The Basic Lighting Setup

This again is via Lighting for Digital Video and Television by John Jackman.

Just remember...

Start with the key,

Set the fill to illuminate shadowed areas,

Set a backlight to seperate the subject from the background.

In a typical T.V setup the keylight is the onside key: the side near the camer but off axis for modeling. The light is also placed above the subject but not too high, going into the face of the subject to avoid ugly shadows. The fill light is usually about the same height on the side away from the camera. The backlight is directly behind and above the subject pointed at the back of the head and shoulders.

This setup is just a base though. In practice all kinds of tweaking is necsessary depending on what you are shooting. Frequently the backlight should be off axis untill it's more like a kicker "from the side". You might want to reverse the key and fill, rotate the whole setup round the subject, add some diffusion. The posibilites are endless and of course should be played around with to get a feel for it all.

A few things to remember in three point lighting:

• Adding diffusion reduces intensity so you may need to move the light with diffusion closer to subject to compensate.
• Background should usually be a stop lower than the subject.
• Avoid shooting in front of a white wall at all costs.
• For maximum control use a fourth light on the background.
• The height of the light, especially the key should be between 45 and 75 degrees (1.30-2.30).