Home Applications 3 Looks, 1 Location
class=attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail f-align-center alt=Garrett Sammons decoding=async data-lazy-srcset=https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-150x150.png 150w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-300x300.png 300w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-768x768.png 768w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-100x100.png 100w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-140x140.png 140w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-500x500.png 500w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-350x350.png 350w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-800x800.png 800w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-600x600.png 600w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons.png 900w data-lazy-sizes=(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px data-lazy-src=https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/garrett_sammons-150x150.png />Garrett Sammons Garrett is the Creative Director at Nice Shirt Media and part-time film professor. With a primary focus on commercial cinematography, he also creates narrative and documentary films.
youtube
instagram
Written by Garrett Sammons
Lighting is one of the most crucial aspects of filmmaking. Although sometimes underestimated, lighting can change the entire look and feel of a location. It can also impact the depth of the story told. As such, cinematographers, gaffers, and directors of photography (DPs) need to understand how light works and behaves.
If we do our jobs well as cinematographers, gaffers, and DPs, we can use lighting to create a world that is completely believable and similar to reality. To demonstrate the impact of lighting, we filmed three short scenes using different setups. We used the same location, set design, and subject for each scene, changing only the lighting.
Look 1: Good Morning
There are two key things to keep in mind when discussing dawn light -temperature and harshness. Light is on a color and behavior spectrum, and morning light is particularly harsh. Therefore, we used the Gemini 1 1 Hard to emulate it.
Key light setup We put the 1 1 Hard light on the roof outside a window on the second story of the building. We tuned it to approximately 3200K. For the tight shots, we used a -stop scrim to slightly cut down the harshness. But for the wide shots, it was wide open.
Our key light in this scene was sunlight, which we got using the 1 1 Hard Gemini coming through the window. This created nice, hard, long shadows, which are similar to dawn light. Make sure you use extremely accurate and bright lights that can replicate color temperature well to achieve this look.
Book light setup On the other side, we created a book light that uses a bounce and diffusion combo to create a morning look. The booklight ensured a contrast balance between the sun coming from one side and the shadow on the other side of the room.
Our book light setup comprised of a Gemini 1 1 Soft at 20-25% put through a 4 4-foot Silk. This soft light bounced off a neutral white wall. Here, we were not trying to change the behavior of the light. Rather, the goal was to get enough light to subtly fill in the shadows so that we could alleviate that contrast ratio.
This fill is necessary, even when working with directional light sources, as it allows you to remove unwanted contrast or shadows. However, an indirect source is still preferable because you can spread the light out. Hence, we used white silk while filming this scene. Putting artificial silk on the other side diffuses the bounced light a second time, further scattering it.
Screens For the second shot, we put a -stop screen over the window to change the light intensity. Here, we did not use diffusion because we didn't want to lose the hard light nature. Diffusing too much in this shot would have made the lighting look super soft. As such, it wouldn't match the wider shot.
alt=Gemini lighting plot data-nectar-img-srcset=https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Morning-plot.png 1068w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Morning-plot-300x169.png 300w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Morning-plot-1024x578.png 1024w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Morning-plot-768x434.png 768w, https://www.litepanels.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Morning-plot-600x339.png 600w sizes=(max-width: 1068px) 100vw, 1068px title= />
You can also use screens to adjust lighting without changing behavior. The use of a -stop screen and a window here allowed us to stop that down while still maintaining the harshness.
We also used a slightly cooler color temperature for the fill. We had 3200K outside and approximately 4200K (mixed) for our diffused book light. This ensured that it wasn't quite daylight; it was cooler. So, our fill was a bit cooler than our key.
Look 2: Goodnight
Light behavior is very different from night to daytime. There are notable differences in both the color temperature and light behavior. Morning light is very direct, hard light. In contrast, night light goes into the difference between reality and creating a new reality.
With night lighting, the aim is to create a specific overall aesthetic, not to perfectly replicate the real world. The goal is to create a believable reality our audience lives in.
The behavior of light is directly related to the perceived surface area of a source to a subject. However, the moon is so far away that the surface area of that source is perceived to be very small. As such, this primary source of nightlight emits hard light.
Key light setup The night also do
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
10/06/2026
DAZN-owned digital-media company launches three fan-first series leaning into cr...
10/06/2026
Clear-Com has announced the appointment of Jason Dino as Southwest Regional Sales Manager USA, covering Southern California and the Southwest region. Dino joins...
10/06/2026
An 11% decrease in number of global broadcast deals reflects the organization...
10/06/2026
The Women Without Boundaries Awards recognize women whose work is advancing the future of media, broadcast, AV, workplace technology, digital experience, and re...
10/06/2026
Today is match day minus two for FIFA and HBS. On Thursday, there will be two ma...
10/06/2026
SES is supporting broadcast distribution of the world's biggest football tou...
10/06/2026
NDI has announced that BirdDog has become the first hardware manufacturer to achieve full NDI 6.3 compatibility across its complete lineup of cameras, encoders,...
10/06/2026
Vince Caputo and Scott Carter, winners of the 2026 Sports Emmy for Outstanding Post Produced Audio have been announced as presenters for the 2026 SVG Advanced A...
