeling function and ideographic function of color are gradually excavated. Antonioni, a film master who is good at using color to express and model, once said: “when shooting color films, it is necessary to intervene and take away the common reality, replace it with the reality of the time. “

Rudolph once pointed out that “color produces emotional experience.” Different colors evoke different emotions, and even show different symbolic meanings in different cultural environments, because colors have certain psychological tendencies. The color in film and television should be higher, more perfect, more infectious and artistic than in real life. It, together with the color collocation and change of scenery and surrounding environment, can set off the color of the whole film, so as to shape the characters and express their temperament.

How the Director Determines the Right Color

In very perfect, the director achieves the different effects required by the film by means of color cooling, shading, contrast and other ways of expression, so that the audience can get the visual experience consistent with the development of the film’s plot or the emotional development of the characters, The scene in the film has the most sense of design and the most wonderful use of color is Sophie’s.

In Sophie’s home, we can see not only the green walls and red reclining chairs, but also the blue floor tiles, yellow sofas and purple murals. The bold use of various colors, the fierce collision of strong color blocks and the ingenious combination of different color blocks make the overall style and color of Sophie’s home gorgeous, with the retro and luxury of Europe, It is also permeated with today’s sense of fashion and modernity, which not only reflects Sophie’s fantasy ability as an artist and cartoonist, but also reflects the protagonist’s happiness, anger and sadness through different angles and colors of the interior with the development of the plot.

For example, at the beginning of the film, when Sophie is sick and bedridden after lovelorn, the first pictures are dark red wallpaper and dark bedding. The use of this dark color appropriately sets off Sophie’s depression when she is lovelorn. It is also the scene of Sophie sitting in bed. When Sophie is ready to fight back, There are orange phones and light desk lamps in the picture, and the bedding becomes light blue. The obvious change of this color reflects the change of the protagonist Sophie’s state from being depressed to fighting high.

When Chang Rui, who is decorated by He Rundong, enters Sophie’s life, Sophie’s brighter colors, more jumping colors and more jumping color combinations gradually appear in the film, which also implies that Sophie’s life and emotional experience will be different from the past.

For another example, in the film my father and mother, the narration of father’s death is expressed in black and white, while the narration of mother’s love and happiness is described in color, with bright colors to contrast the difference between sadness and happiness.

Significance of Colors in Movie and TV Works

Although the visual function of clothing color in film and television is only a small part of the big concept of color, without it, film and television works are equal to the lack of soul, and its use is an integral part of personality shaping. The characters in the movie hero, through the color modeling, turn into the symbols of heroes. In the change of the color of pickled vegetables, they are full of heroic charm. Liang Chaowei’s cool in green, Maggie Cheung’s beautiful in white and Jet Li’s resolute in black all show classical charm.

In “the red lantern hanging high”, the costume design is gradually changing from simple elegance to strong color, which has become an intuitive symbol of the tragic fate of the heroine Songlian. Everyone in the film treats everything around her with extreme indifference. Therefore, the costume stylist Tong Huashen uses warm colors, ivory white, black, goose yellow, silver gray, bright blue and dark red to form the color tone of the costume, The elegant lines of Oriental women are set off by the black symbolizing power and death to show the character.

In these works, we can see the cultural meaning represented by the symbolic meaning of clothing color modeling, and the different main colors of clothing of different characters can reflect the special character of the characters themselves, and also reflect the ups and downs of the inner state of the characters in the process of plot development.

For example, in perfect, when Sophie takes the first step in her revenge plan, she wears an orange cloak and goes to find Jeff. The orange here shows that “she is competitive and does not give up. Once she makes a decision, she must stick to it.” When Sophie helped Chang Rui to hold the film exhibition, she regained her spirits and wore a sapphire blue evening dress that made the audience amazing. The blue here conveys Sophie’s politeness, humility and excellent coordination ability. Lu Xiaoxi, who changes her boyfriends faster than clothes, often wears black, which represents her independence, mystery and sexuality as a feminist.

Another example is the British film Jane Eyre, in which the heroine is always dressed in black and brown. When Rochester falls in love with her, she changes into a white plain dress for the first time, with the setting sun, grass and tree vines on the back, showing her happiness of first love. When she heard that Rochester left without saying goodbye and was about to marry a lady, she was in pain and changed into brown clothes. From the perspective of color psychology, it explains the inner fluctuation of the characters and promotes the development of the plot to a certain extent. Especially in the contemporary film and television works of China, clothing color collocation and color change, not only contains a large number of fashion elements, but also surpasses people’s color cognition in the real world, and realizes the deepening of the theme and the interpretation of the content.

