So let's learn about three point lighting.
This is when you're going to use artificial light.
The basics of this is a three point lighting set up and you can do this with any lighting kit from a
homemade kit all the way up to a professional kit.
It's really a great way to kind of start off and have a really base structure of lighting.
So we're going to start by lighting myself right now.
I'm lit by this very toppy kind of grungy garage like we're going to turn that off.
We're going to see if we can make this look a lot better.
So Sam is going to run around and set up our lights starting with the light.
So typically I like to have the lights at a 45 degree angle just above the camera and to the side of
it.
This is going to be your key light.
This is where your main source of light is coming from.
And it's a good place to start whatever your most powerful light is.
Move it there.
That's going to be your biggest source or whatever your biggest light you have.
That's going to be the best place to put it.
Right now it's really harsh.
We're going to put some diffusion on it later.
But let's add in the Fill Light next.
So they're filet is going to be just to the left to camera really just to the opposite side of the key
light and what the Fill Light is doing is making up for whatever shadows the key light may have started.
So if the Keela it's coming from this direction we may have gotten some shadows here.
We'll go over this in a little bit.
But the fil-A is going to fill in anything that the key light is not hitting.
Same thing.
I would love to have the fill light a little bit of a 45 degree angle just above the height of the camera
so Sam has our Keilah and our Fill Light Up next he's going to put up a back way.
The backlight really is designed to give a rim to the background and also kind of give a separation
from the background.
There's many different ways to set up a backlight.
We're going to start with that like this.
So let's start to break these lights down.
First off our fill light is being diffused by some diffusion which basically lowers the intensity and
makes it much softer.
You can see that our lights have a little bit of cloth that come with it that we put in front of it.
The key light right now is harsh it's hard light coming on me right now they're LCD lights that we have.
So it's not as harsh as a tungsten for now light maybe or a Home Depot light maybe but we're going to
put some diffuser on it anyway and make it softer make it less harsh and it will also help with the
shadows on my face and it will help with spinning around the background.
So it sanded here is he put on a grid diffusion So this focus is a little bit more light with still
diffusing it at the same time.
It's definitely softened things up.
It's helped the shadows a bit and it's not as harsh on the subject.
I personally like what they say in the industry double break it or put double fusion on it which is
what we are kind of doing in our interview setup in front of our backdrop.
I want to see if I can do double diffusion on this site right now to even soften it up more
great.
So now our key line is double breaks or double diffusion.
And it's incredibly soft.
You may notice the light is much even on me.
There's hardly any shadows but that's helpful because of the fill light and the background has sort
of softened up a little bit.
What am I going to do now is he's going to dim down the fill light just a little bit to kind of match
the contrast here.
So there's different ways of evoking different emotions with our lighting but we're just trying to do
a nice basic clean interview setup with three point lighting where there's a key light and fill.
Now if your light isn't dimmable and you're in a big enough space the best way to adjust intensity of
your light is to move your lights forward or backward.
Sam is going to move the Phil light closer and you can see how it gets more intense without dimming
it.
He can move all the way in almost you can see how the film has gotten a little bit more intense just
by moving the light closer.
Light starts to fall off as it moves through distance.
So the closer a light to the subject is the more intense it will be the further away the less intense
it'll be.
Let's actually see what each light is doing.
Sam is going to turn off on the key light and you can see the main light that's lighting me from our
source right here.
So let's turn it off see how much it's filling in here.
The key light really is our main source of light and our Phil lights just filling in what it can hit.
So let's turn it back on.
Great.
So that's what our key lights doing.
Now check out what our Phil lights doing.
Again it's filling in what were missing from the key lights off so you can see there's a little bit
more shadow here and it's really not filling on my full face as well.
I think it might be a little more menacing So let's turn it back on.
Great.
So now you can see what both lights are doing.
You can see the shadows.
Let's check out the back live so our Backley is giving me a slight rim Sam just turn it off watching
turns back on its very very subtle but you can see how it breaks up the background and kind of adds
not majestic but just makes it pop a little bit more.
It's a lot like the gradient that we used in the interview kits but it helps break it up just a little
bit.
So just to see exactly what the backlights doing.
Let's turn off the fill light let's kill our key line and you'll see exactly what the backlight is doing.
Now here I'm probably very slow at it and all I can see all you can see is just a rim.
But when you turn the key back on you'll be able to see exactly what the backlight sort of doing.
Great.
Now this is a nice one like kind of set up as well with the backlight a little bit more dramatic sometimes
documentaries and dramas tend to use this for a very nice dramatic effect.
And again we start with the base of our three point lighting.
And from there you can decide just what you want to use specifically.
So let's have another option for the backlight.
What we're going to do is Sam's going to take off the diffusion on the backlight again not keeping the
light from being soft as can be more harsh.
Here's a little more harsh.
And he's going to put it exactly opposite the key lie and raise it a little bit.
So this is just a different type of back play that still adds separation and it's a little more Halo.
Notice it'll hit more of the back of my head.
The big thing is because it's opposite our highlight is we have the barn door kind of keep it off.
The camera itself to avoid any flares if that's the style you're looking for you can always flare your
camera up.
So this is a little bit higher and harsher backlight.
This light has no diffusion on it so you can see how hard it is right here it's very different from
key light.
Sam is going to put some diffusion on it you can see how it softens it up and it makes it much more
subtle.
It's a little more pleasing to the eye and a lot softer.
The great part about three point lighting is it really is a base structure to kind of get your concept
around lighting.
The cool thing is that Always remember there's a key light a fill light and a backlight.
And if you're indoors and you don't have any lights you might be near a window.
Just pretend that window is your key light and you can kind of work off that.
Or if you have a bounce card in your outside and you need the harsher light I always put the harsh light
on the back light.
Imagine that as your son Sam may have explained in the natural light section and use a bounce card to
act as a fill.
So it really kind of works your way in any concept.
It's really a great way to kind of learn lighting and learn the basics of lighting because you can build
off it throughout your entire video career.
So we recommend three point lighting for pretty much any situation.
It's a great place to get started when you're shooting an interview when you're shooting at your office
or really anywhere.
It's a perfect structure to build off of.
And you should be able to always rely on it throughout your entire video.