10/06/2026
FOX One today unveiled a slate of new product features and enhancements designed to elevate the viewing experience for fans on the official streaming platform o...
10/06/2026
Primary production partners Dome Productions and Raycom Sports once again played...
10/06/2026
The Women in Sports Filmmaking Experienceship is an immersive professional devel...
10/06/2026
The league has expanded its HSAN architecture for the NBA Finals to manage more ...
10/06/2026
The inaugural MoonPay X Games League (XGL) Winter Draft will take place Wednesday, September 16, 2026 at Cosm Los Angeles from 7-9 p.m. PT. The event will strea...
10/06/2026
The University of Oklahoma (OU) Athletics Department and Learfield have announce...
10/06/2026
The Video Services Forum (VSF) has released TR-06-4 Part 8, a new specification for RIST Satellite-Hybrid: Out-of-Band Method. The specification creates a mecha...
10/06/2026
Riedel Communications provided the communications infrastructure for the 14th World Live Neurovascular Conference (WLNC) in Lisbon, supporting live medical proc...
10/06/2026
A still from The Doom Generation by Gregg Araki (Courtesy of Sundance Institute)
By Lucy Spicer
Have you checked out our Sundance Film Festival 101 list yet...
10/06/2026
Get Hands-On with Interfaces & Mic Preamp Brands
If youre after a new interface or preamp, then GearExpo UK is the place to be! Well have a whole host of au...
10/06/2026
November 13-14 2026, The Midway, San Francisco
Following their recent rebranding, MONO Music Conference (formerly Music Expo) have officially announced thei...
10/06/2026
Debut instrument free for limited time
deFORM is the debut release from newly founded developer ebbandflow, and it's being offered as a free download fo...
10/06/2026
Alone Australia Season 4: Meet the Cast
10 June, 2026
Media releases
WATCH THE TRAILER
Smash-hit survival series Alone Australia drops its highly anticipa...
10/06/2026
DEADLY THEN, DEADLY NOW, DEADLY ALWAYS: SBS & NITV IGNITE NAIDOC WEEK 2026 WITH ...
10/06/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and TRUMPF advance laser-based drone defense with THORIS LCS Rohde & Schwarz is showcasing THORIS at ILA 2026: A sovereign, end to end counter...
10/06/2026
MAHLE and Rohde & Schwarz develop application for sensor testing of modern drive...
10/06/2026
Production and Development Funding supports the creation of compelling, commercially viable, artistic and culturally relevant South African screen content. Deve...
10/06/2026
Media buyers and sellers can now compare YouTube reach from computer, mobile, an...
10/06/2026
Accedo, Humans not Robots, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) have announced the launch of Ecoflow X. Formerly an IBC Accelerator project, ...
10/06/2026
Frequency, the engine powering the world's leading streaming television channels, today announced that James Smith has joined the company as General Manager...
10/06/2026
At the 14th World Live Neurovascular Conference (WLNC) in Lisbon, Riedel Communications provided the communications infrastructure for live medical procedures s...
10/06/2026
Globecast, a leading provider of broadcast, media, and entertainment managed services, today announced the launch of its Content Exchange platform powered by Or...
10/06/2026
Klvr will showcase how venues, integrators and production teams are rethinking disposable battery usage at InfoComm 2026 (Las Vegas, June 17-19, booth #N6311). ...
10/06/2026
The Video Services Forum (VSF) has further enhanced the Reliable Internet Streaming Transport (RIST) protocol by incorporating a new feature, RIST Satellite-Hyb...
10/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
10/06/2026
10 Jun 2026
VEON's Banglalink Brings Every World Cup 2026 Match to Football...
10/06/2026
Wednesday 10 June 2026
How to watch every ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 match live on Sky Sports
Where is the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 availabl...
10/06/2026
Wednesday 10 June 2026
P RLA brings first-ever Beautifully Clean Oral Care'...
10/06/2026
Wednesday 10 June 2026
Sky reveals pulse-pounding first teaser trailer for upco...
10/06/2026
Wuppertal June 10, 2026
Riedel Artist at the Heart of the 14th World Live Neurovascular ConferenceAt the 14th World Live Neurovascular Conference (WLNC) in Li...
10/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Showcases New Mobile Experience, Collections and Games Vision in APAC
Product
10 June 2026
GlobalSouth KoreaJapan
Link copied to c...
10/06/2026
Back to All News
Ready to Join? The Netflix Fan Club Arrives at Cannes Lions
Business
10 June 2026
Global
Link copied to clipboard
Download all assets
N...
10/06/2026
Chemists snap together complex 3D molecules from highly reactive radicals-without losing their shape Scripps Research team develops stereoretentive radical-radi...
09/06/2026
Kiswe announces an expanded long-term partnership with ONE Championship (ONE), t...
09/06/2026
SiriusXM will broadcast FOX Sports' English-language commentary for all 104 FIFA World Cup 2026 matches from June 11 through July 19, available to subscribe...
09/06/2026
EVS has announced it is changing its corporate name from EVS Broadcast Equipment to EVS, reflecting the company's expanded portfolio beyond broadcast equipm...
09/06/2026
Fox Corporation and the NFL have announced a multi-year agreement to bring NFL c...
Home Applications 3 Looks, 1 Location
