Three-point lighting

Three-point lighting

Three point lighting is the standard lighting technique used in video. It’s a good idea to become comfortable with three point lighting because as a video shooter, you’ll find yourself using it over and over again.

It has the power to transform an otherwise boring and flat image into a dynamic interesting image with a subject that “pops”.

Key light

The purpose of the key light is to put the light on the subject. You can place it anywhere you want, but a common placement is about 45 degrees to either side of the camera, and about 45 degrees up
from the subject. 

You have to place the key light first because it’s the main one, and use the rest of the lights to “support” the key light. 

Key lights placements 

If you’re feeling creative, try placing the key light at different angles and elevations. You can put the key light off to one side of the subject, nearly straight out to the side, and illuminate only half of their face. This is called “side lighting” because they’re lit from the side. If you’re shooting a film, you might use side lighting to symbolically represent the conflict the character is feeling. Or you could also just do it because it looks amazing, and then people will think you did it to symbolise conflict. 

You could also try placing the key light at a high elevation, angled higher above your subject’s head but pointing down toward your subject. This placement would create deep shadows in their eye sockets usually an undesirable look but if you’re trying to make the subject look sinister for some reason, you might like this technique. Maybe you’re interviewing them for a documentary because they’re a prison convict, or maybe they’re a politician, and you want them to appear ominous.

Fill light

Fill light is form of supplementary light mainly used to lighten shadows in an image. Fill light is often used in portrait photography to create a contrast between the image subject and image background giving the scene a sense of depth despite the final product being 2 dimensional. A fill light also illuminates the shadows that are created by the key light. Its usually placed on the opposite side of the key light.

Back light