Five Great Tips for Cinematic Video Lighting

If you're just starting out in video, lighting can be one of the most daunting things to learn. Knowing all the lighting rules and just as importantly, how to selectively break them to create your own personal vision, is a huge undertaking. This video provides some great tips to get you off and running.

In this video, Tony Reale of Creative Edge walks us through some of the basics of video lighting that one has to have internalized: three-point lighting, Rembrandt lighting, and proper background exposure to maintain good subject separation. Once you've mastered the basics, it's time to move into breaking the rules to develop your own creative style a bit. Reale gives some useful examples of how one might begin tinkering with that, including mixing color temperature, "dirty" lighting, and more. Next, it's on to using larger key lights to create more cinematic looks, reverse keying, and using proper backlighting to add more dimension to your shots. 

Altogether, these pointers make a very handy reference for anyone looking to improve their video lighting skills. Do you have any favorite tips? Share them in the comments!

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Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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