The performance of film and television color is like our perception of life, the release of human nature, and the aesthetic function of metaphor symbol is an important function of color for film and television. Although film and television is a kind of realistic art, the creators will more or less use some means to create subjectively to achieve a certain emotion and artistic conception. Color naturally has an attribute that affects people’s psychological emotion, so it is more favored by film and television creators as a means of film and television modeling.

Basic Principles of Lighting

Light can be projected to the scene in many ways. It can create a variety of atmospheres. The photographer’s task is to choose the lighting method that is most suitable for expressing the story content.

Naturalism pursues natural light and logically arranges lighting sources in the scene. It’s also often called motivational lighting. For example, when shooting a scene where two people are facing each other in the outdoor sunlight, if one person is backlight, the other person must be backlight.

Artists believe that if they want to get a more satisfactory picture, they will allow the angle of light to go against this logic. In the above example, both of them can be backlight, because the visual effect is good, although it is not true.

Factors Affecting Lighting Style

Director or plot needs     

budget     

Photographer’s personality     

Lens and lighting     

Continuous development of film technology     

For example, high-speed film and high-speed lens require less light. They can use soft diffuse light, or they can use the actual light source on site. They can also make use of the existing light, i.e., the street lights at night.

The Work of a Photographer

Ask the photographer to simulate a specific event of the day according to the story.     

What are the different visual effects of the day?   Morning, morning, noon, afternoon, evening / sunset, evening and night.     

What about the color of the light?     

What is the texture of light?     

What is the intensity of the light?     

What’s the direction of the light?

Lighting: the Function of All Kinds of Light

The function and direction of light     

Five basic positions and functions of light     

Its function can be seen from the location name     

The name of light does not mean the softness and size of light

Basic Lighting Arrangement

1. Main light     

The dominant main light source, use it to create the main effect.

It usually determines the characteristics and atmosphere of the scene.

2. Auxiliary light     

Illuminate the shadow area of the character or scene, so that the effect of the film is closer to what the eyes “see”. At the same time, it depicts the performance of ambient light.

Establishing light ratio… “Auxiliary light to main light plus auxiliary light”  ( 2:1,   3:1,   4:1,   6:1,   Etc.).

It can also be used to keep the scene dark or light up the shadow to determine the atmosphere of the scene. These changes can help to suggest the time of day and the natural fidelity of the scene.

Auxiliary light is usually a large soft light source, so there is no annoying shadow. Double shadows are absolutely avoided for good photographers.

Usually, the auxiliary light is close to the camera lens, although the reflector is often used now, which is placed opposite to the main light to reflect the light to the shadow of the subject.

3.Backlight

The purpose of any backlight lighting is to separate the subject from the background.

It is located in the rear of the subject and outlines the top and sides of the subject with light.  

Edge contour light

Placed behind the subject, slightly to the left or right.

In this way, a thin contour line can be given on one side of the surface of the object.

Silhouette eye light

Light the face of the subject from the direction of the camera to make it glossy.

Sometimes instead of auxiliary light, it is used to illuminate the shadow part of the face.

Linear contour light

It is basically similar to the contour eye light, but the light position is more forward and does not produce luster.

Glow

Most of them come from the side, and produce a small amount of glow in the shadow part and face, but they will not produce shadows themselves.

No highlights or silhouettes are produced.

4. Background light

It emphasizes the area behind the subject to produce the effect of distinguishing foreground scenery.     

Usually, the background is darker than the subject.

5. Special light source

Top light

Placed above the top of the subject, it can produce a heavenly or sacred effect.

Eye light

Used to highlight highlights or flashes in the eyes to produce different emotional effects.     

Always on top of the lens.     

Usually, it is a light source with good or weak scattering.

Costume lighting     

It is used to emphasize some parts of the subject’s clothing rather than the character itself.

Highlight lighting     

Used to highlight a part of the scene or background to distinguish the surrounding environment.

Lighting: Direction and Atmosphere

The angle of the main light source is the key to show the atmosphere and characteristics of the scene. But it doesn’t determine the texture of light.

***Conventional main light source – Generally, it points to the top of the 30-45 degree angle on the side of the subject.

