If you’ve ever done single-camera production work, you already know how important lighting is. Taken together, lighting and camera skills comprise the foundation of visual storytelling. And, since you’re reading this column, you already know lighting is much more than just flooding an area with light.

While lighting someone for a one-camera shoot is relatively straightforward, the degree of complexity increases as more cameras and angles are added. As with juggling, the more balls you’ve got in the air, the trickier it gets. To help simplify the task, we’ll look at a method for dealing with this challenge that doesn’t sacrifice portrait-quality lighting.

To narrow the scope of this topic, we’re only concerned with multicamera television shows. Cinema and episodic television lighting is very different from what we generally do. For starters, cinematic production uses “motivated lighting” as warranted by the story.

As visually stunning as that can be, it’s something rarely used on a news or talk show. Instead, we more commonly work with something best described as “nonmotivated lighting.” Motivated light originates from “natural” or “practical” light sources consistent with the filmed scene, whereas nonmotivated light originates from anywhere that suits our needs.

Storytelling With Light
Our objective is to present on-camera talent in the best light possible, letting them, rather than the light, tell the story. The goal is to provide attractive lighting that supports a well-exposed camera image. When done right, people look good and the video engineer doesn’t have to chase the iris setting when the shot changes.

Lighting one person for a single camera angle isn’t complicated. The well-known “three-point lighting” method serves as a good starting point for attractive portrait lighting. This technique forms the fundamental building block for television lighting.

But the pillars of three-point lighting can get a little shaky when the number of cameras increases. An example of this would be adding a second angle to cover an anchor camera turn during a long read or an alternate shot with a graphic. The solution is not to just repeat the three-point pattern like a cookie cutter for each additional angle. This is where we need to adapt the fundamental building blocks of lighting to better suit our needs.

For any particular shot, there’s always a perfect key-light position. The problem arises when two camera angles on the same talent position must look equally good without further adjustment. Fortunately, there’s a way to accommodate this without sacrificing good lighting.

Before we discuss this approach, let’s cover some solutions that seem attractive, but don’t work as well.

It’s a fairly common practice to place the key light directly over the camera, so why not just add a second key over the second camera? That approach doesn’t work here, because both cameras would see the second key light. This would result in a confusion of shadows on the anchor’s face, rather than a single modeling shadow. So, “no” to a second key light.

Another possible solution is to flood the set with a mush of shadowless soft light. Although this “forgiving” approach would illuminate the subject for multiple camera angles, its very flatness makes everything look two-dimensional and, frankly, dull. So, another “no.”

Yet another possible approach involves using separate key lights that are alternately faded between as the anchor turns from one to the other camera. This is tricky and requires a lighting console operator working in perfect coordination with the camera shot change. This is notoriously difficult to pull off without detection and best avoided.

Split the Difference
I suggest using the following simple solution to key-lighting an anchor with two cameras. Split the difference by placing a single key light between the two camera positions.

Normally, “split the difference” implies a compromise. In this case, it’s not. That slight offset of the key light helps provide beautiful modeling. Back when I was drafting lighting plots by hand, I would use a protractor to help guide light placement. As is the case here, challenging lighting problems often yield to simple geometry.

Although some TV lighting designers opt for putting their key lights right over the camera (which is a zero-degree offset), my preference is for a side/horizontal offset somewhere between 10 and 20 degrees.

As you can see in Fig. 1, the two camera shots are relatively close to each other (roughly 28 degrees apart) with the key light placed precisely between the two cameras. That puts the key light at a 14 degree offset from both shot angles. This results in a good modeling shadow for both camera angles and makes visual sense on the shot change between them. And since only one key light is involved, as shown from behind the anchor in Fig. 2, the modeling remains consistent with no confusion of multiple shadows.

As for how steep the key light should be, there are multiple factors to take into account. Consider how the light angles will impact facial features (such as deep-set eyes), reflections of light fixtures in video displays and LED walls, or light washing out backlit scenic elements. These can sometimes present conflicting goals, influencing the lighting choices that must be made with every fixture placement decision.

