How to Light for Darkness | 5 Cinematography Techniques

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How do you light a scene that isn’t supposed to have too much light in general? That’s the question that we’re tackling in this episode as we take an office scene at night and make it look like something from Arrival, Nightcrawler, and The Social Network. If you want to light for drama and make sure you’re exposing everything correctly, we’ll cover the fundamentals of cinematic nighttime lighting in this episode.

In this scene, we create suspense by using emphasizing ambient light and create pools of light and shadow where they matter most, along with dramatic camera moves and lighting effects. Valentina walks us through step-by-step of the production design and lighting in this office location. We’ll also talk about how to shoot the light coming from computer monitors to avoid flicker and other camera issues.

Production design matters, especially when it comes to lighting. Blank white walls never look good, and they bounce light everywhere around the room. The only way to mitigate them is to use set dressing and art, which can also lead to better lighting opportunities. In this case, we use the lamps that we introduce into the set as our main source of lighting. We also added a hint of moonlight when the lights turn off, which becomes consistent throughout our entire scene. When we switch to the reverse, we use smaller LED lights to extend the effect of moonlight and hide the lighting source as well as the reflections they create. In general, we’re watching our exposure the entire time to make sure that the shadows aren’t too dark.

Chapters:
0:00 - Introduction
1:14 - Production Design/Location
2:50 - Practical Lighting
3:30 - Moonlight
4:30 - Camera
5:49 - Setup #1 Breakdown
6:12 - Overhead Lighting
7:36 - Ambient Light
8:27 - Setup #2 Breakdown
8:44 - Wide Shot
9:12 - Computer Light
9:59 - Continuous Lighting
10:56 - Setup #3 Breakdown
11:16 - Bokeh
12:16 - Exposure Values
12:49 - Setup #4 Breakdown
13:46 - Outro

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Summary:
Aputure's YouTube channel provides free high quality cinematography, lighting, and filmmaking educational content to help you take your film projects to the next level.

[blackbird]

I love how it's always full moon in every movie.. :D

[CrQualityPhotography]

This is the kind of content that I find sooo valuable ! The experience she has is amazing ! I'm learning sooo much !! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼📸

[stalman]

The only thing I want more than some B7Cs is that safety hat 😂

[victorhugoeh]

As an architectural lighting designer myself, this channel is pure gold! There's a lot we all lighting designers need to learn from cinematic and photographic lighting. Thumbs up and subscription!

[hunterboen]

That 120d spotlight into the overhead fluorescent banks was such a great idea!

[DragonHeir]

Cool. I'm a theatre lighting guy, and I'm always interested in seeing how other people design their work, especially in other fields like film and architecture.
That's a neat idea to cast light on an actual lighting fixture while it's turned off to make it look like it's turned on.
Good video!

[FitnessArab]

I enjoy all this information thank You ❤ and I like the MC light its really helpful

[wagnervana]

This was extremely cool and educational. I really loved how you not only walked us through it, but then would show the shot unlit, and introduce each light one at a time to show the building of the light. Never seen that done before. Thank you.

[zachcronin-hurley]

Honestly, these are some of the best breakdowns I’ve seen. I feel like there’s stuff I can use in every video from no budget to high budget. Thank you!!!

[DoctorMthepodcast]

This is simply brilliant. It’s like “live art” .Rennaisance art has a lot such light and shadows that’s recreated using their pastels and brush work. To recreate them with lights and camera is similar to that. I can imagine the amount of story boarding and planning that went behind such a scene creation. In a movie such a scene would be heightened with a very tense background score. Learnt so much here. My current set is a similair study space turned narration booth . Cheers guys

[laupemusic]

I never really comment on videos, but I just wanna thank you all for sharing all of this! Truly valuable!

[ljs]

It's always amazing to see how much effort it takes for a professional cinematic lightning setup. Every time I see these videos I'm surprised and I learn much more for my next lighting setup. Thanks a lot!

[MyMomDrank]

I love these videos with Valentina, they’re super helpful. I really like how we get to see camera settings too, and her breakdown of the where and why of her placement is great. I know personally I would be grateful to see maybe a histogram or some type of guideline of exposure (especially when lighting for darkness)... I know with lower cost gear I have less ISO to play with and struggle with artifacts in my higher contrast footage (but I’m also not shooting with the bitrate or dynamic range of a C70). All in all, these are invaluable to me.

[patrickmontgomery]

Love how you started with the importance of set design. And all the little ticks that add to the overall production. For the close-up of the hacker, at first I thought it was hand-held as he was climbing from under the desk, but quickly realized that wasn't the case as the shot then dollies across. Nice job!

[vampiyaz]

This video is super helpful, I've been watching tons of content re: lighting at night for a short film I'm making next year (ext. scenes, but this is still useful) and this has definitely been my favorite. Thank you!

[SeanMisa]

I love the tips and this is very helpful! One of my favorite things to do is when I'm filming a scene with a computer, if I'm not filming the actual screen is to find a nice white image and blast that on the screen so I get a soft lighting that lights them up without the use of mounting another light. Perfect for sets when I'm on a smaller budget.

[reginapotts]

I find these tips absolutely amazing! Now I see…I am obsolete! I always thought movies were to be viewed comfortably. And, I thought movies nowadays where you can’t see a bloody thing were an error in cinematography. But now I realize, I’m not supposed to be able to see it! WOW! What a revelation! Maybe I should drink 3-4 glasses of wine, or better yet, Chivas Regal, and then it won’t matter that the movie is so dark that I have not a single clue as to what I’m seeing! Isn’t that just the coolest thing! 😁

[SamTavrs]

Paramount for any video or content creator -- I love the simplicity of how Aputure's lights integrate from one angle to another. Clearly, a must-have in today's content space. Thank you!

[danielbeckers]

Absolutely love this. Never thought I could fall in love with lightning so much!

[scottyofeden]

This is so well done. You are so chilled out, no jokes, to the point, interesting and knowledgable. The pacing is perfect, consistent, and the graphics are just right. Thanks!