***Low angle light source – Usually hit under the subject’s cheek, can produce mysterious “vampire” effect, or give a very beautiful, sexy appearance.

***Side main light  ( 90 degrees) – Shooting from one side of the subject can produce a sharp, dramatic effect. Sometimes it’s called cold light “hatchet.”   light”  ( This is because it can make the outline clear.)   It was used in Clint Eastwood’s films, where there was little or no auxiliary light. Light metering can also use soft light, which can produce a very natural effect.

***High angle main light – Also known as top light, when the subject looks down, it can produce the effect of fear and emotion. When the subject looks up, it can give the effect of heaven. Gordon Willie popularized this lighting method in “Godfather”.

***Far side main light – ( The main light source is placed on the side of the far end of the nose of the subject. Except for the eyes, other parts of the face are in the shadow.

***Main light of ear side – ( It’s also called Kuan Kuo Guang   It is placed on the ear side of the subject close to the camera so that there is only partial shadow on the front of the face.

***Butterfly light – The main light source on the high angle front can create “Butterfly” shadow under the nose of the subject. It can reduce wrinkles, double chin, big nose, and also emphasize the subject’s cheekbones. This is a typical Hollywood “beautification lighting”.

Lighting: Creating “visual effects”

There are two basic techniques to simplify this process:

Motive lighting  

It asked us a question: “where does the light come from? Can I adjust the light source?”   A key to natural lighting is to understand and simulate how light reflects from the surface of an object and ejects in an area. It’s a good connection to observe the effects of natural light and then try to reproduce them with your own lighting.

Lighting plane 

It refers to how and where light is distributed on different planes of a three-dimensional object, room or location, through which depth can be obtained.

Extreme change:     

Fine and thick     

High key and low key     

Reality and fantasy     

Dynamic use of color and non use of color

Hard light and soft light

There is much to be said about the style and texture of these two kinds of light. Generally speaking, hard light can produce dramatic and textural effects, and the area of light can be easily limited. Soft light can more beautify people of all ages, more romantic, beautify the task, but it is difficult to control part of the light scattered on the wall and not needed.

High profile lighting  

Make the whole image full of bright feeling, only a very small area of dark black. This kind of light has a strong bright effect, and even illuminates the subject and the background.

Low key lighting  

Because Rembrandt and Caravaggio are widely used, they use the contrast between highlights and shadows to enhance the depth of their paintings. The subjects in their paintings are often clear highlights compared with the dark background. This style of painting is known as “chiaroscuro”   chiaroscuro   Style, usually make a composition of each light surface and background contrast. In Italian, chiaro means clear or bright, while Oscuro means dim, ambiguous or dark.

Window light  （ Large area, soft, single direction)  

It can be obtained by scattering light from large areas or reflecting light with foam plates or reflectors. The Dutch painter wilmir in his paintings is the performance of this texture of light. The light is softer, but the direction is strong, and the light source can be adjusted and moved accurately according to the position of the window. It’s not very bright or very dark.

Cross inverse main light source  

It is very effective when using two light sources instead of four to illuminate two characters. Each light source has two functions, that is, acting as the inverse main light source of one actor, and acting as the inverse light source of another actor at the same time. Using a reflector to reflect light as auxiliary light can supplement the two actors at the same time.

Staggered lighting  

It is to illuminate the light on the object and the background, and use this method to create an alternating light and dark effect.

Scene light ratio

In order to produce illumination contrast on the object, the intensity of the main light source is different from that of the auxiliary light source. The ratio between them is the light ratio. The auxiliary light is usually regarded as “1” in this light ratio.

In general, light ratio is used for relatively small subject area, mainly the subject. To maintain the consistency of lighting, as far as the concept of light ratio is concerned, it is very useful to express the mood and order of shooting results.

In low-key scenes, the ratio of main light to auxiliary light is usually higher than that in high-key scenes. For example, for things taken at night, the auxiliary light level may be at least two levels lower than the main light level. The higher the light ratio, the greater the contrast. In contrast, in high-profile scenes, the light intensity of the auxiliary light is closer to the main light intensity, which will produce a relatively flat and small contrast light effect.

In order to determine the light ratio, a light meter is needed to get the reading of the subject facing the main light. The lighting of main light source may be composed of main light and some auxiliary light. Use this reading to compare the reading with the auxiliary light alone. This ratio is called key plus fill   to   Fill）.

If the auxiliary light is not added in the direction of the main light, such a ratio is called the ratio of the main light to the auxiliary light   (Key to   Fill）.

