Careers in Television and Video: Identifying and Using Lights

A career in television and video may involve working with a wide range of lighting equipment and accessories. While we cannot cover everything, we will discuss the most common lights you will use when entering this field. Lights divide into two categories, hard (direct), and soft (indirect). This has nothing to do with Kelvin or wattage, as we discussed in the last segment. This has more to do with intensity of the light, and manipulating it to suit your purposes.

A hard light is a direct light. The light from the lamp (bulb) of a lighting device falls directly on the subject. Behind the subject will be a clearly defined shadow with hard edges. A soft light is an indirect light fixture, or often it is a diffused (less intense) hard light. In the case of an indirect light fixture, light redirects in some way before exiting, thereby decreasing its intensity. Both diffused and indirect lights will cast a less defined (soft) shadow. Examples of hard lights are spotlights, broad lights, and ellipsoidal lights. Box lights and scoops are examples of soft lights. There are many variations of these lights, and others not mentioned, but all are either hard or soft lights.

The most common hard light used is a spotlight. A spotlight comes in two variations. One spotlight is just a light in a can. The light's spread (size) is difficult to control. The other spotlight is a fresnel (pronounced 'fer-nel') spotlight. The word fresnel is the name of the gentleman who invented a special lens for lighthouses. The large lenses were made of glass with circular ridges. This allowed a lighthouse to use a relatively small amount of light and focus it into a beam, reaching many miles out to sea. This same principal applies to fresnel spotlights. On the back of a fresnel light is a knob that can move the lamp farther or closer to the lens. By turning this knob, you can widen, or focus the light into a tight beam. Tightening the light beam will focus it one spot, and make the light more intense. Widening it will lessen the intensity and soften it somewhat. If a light is still too bright, back it up several feet, sometimes it helps. Even at its tightest, a fresnel spotlight will not truly be a perfectly cut circle, and the edges will soften as it falls off.

To get this effect you would use an ellipsoidal. This hard light has a concave lens, and produces a traditional spotlight in the truest sense of the word. In theater, an ellipsoidal is large and may actually have flickering carbon filaments burning inside them to produce the light, much like an outdoor spotlight used at carnivals, used car lots, or Hollywood events. Smaller versions of an ellipsoidal are available for television and video. They are mostly for background effects and logos. Not only will an ellipsoidal give you a picture perfect circle of light, but you can also use additional inserts placed in front of the lamp, to fill the circle with a multitude of shapes and patterns. Another type of hard light is a broad. As the name implies, this will give off a broad amount of light, covering a wide area. They are mainly used to light backgrounds or large dark areas where indiscriminate (fill) light is needed. Rarely are broads used on people, unless in cases when you are lighting for an audience, or ELS.

A soft light is a specialized lighting fixture that puts out a diffused light. Diffusing a light allows you to lessen its intensity (brightness) without affecting its Kelvin (color temperature). This can be achieved by reflection, or 'bouncing' the light. Take a box light for example. This light is mainly used for close ups because it has very limited range. The box is white inside, with the lamp placed at the bottom, pointing towards the back. The light bounces off the white, and then exits the box, decreasing its intensity by about fifty percent. Technically a scoop is a soft light only it is more of a direct one. Looking very much like an ice cream scoop, the lamp is inside at the rear of the fixture, which is usually made of brushed aluminum. Though the lamp is directly lighting the subject, the light bounces around inside the scoop, decreasing its intensity by around twenty to thirty percent. Scoops serve as fill lights for people in larger areas like studios.

Another way to diffuse a light is by using umbrellas, reflectors, cards, and gels. These are useful for diffusing a hard light, like a spotlight. Reflectors come in a wide variety of sizes and specialties, most with brushed or glossy aluminum facing. In some instances, like outdoor work, reflectors are the main lights. Umbrellas usually come in light kits, have reflective or white material sewn inside them, and are attached to the light stands. In both cases, the light (or sun) points towards the reflector or umbrella, and you direct the reflected light where needed. In a pinch you can even use a white card, but you will need an intense light pointing directly at it, and is only useful for indoor MCU's or closer. Depending on what you are reflecting with, you can adjust diffusion by around twenty to fifty percent. Unless you are outdoors or in a studio, you are usually trying to achieve fifty percent diffusion.

The final technique used for diffusing a hard light is by using gels. The word itself comes from the early days of color film, when they used colored gelatin pressed between two plates of glass, placed in front of the light to make color adjustments in the scene. This was a messy way of doing things, until plastics made it unnecessary, but the name stuck. Gels are useful to diffuse light, correct color tones, make subtle changes in the image, and add special effect. Gels are available in numerous varieties, for a whole host of purposes, and rated in a multitude of color degrees. It can get downright scientific. For the most part, you can get by with only knowing what a few of them are for.

Gels come in sheets about three feet square and larger. The most common gel used is a Frost. This gel is translucent and several choices are available to evenly diffuse (spread) a light in various degrees. A slight variation is a silk, which was the material actually used in the early days of film. A silk gel does the same thing as a frost, but has more texture. Colored gels have many purposes. A light Amber colored gel is for bringing out color in skin tones, especially darker skins, making them appear more natural. A very light blue gel in correct degree is for matching the sunlight, allowing you to use 32K lights outdoors. Red gels are useful to simulate the light of a police car or emergency vehicle. Just attach a red gel to a spotlight and have a gaffer quickly move the light beam back and forth in the scene, using gloves of course.

A very useful and creative gel is a moderately deep blue. As moviegoers and television viewers, we believe that night scenes are blue. This is intentional, and people have believed this since the early days of color film. Next time you are outside at night, look around. It is not blue, but we still believe that if the scene in a movie has a bluish tint to it, it is taking place in the evening or at night. Here is some more fun. By using blue gels, you can make day into night. You can often see the trickery in B-movies, like old westerns. During a night scene look down on the ground, what you will see are shadows. The moon does not cast shadows so easily noticed. The scene was probably shot with a blue filter over the camera lens. These are just a few examples of how gels create moods and ambience in a scene.

There are other ways to do this besides diffusing and gelling lights. Positioning and pinning (adjusting) a light can also help to create mood. In out next installment we will examine where to place lights, and how to use them to simulate certain effects.