Advanced Cinematography | Using Shadow

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You can’t have light without shadow. Every time you shine a light on something, you’re also creating a shadow. Something you see more and more in commercial and music video cinematography is artists embracing the shadows in their work. Meaning paying attention not only to where light is hitting -- but also to where light is not hitting. Today on 4 Minute Film School we’re going to walk through three setups that use shadows for creative effect.

In this video, Matt from the A-Team will walk you through three setups that use shadows in different ways. First, he decides how he wants to use shadows in the scene. This could either be to hide or reveal different parts of the frame. Next, he looks at the set and the talent and decides where to place them to get the best effect. Because it’s harder to control shadows than lights, the placement or blocking of a scene can have a big effect. Lastly, he sees if he needs to add any lights in order to help sell the effect. Adding lights will always introduce more shadows, and sometimes that’s exactly what you want.

The main aspects addressed in this video are silhouettes, hard light, and casting shadows. Silhouettes are a great technique to use for adding some diversity to your lighting. Once you understand how silhouettes work you’ll be using them everywhere. Hard light is what you get when you use a small or single source light. Hard light is often better for creating shadows because it provides nice clean edges. Casting shadows refers to when the shadow of your subject or another object shows up on your set. This can be really fun to experiment with and can add a lot to a scene.

Shadows are typically seen as something to avoid. And while that is sometimes the case, being comfortable with shooting into the dark side of a subject can really open up your cinematography potential. Just be sure to see what the scene needs and then decide what best way you can use lighting to reveal more of the story to the audience.


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