According to one very successful master of network television event lighting, the ideal vertical angle is 22.5 degrees. That turns out to be exactly half of 45 degrees, which isn’t a coincidence.

There was a time when 45 degrees (both above and to the side of the subject) was considered the ideal lighting angle. But the industry and tastes have changed since Stanley McCandless first suggested his method of stage lighting. Contemporary tastes in this age of screens lean towards less acute light angles for their more forgiving impact on close-up shots. And in our corner of the visual arts, it’s important to keep the drama off of the faces.

A few techniques that inform lighting remain timeless today. We still use the Renaissance painters’ invention of “chiaroscuro” to create a sense of depth. Where they used paint, we use light, and those highlights and shadows are determined by where we place the key light.

Key lighting seems like the simplest idea when setting up a scene with light as it’s the main light on the subject. As a cinematographer, you tend to think about it first when going into a scene. When cinematographers start out, they often point lights directly at their subjects. Usually, they do not think about diffusion or cutting; they are just trying to get the exposure they want.

Key lighting a face is truly an art, and there are many ways to do it. It is not just about the source you use, but the quality of it, its intensity, direction and color. I wanted to address the two ways I typically key because I very rarely point lights at faces directly. These examples have been useful in many different situations. When you point a unit directly at someone, it’s probably going to be hard in quality and not as flattering on the face. There are also so many skin tones to consider.

BOUNCE LIGHTING
More than just the key can be set up using bounce lighting. Bounce lighting is simply hitting the source into another surface, and lighting with the return that bounces off of that surface. For example, a way to fill a room is to bounce a unit into the ceiling to create ambient light.

Bounce lighting as a key is a great way to spread the source, soften it and maintain a more natural look. A specific use for bounce keying is creating a television or movie screen effect. Bouncing is great for this because a movie theater screen is usually large, so spreading the light by bouncing helps create a larger, but soft, key light. If the screen the person was watching was very small and close to them, then I might consider containing the light a little more and not spreading it by bouncing.

Screengrab from Jilted with bounce lighting

Another great use of bounce lighting is the need to key someone who does not actually have a source on a particular side of a room to light them. In my very first feature, “Jilted,” I had a character in a small hotel room facing away from the window. Naturally, she was pretty dark. So to bring her exposure up I bounced a Leko with half CTB on it into a board to create a natural return on her from the window.

Bounce lighting is all about direction, so really take in your location and blocking to help you determine where to bounce from and the direction of the bounce. Sometimes hiding the unit that you are bouncing can be a challenge.

BOOK LIGHTING
Frequently, I find myself with a need to be soft with my key. Taking bounce light a step further involves shooting that beam bouncing off a surface through diffusion. A “book light” is a rig that contains a unit between a bounce surface—such as an ultra bounce or board—and a rag or sheet of diffusion, like a grid or some type of silk.

Anette Haellmigk in an interview for Women of Light lit with a book light

This makes for a very soft light and comes in handy quite a lot. I did a whole feature documentary with book lights for keys on every subject. An example is Anette Haellmigk, director of photography on “Game of Thrones,” lit with a 5K tungsten fresnel bouncing off an ultra bounce rag, back through a silk.

Book lights are the ultimate soft light, and depending on the material you use as a bounce and the level of diffusion you choose, you can have control over just how soft it is.

I have talked about filming subjects right up against windows before, and book lighting is the trick to keying someone in this situation. A book light gives you the softness you need to make the key look natural enough against a window. The hard part is making a book light bright enough—you are bouncing it and then diffusing it, so you need to go into this with a stronger unit for fighting a window if you want to maintain exposure outside.

Ultimately, the key light is determined by the space. Unless you are going with something completely unmotivated, you are probably going to draw upon what is available in the space and what is happening in the scene to decide on the placement and characteristics of your key.

Like always, the story is always king, even in determining how to treat a scene with light.

Julia Swain is a cinematographer based in California, whose narrative films include “Killing Animals,” “Jilted” and “Cassidy Red.” She continues to shoot on a variety of formats, seeking to create compelling visuals for every story and brand. She can be contacted through TV Technology.