Today I’d like to start a new category on this blog. In the past I’ve written most of my posts based on what I think people would like to hear about. Just a couple of days ago I received an e-mail by a fellow cinematographer asking me about my process and approach to cinematography. I enjoyed answering his questions as it helped me reflect on my own thought processes and the reasons I do things. Often times when we light a scene we don’t really think about why that light goes there or why we use what we use. It comes naturally after a while.

To someone who is new to this world, many of the things we do can seem complex or even confusing and contradictory. I remember taking a really long time to figure out how to light a scene from scratch.

In this series I’d like to invite anyone to send me questions you’d like to have answered. It doesn’t need to be about a specific project, it can be about anything revolving around cinematography. I’ll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

Without further ado let’s begin with this Q&A.

Is there a general setup that you always try to achieve for indoor scenes?

Lighting is what clicked last for me. So I can understand your effort to find that setup or that blueprint for great lighting. It took me years to get to the point where I can pull a reference image and say, “Here this is what it will look like.” and then it actually does.

What you are going to want to do is unlock your inner 3D renderer. Sometimes I just stand still on set, running my render engine, pushing the lights around in my head, getting the coverage. You need to understand light. Just how light works in general.

How it wraps around objects, different textures, specular light, diffusion etc

There is no real way to teach that, besides experiencing light. On and off set. Whenever I’m not shooting, I look the lights around me and make a mental archive of all the cool light “setups” I find in the wild.

At some point it will click. Trust me.

I struggle with determining how to setup images with a dark beautiful side lit look, as seen in your Bio Navigator commercial, when I'm pressed for time.

I don’t really like the whole key, fill, rim, three point lighting stuff; it feels forced and technical to me. I always look at a room and think: What can I augment, what can I enhance?

Sometimes it’s the practical like the overhead lights in the gym and other times it’s the sun through the window that I can shape or might have to enhance, because it’s not reaching the far side of the room.

I'm interested in when you mentioned you like to enhance what already exists in room. Is this the most reliable starting point for lighting a scene if the story doesn't call for anything specific?

“Enhance and Augment” is applicable to any scene. When you have nothing to work off of, getting inspiration from the room is ever more important.

I will always walk into a room and kind of get a vibe from it. The director will call for a certain look, like moody or romantic. I look around and see what we can use. It’s a naturalistic approach to lighting.

I’ll give you an example: When lighting the club scene from the music video “ALICE” we first set out to figure out what the natural ambient light was – well there was none. When live the club would be pitch black, however there were some dim red LED strips behind a few columns. So I ran with that. I added red practical’s and hit the club with blue ambient, as well as some intense beams to break it up and add some depth.