The importance of Video Light

Film and television lamps are a type of lamps used in stage performances and film and television shooting to illuminate and achieve a certain light effect. How to choose a movie light? According to the type, it can be roughly divided into: LED video light, tri-color light, halogen light/quartz light, HMI, HQI and FRENSEL, etc. With the development of LED technology, LED video lights have become the most widely used and the most ideal popular video light source in the future due to their small size, high intensity, and low energy consumption.

In film and television shooting, the video light is often used as the main light, which to a large extent determines the light and shadow effect of the entire shooting scene. Video lights are so important, but in the face of numerous brands and varying quality video lights, how to choose has become a difficult problem for us. Ledsfilm, as a professional film and television lighting R&D and production manufacturer with many years of experience, its Bi-color, Circular, 2-in-1 Continuous video lighting and 360° Photography series of video lights are highly rated in the market. It has successively become the special film and television lights for Hollywood studios in the United States and Bollywood studios in India, and its quality is evident. So we take the Ledsfilm video lamp as an example to analyze the top 10 things you need to pay attention to when buying video lights, and help you save time when buying video lights.

1. What kind of light source is the key

  The light source is the most important factor in determining the lighting effect of the film and television, so the most important thing to know when choosing the film and television lamp is what kind of light source it uses. At present, the mainstream film and television lights basically use LEDs as the light source, but the LED lamp beads can be subdivided into many types, including super bright, bright, full-spectrum, and non-full-spectrum, with various styles.

If users do not know how to distinguish between good and bad LED lamp beads, the most worry-free way is to choose a trusted brand manufacturer. For example, the 45˚ super bright Ф5 full-spectrum LED lamp beads commonly used in movie shooting are one of the most excellent light sources at present. The LED lamp beads have the same standards as ARRI in Germany, and have outstanding features such as high brightness, accurate color temperature, high CRI and long life.

2. Number and power of leds

The greater the number of LEDs, the greater the power and the higher the luminous flux. Luminous flux is an accurate standard that determines the brightness of a lamp. The higher the lumen value, the stronger the light! For example, the Ledsfilm Bi-color film and television lamp used by a Hollywood film studio mentioned above in its studio. The number of ultra-bright LED lamp beads used in this lamp reached 1600, the maximum power reached 1500w, and the maximum luminous flux was 225,000LM, which is equivalent to the total luminous flux of 28,000w traditional tungsten filament lamp, is very suitable for live broadcast or stage fill light in such a large scene. Therefore, when choosing a video lamp, the lamp body of the same size should be selected with a large number of LEDs and high power.

3. Color temperature adjustment

  Single color temperature or dual color temperature? Can I install color chips? These are all things that you must understand when buying video lights. At present, most video lights have dual color temperature, and the color temperature can be adjusted between 3200k-5600k. But there are also some film and television lights that have only a single standard color temperature, that is, 5600k. For film and television lights with monochromatic temperature, it is best to be equipped with color films. The choice of color temperature depends on the shooting needs of the film. The shooting range of Hollywood is more complicated, so it is more inclined to choose two-color temperature film and television lights. For example, the Ledsfilm LS-BCL1000 video lamp commonly used in Hollywood has dual color temperature. For product image shooting, interview shooting, etc., we can choose a cold color temperature of 5400k for shooting. For films that need to create a warm and romantic atmosphere, such as wedding shooting, you can choose a warm color of 3400k, easily switch, and play with dual color temperatures.

4. Color rendering index

  The low color rendering index used to be one of the most criticized shortcomings of LED video lights. However, with the continuous development of LED technology, the current color rendering index of LED lamp beads can generally reach CRI≥80. The video lamp of the brand Ledsfilm uses more advanced full-spectrum LED lamp beads, which not only has high brightness, but also has a higher color rendering index than video lamps of the same level. This is also one of the important reasons why the Ledsfilm Bi-color series of video lights are so popular in Hollywood. The following is a comparison between the high CRI and the low CRI video lights. The effect is clear at a glance.

The high CRI can truly restore the color, which is an important indicator for the purchase of film and television lights.

5. Power supply mode

When choosing a video light, pay attention to what kind of power supply mode it uses. At present, most video lights support both DC power input and external lithium battery power supply. When shooting indoors, AC power is used. When shooting outdoors, you can use an external lithium battery for power supply. There are also some fill lights specifically for indoor shooting. This type of fill light does not support lithium battery power supply and cannot be used for shooting outdoors without direct current, so you must understand clearly when purchasing.

