From the course: Lighting a Video Interview

Back light

From the course: Lighting a Video Interview

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Back light

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Then there's one more light that sometimes comes naturally from the environment, sometimes people add it. It can be referred to as a back light or a hair light. And sometimes it's not used at all. So, when do you need the backlight? >> Well, backlight, and kickers, and all those kinds of lights that are generally placed behind the subject. Function principally to control the amount of separation a subject has with its background. That goal is very similar to, you know, using depth of field to achieve separation from the background. And there are many ways to achieve that separation. Hair lights and backlights are one way. But, just creating again using that very important tool of contrast and, and, and lighting ratio. You can achieve that separation just by lighting your background. It's not necessary to actually put light on a subject to achieve separation. And maybe stylistically there doesn't want to be separation. You want things to feel very two dimensional and not have depth. So really depends on you know, what your style choice is and what feels like the best means of separation of that's what called for in your set up. That third three point lighting placement can be in a number of places and this is to your creative taste. The hair light is a very traditional placement. Where it can be a direct fixture or it can be a bounce. And, and the reasons vary from you know, having a harsh, dramatic look for a direct source. Or something a little more subtle with people maybe with a little less hair up top, or gray hair, or blonde hair, and actually the kicker. Which is another backlight position, sometimes can either be in addition to a hair light or in place of it. And it's usually more at eye level. And it's more of a, usually more of a raking angle than a top angle. Again, all of this is to taste and then also in consideration of what your background's doing. >> All right. So now that we've got everything sort of roughed out, we're going to go ahead and refine things, right? >> Yeah. We're going to shut the house lights off. See what all of these things are doing individually. And then we're going to start modifying everything. We're going to start addressing our background, we're going to start softening and cutting lights accordingly. Before we bring the talent in. >> Yup. And we can even put up the camera so we see what it looks like on camera. So we start to tweak to make things look their best.

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