Cinematography : Lighting Suggestions by Brandon D. Hyde

If you want to learn, you should post your ideas so they can be refined. The subjects are lit solely with fairly hard rim lights. They're probably around 15 degrees behind their horizontal line and a little above. The first shot and some close ups are lit from below instead. Some shots have only one rim light. The others have two with the secondary knocked down about 3 stops below the primary. It's in a studio with black fabric in the background. It's all shot brighter than it appears, with proper ratios between the lights setup. Then it's adjusted in post with a tool like curve. On the women, a bloom effect is added or maybe that's just crappy quality youtube. You should practice on your own to get it right, so you don't show up on set and waste time experimenting. Only use hard light. From your tools only the cans with incandescent bulbs. The flags will be useful to minimize light spill on the background, floor and camera.

Thanks for the feedback Cory! You're right, I should have posted my ideas. You've pretty much hit it on the head as to what I was thinking. I worried about the intensity of the pars. I don't want them to be too hot. I'll setup a test shoot tomorrow. Thanks again!

I did a few test shots, then shot the commercial this past Tuesday. here's a still from the shoot. I didn't get as much fall off as I wanted, but for the amount of space and flags I had, I'm overall pretty please. Thanks Cory! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=409020799192592&set=a.33158147693... http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc1/858353_409020839192588_108631...

The example you posted used neither catch lights nor fills. If you're going to use a catch light, I'd say you need more wattage on the rim to increase the ratio a few stops. Your catch light is also acting as a fill. Black wrap around the rim cans would be beneficial as well so you don't have huge cones of light. You might even put black wrap around your catch light so you only have a bar across the eyes.

Very interesting article from everyone's favorite TV thriller Breaking Bad, it shows how much light plays a key factor in many scenes of this incredible show. I picked up several pointers & techniques you can use toward any production http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/in-confessions-breaking-bads-chara...

Looks like you've got variations of rim and side lights, some still photographers call these kind of setups "sandwich lighting" they can be high or low key, because the subject is sandwiched between two lights, used a lot for athletes. As Cory said the trick is to get one source a few stops hotter than the other and vary the look of each setup slightly that way. Make sure that you flag the sources to avoid spill on the backdrop, and I would personally avoid overlapping shadows (0:29) The example seems to show the light being fairly hard. But you get the client asking to see "more", I would go for slightly softer bigger light sources, this will get the light to wrap a bit more. but this also depends on what format or camera you're using and how it interprets the contrast.