6. Whether to support wireless remote control and DMX512

The support of wireless remote control and DMX512 for video lights is a very practical design, especially in large-scale video shooting, wireless remote control and DMX512 are particularly important. Through the remote control in hand, the brightness and color temperature of the film and television lights of each lamp position can be controlled remotely, which greatly improves the photographer’s light distribution efficiency. Some movie lights do not have wireless remote control or DMX512 function at the same time, which will cause inconvenience in large-scale movie shooting and stage lighting. High-power video lights such as Ledsfilm LS-BCL1500, HCAN-600 and LS-SPL1500 support 2.4G 99-channel wireless remote control and DMX512 dimming with RJ45 interface. It is very practical in actual lighting, especially when lighting is coordinated with multiple lights in large scenes!

7. Thermal performance

LED lights emit a lot of heat when they are working, and if they do not dissipate heat in time, excessively high temperatures will greatly reduce the overall service life of the film and television lights. Each brand of film and television lamps has different heat dissipation methods. Take the Ledsfilm series of video lamps as an example, the heat dissipation performance is very good. Because this lamp is designed with triple heat dissipation methods, one is an aluminum alloy body and multi-faceted heat dissipation holes, the second is to increase the large heat dissipation holes of the lamp holder, and the third is to optimize the circuit design. Multiple heat dissipation ensures the safety of the lamp.

8. Can it be compatible with a variety of accessories

To meet different shooting needs, film and television lights need to rely on different photography accessories, so when buying fill lights, choose fill lights that are compatible with more accessories. Ledsfilm’s 2-in1 Continuous series of video lights can not only be installed with color films, diffusers, but also with detachable accessories such as light barriers, softboxes, and metal honeycombs.

9. Multi-angle lighting

   Film and television shooting requires multi-angle lighting, and the video light must meet this condition. The standard metal u-shaped rod bracket of the Ledsfilm series of video lights has a 360-degree light fill angle, which is very flexible, and it can easily fill light even at a tricky angle.

10. Choose a big brand

   Although there are many brands of film and television lights, the quality is uneven. Therefore, it is best to choose large-brand manufacturers for the purchase of film and television lights, which not only guarantees the quality of the products, but also has perfect after-sales service. This is also the main reason why Ledsfilm’s video lights are so popular in Hollywood and Bollywood.

   Ledsfilm is a manufacturer with many years of professional video light R&D and production. Its video lights are favored and praised by the majority of photography enthusiasts for their excellent quality, high cost performance and considerate after-sales service.

In addition to movies, there is also the influence of television. Regarding the connotation of television art, there is still no unified understanding in the theoretical circles. In the “Broadcasting and Television Dictionary”, there are two interpretations of television art in a narrow sense and a broad sense. In a narrow sense, TV art includes all art programs, such as TV dramas, TV songs, special cultural programs, TV dramas, and so on. The broad interpretation is that all TV programs contain a certain degree of artistry, so TV art refers to all TV programs in general.

As a new cultural form, it not only possesses a powerful television communication network system spreading across all corners of the society–collecting, processing, and producing all kinds of audio-visual information. And it also creates unique TV cultural products with its unique forms and means of expression. At the same time, with its audio-visual, lifelike performance, and free time and space communication effects, it has formed an unprecedented large receiving group.

With its excellent performance and means of communication, film and television culture can popularize culture most widely, have a broad and profound impact on human society, and cause major changes in the overall structure and proportion of social culture.

Film and television culture has a wide audience and can widely affect audiences at different levels, thus greatly changing the way of human cognition, improving human perception of new things, increasing the penetration of culture, and expanding the frame of reference of culture. To a large extent, it has broken the boundaries of countries, nations, and languages, and it is a cultural phenomenon with a worldwide character.

Development direction

Film and television art is a unique art form that humans grasp the world in an aesthetic way.

In addition to the political, economic, historical, and philosophical ways of grasping the world, why can human beings still need to grasp the world through aesthetic methods? Why do contemporary people still need to watch movies and TV art programs in the rich and diverse cultural life? The reason is simple, but it is also profound. That is why people are humans, but they are a kind of high-level rational and emotional animals that are different from other animals. They have a unique spiritual home that needs to be maintained.

