Cinematography-Theory-And-Practice

Figure 7.5. (top) Lighting can createdepth and three-dimensionality ina scene. Here, the actress is lit onlywith a soft key; the scene is flat, twodimensionaland doesn’t seem real.In Figure 7.6 (bottom) the additionof a backlight, a practical lamp, andlighting through the window and inthe hallway makes the scene morethree-dimensional and realistic.Exposure and LightingLighting does many jobs for us, but none of them matter if you don’tget the exposure right: incorrect exposure can ruin whatever elseyou have done.In terms of lighting, just getting enough light into a scene to get anexposure is usually not difficult. What is critical is correct exposure.gain, and shutter angle) but don’t forget to think of it as an impor-nominally “correct” exposure (see the chapter Exposure).It is important to remember in this context that exposure is aboutand tone is obvious, but there are other considerations as well. Forexample, proper exposure and camera settings are critical to colorsaturation and achieving a full range of grayscale tones.There are really two ways in which you have to think about exposure.One is the overall exposure of the scene; this is controlled bythe iris, the shutter speed, gain and neutral density filters. All of this neutral density filters (called grads), there is no chance to be selectiveabout a certain part of the frame.Another aspect of exposure is balance within the frame. As is discussedin the chapter on exposure, film and video can only accommodatea certain brightness range. Keeping the brightness rangewithin the limits of your particular film or video camera is mostlythe job of lighting. Again, it’s not merely a technical job of conformingyour lighting to the available latitude: the lighting balance canalso affect the mood, tone, style, and overall look of the scene.lighting basics107