Vihan,
The first low (&no) budget short film event in Iran,
Presents.
In association with
Khanesh institute
and 35mm studio
Natural Lighting Cinematography
Chapter 3
Introduction
To give an introduction, just to make sure you are all familiar with some basic concepts
and then we go through practical work with camera
I must first tell you about types of lights according to their functions
We have a major light that we call the “key light” or “main light”
The main task of which is to brighten the scene, the subject and parts of the scene you wanna have in your shot
There is a second type of light called “fill light”
as the name implies this light softens the shadows created by the main light
For example this light upon my head is counted as the key light of this palce
It’s brightening the left half of my face and there you see a darkness in right half and the shadow of my eyebrows and nose falls on my face
It’s the fill light’s job to smooth and fade these shadows
Fill light must be in a meaningful relation with the key light
I mean, if you want a high contrast picture, not very faded shadows, don’t use fill light at all
On the opposite, if you want a balance between light and darkness, then you turn on a fill light to fade the shadows to some extent
But remember, fill light should not be so strong to overcome the main light and make a second shadow itself
That’s why the fill light comes from the camera side
If you give an angle to the light, the shadow it makes, however faded, will be seen
So we put it near or behind the camera to prevent another shadows
Because when the light is coming from camera its shadow goes behind the subject and we don’t see the extra shadow
But key lights are usually at an angle to the camera, “usually”, I said
You might flash the key light from the camera for specific means
Any way, they are mostly casted with an angle and create a dark zone in the picture
We can reduce the darkness with fill light and fade the shadows of the key light
Main lights have to exist
In fact, except for key light, the rest is optional
But for a scene to be visible and exposable by the camera using key light is a must
Although, the others, you might use, based on what you want from your scene
So, we have a fill light that can exist or not
There is another kind of light called “back light”, casting from behind the subject
To show you
If I stay here, for me, as a subject, this is the back light, shining from my back, usually brightens shoulders and top head
Now if you incline it to another side like this it highlights a side edge of my face. This light is called “rim light” or “kicker light”
And if I stay under the light source, for me, it’s “top light” or “head light”.
OK, in this position, if I’m considered as the subject, the key light is the light shining to me from that side
Sometimes you wanna take a dark night scene and your key light is the moonlight
We often use the moon light as the key light, but not from the front
Usually in night scenes an edge is highlighted
even we can move it
We forget the logic of lights, we move it to make sure the subject has the rim light and the rest of his face goes dark
So yes, back light and rim light can also be the main light without the presence of any other light
We can put a fill light to make it a bit brighter, or an “ambient light”, the light existing around.
Whether you use all these lights or not, it’s all up to you
Now, think you have a scene, you want your subject not to merge with the background,
you want it to be separated,
you use back light
If not, you want the subject to be solved in back ground then don’t use back light
You let it be a little  less contrast and so the subject merges the back ground
All these depend on your desire
I said this preface, passing so quickly on them to get to the main discussion which is using natural light
Mainly meaning the sunlight
But well, you may have got a place like this and you have to use only what you got and you have to use this light
Incidentally, you can’t add lighting tools
But we will discuss our main point which is using natural day light.
Vihan,
the first low (&no) budget short film event in Iran.