Art is the carrier of human emotions. Only through the aesthetic approach to grasp the world, only through literary creation, appreciation and criticism, can we cultivate emotions, purify the soul, and sublimate the personality, thereby adhering to the sacred spiritual home of mankind, and promoting the free and comprehensive development of man and society.

As the former President of China Hu Jintao eloquently stated: “Art has always been an important field for cultivating people’s morals, expressing human ideals, enriching people’s artistic enjoyment, and promoting social development and progress.” Contemporary film and television art creation must insist on the prosperity of advanced culture. , To build a harmonious culture, to promote the free and comprehensive development of people and society, and to adhere to the “people-oriented” aesthetic ideal in line with the scientific development concept to determine its own development direction.

Word meaning discrimination

The first is the pleasure and beauty, seductiveness and nourishment of film and television art.

Film and television art creation is a human aesthetic activity. “Today, aesthetics is the foresight of modern society and the reshaping of people. Aesthetics is the critical inheritance or sublation of all cultural achievements in human history. It is the pursuit of eternity. In the era of information explosion, aesthetics is about balance. The desire for integrity and truth is the desire for a sound personality, the desire for a sense of moderation and good judgment.”

As for aesthetics, the art of film and television must of course give people the pleasure of seeing and hearing. Bypassing pleasure, that is preaching, not art, nor aesthetic. But it’s not only about pleasure, especially when it’s not only about the physical stimulation of the audiovisual senses, that is neither art nor aesthetic.

Real art, especially excellent art, should give the audience pleasure, and reach the soul through pleasure, so that the audience can obtain cognitive enlightenment, soul purification and spiritual sublimation on the basis of pleasure, that is, beauty is produced by pleasure. .

At this time, the human heart has obtained a kind of harmonious beauty due to aesthetics (this kind of harmonious beauty is sometimes presented as tranquility, sometimes as uplifting, sometimes sad, and sometimes joy). But nowadays there is a so-called “aesthetic proposition” that provides a theoretical basis for certain TV talent shows, low-level comedy TV shows, and “entertainment films” of the “killing sound, blood flow, fist and pillow, triangle chaotic love” category. “It is believed that history has entered the “post-modern”, and human art, especially film and television art, is to “produce happiness” and to use modern technology to create “audiovisual wonders” and give the audience the shock and excitement of the audiovisual senses.

Fueled by this “aesthetic proposition”, the technology that originally played a supporting role behind the scenes on the screen rushed to the forefront amidst the noise of creating “audiovisual wonders”, and became the protagonist and dominator with sound and light waves, making the charm, artistic conception and imagery. The souls of these Chinese art spirits have given way to the colorful and dazzling visual and sensual stimulation, and the art itself is shrinking.

While TV art has a vast territory (it can almost be associated with a long-standing and varied literary and artistic category to produce new TV art forms) and a broad audience, it has gradually lost its artistic personality and aesthetic advantages.

Television art programs (such as MTV and certain variety shows) increasingly focus on conquering the audience with sensory stimulation, and even go beyond the boundaries of artistic beauty, becoming increasingly vulgar and fast-food. The generalization, superficiality and kitschiness of TV “blockbuster”, “New Year’s film” and certain “entertainment films” in aesthetic pursuits, the decline of the humanistic spirit, the lack of historical rationality, and the collapse of the moral bottom line are also obvious. fact.

 The crux of the problem lies in the harmonious grasp of the “degree” of pleasure and beauty, seductiveness and nourishment. In essence, it is a question of whether film and television arts can truly hold high the banner of aesthetics, and whether they can truly “lead the people’s spiritual life” in aesthetics, so as to truly represent the fundamental interests of improving the people’s spiritual quality.

Moderate is harmonious, pleasure enhances beauty, seductive and more seductive. Excessive is not harmonious, pleasure becomes catharsis, seductive becomes sad. Practice has repeatedly proved that the excessive pleasure of human physiological senses will inevitably cause deep pain in the spirit, and the uncontrolled perceptual stimulation will inevitably cause the imbalance of aesthetic psychology.

Along with the excessive enjoyment of the audience’s visual and auditory senses, their spiritual beauty and reflection ability will inevitably decline. The old saying goes: “Happiness is not in the outside, but in the heart. If the heart thinks that it is happy, then the realm is happy. The heart thinks that it is bitter, and there is no boundary and no bitterness.”

If the art of film and television blindly relies on technological means to create audiovisual wonders, promote sensuality or humor, then it can only stop at pleasure and seductiveness. It can only enjoy the outside but never enjoy it. The heart is happy for a lifetime, but the eyes are happy for a while. The beauty of film and television art is not to cater to the ups and downs, but to lead the audience and nourish people’s hearts.

Engels once talked about the mission of literature and art by referring to German folktale books. He said: “The mission of the folktale book is to enable a farmer to finish his arduous day labor and get happiness, excitement and comfort when he drags his tired body back in the evening, so that he can forget his own fatigue and take away his troubles. The barren fields turn into a depressed garden. The mission of the folktale book is to turn a craftsman’s workshop and a tired apprentice’s humble roof hut into a world of poetry and a palace of gold, and to turn his vigor and strength into a world of poetry and a golden palace. The lover described as a beautiful princess. But the folktale book also has this mission: to cultivate his sense of morality like the Bible, to make him recognize his power, his rights, and his freedom, to arouse his courage and arouse him. Love for the motherland.”

This is the mission of folk story books, as is the mission of contemporary film and television art. The people’s film and television art workers should have the people’s aesthetic ideals and expectations in mind, work hard, forge ahead, fully develop their intelligence and talents, and dedicate to the people beautiful masterpieces that are seductive and nourishing.

The second is the audience rating (attendance rate) and the audience quality (box office quality) of film and television arts.

This is also a sensitive issue where the art of film and television is directly related to the people. In the face of the market, it is reasonable for movies to value attendance and TV art to value ratings. Because no matter how excellent the film and television art works, if the audience is very small, its social benefits, economic benefits and even aesthetic effects will not be fully realized. However, nowadays, a “viewing rate (attendance) first” approach is popular, which is undesirable.

  First of all, how to scientifically view and understand the ratings (attendance)? As far as I know, the ratings of TV programs are currently mainly counted by the two most popular professional organizations-Sofore and Nielsen. Probably due to differences in statistical methods and sampling ranges, the statistical results of the ratings of the same program are often different for the two companies.

Whose statistics are closer to reality? Is there a more scientific statistical method than these two companies? These are all suspicious. As for the box office attendance of movies, for some “blockbuster” and “New Year films”, I am afraid that it is not the ideological connotation, cultural taste and aesthetic value of the work itself, but the commercial marketing hype outside of art— -The use of “aestheticism” exaggerated advertising sensibility symbols and all-round bombardment of the media to swell the appetite of the public, tempting to enter the theater and change people’s normal aesthetic standards.

This fashionable and powerful hype concocts the virtual value of symbols, creating the symbolic hegemony of visual culture, and even manipulates the world of images, occupying the public’s vision, distorting cultural values, changing aesthetic stereotypes, and achieving the ultimate goal of grabbing commercial profits. Mr. Spielberg knows this very well. In his letter to the author, he pointed out: “If art is like a stock, it uses speculation to increase its value and falls into the market-oriented quagmire, that is the beginning of the decline of art.” Very impressed.

The importance of film and television art

Film and television image is the basis of film and television art, which refers to the visual image that is finally generated on the screen or video screen with the help of material materials such as photosensitive film (or tape, disk, CD), using photography or videography, and projection or projection. .

Film and television images are generated by a beam of distinguishable light projected on the plane of a two-dimensional space with obvious marginality, and generated by the audience’s visual cognition at a certain cultural, intellectual and aesthetic level.

Movie images are imaged by projection of light, and its imaging does not depend on the screen, but on the use of the camera lens. In other words, the film and television images are actually determined by the lens. It can be seen that how the lens is used directly determines the creation of film and television images.

In addition to images, sound also occupies a very important position in film and television. Sound enters the movie, making the movie closer to the reality of life and more like reality. However, the sound concept of early movies, whether it is the sound counterpoint proposed by Eisenstein and others, or the Hollywood theatrical film, did not pay attention to the recording role of sound. Film and television sound includes dialogue, commentary, film music, etc. Dialogue refers to the lines between characters in the film and television screen. Film and television dialogue can explain the relationship between the characters, the background of the event, narrate the plot of the story, portray the character of the character and express the inner world of the character.

Commentary is the description, evaluation and explanation of the event or character by the creator in non-narrative time and space. All sounds except for human voice and music in film and television, as well as human voice and music in the form of background sound or environmental sound are collectively referred to as sound. Film and television sound is good for digging into the characters’ hearts, can advance the plot, show the environment, deepen the theme, and can also have a certain symbolic meaning.