Light sources

The earliest effective motion-picture lighting source was natural daylight, which meant that films at first had to be photographed outdoors, on open-roof stages, or in glass-enclosed studios. After 1903, artificial light was introduced in the form of mercury vapor tubes that produced a rather flat lighting. Ordinary tungsten (incandescent) lamps could not be used because the light rays they produced came predominantly from the red end of the spectrum, to which the orthochromatic film of the era was relatively insensitive. After about 1912, white flame carbon arc instruments, such as the Klieg light (made by Kliegl Brothers and used for stage shows) were adapted for motion pictures. After the industry converted to sound in 1927, however, the sputtering created by carbon arcs caused them to be replaced by incandescent lighting. Fresnel-lens spotlights then became the standard. Fresnel lenses concentrate the light beam somewhat and prevent excessive light loss around the sides. They can also, when suitably focused, give a relatively sharp beam. In the studio there are racks above and stands on the floor on which lamps can be mounted so that they direct the light where it is wanted. The advent of Technicolor led to a partial reversion to the carbon arc because incandescent light affected the colors recorded on the film. Around 1950, however, economic pressures caused Technicolor film to be rebalanced for incandescent light.

The modern era in lighting began in the late 1960s when tungsten-halogen lamps with quartz envelopes came into wide use. The halogen compound is included inside the envelope, and its purpose is to combine with the tungsten evaporated from the hot filament. This forms a compound that is electrically attracted back to the tungsten filament. It thus prevents the evaporated tungsten from condensing on the envelope and darkening it, an effect that reduces the light output of ordinary gas-filled tungsten lamps. The return of the tungsten to the filament means that the incandescent lamp can be run with a long life at a higher filament temperature and, more important, remain at precisely the same color temperature. These lamps are now sometimes provided with a special multilayered filter to give a bluish light that approaches the color of daylight. Halogen lamps give brilliant light from a compact unit and are particularly well-suited to location filming.

The principal light on a scene is called the key light. The position of the key light has often been conventionalized (e.g., aimed at the actors at an angle 45 degrees off the camera-to-subject axis). Another school of cinematographers prefers source lighting, in the tradition of Renaissance and Old Master paintings; that is, a window or lamp in the scene governs the angle and intensity of light. A fill light is used to provide detail in the shadow areas created by the key light. The difference in lighting level between the key plus the fill light versus the fill light alone yields the lighting contrast ratio. The “latitude” of the film, or the spread between the greatest and least exposure that will produce an acceptable image, governs the lighting contrast ratio. For many years, the latitude of color films was so restricted that it was thought necessary to have numerically low lighting ratios, typically 2 to 1 (a very flat lighting) and never more than 3 to 1. The introduction of Eastman 5254 color negative in 1968 and the even more sophisticated 5247 in 1974 opened a new era in which color film was exposed with higher ratios approaching the previous subtleties of black-and-white.

Light measurement

Precise control of exposure throughout filming is necessary to maintain consistent tones from shot to shot and to give an overall tenor of lighting that suits the pictorial style. To determine light levels in the studio and on interior locations, an incident light meter is primarily used. This type of meter is recognizable by a white plastic dome that collects light in a 180-degree pattern (the dome is an approximation of the shape of the human face). Because it measures the overall light (calibrated in footcandles) falling on the scene, it may be used without the actors present.

Reflected light readings measure the average light coming toward the camera from the scene being photographed. This works well for average subjects but gives wrong exposures if the background contains either many bright areas, as in a beach scene, or very dark areas, as in front of a dark building. In such cases the photocell must be held not at the camera but very close to the subject of interest, to eliminate the effect of the background. This is also the case when the scene contains a good deal of backlight. These shortcomings eventually led to the development of the spot meter.

Spot measurement readings measure the light coming toward the camera from selected spots in the subject being photographed. The meter for this purpose has an optical system that covers measurement of a spot of about one degree, making it extremely useful on exterior locations.

Light is also measurable in terms of color temperature. Light rich in red rays has a low reading in kelvins. Ordinary household light bulbs produce light of about 2,800 kelvins, while daylight, which is rich in rays from the blue end of the spectrum, may have readings from 5,000 to more than 20,000 K. The color temperature meter uses a rotating filter to indicate a bias toward either red or blue; when red and blue rays are in balance, the needle does not move. Some meters also use red/blue and blue/green filters for fuller measurement.

The general practice has been to shoot the entire picture on stock balanced for artificial light at 3,200 K. Lights for filmmaking generally range between 3,200 K and 3,400 K. For daylight shooting, an orange filter is employed to counter the film’s sensitivity to blue light. Although color-correcting filters are produced in a great many gradations, the No. 85 filter is generally used to shoot tungsten-balanced color film outdoors. For mixed-light situations where daylight enters through windows but tungsten light is used for the interior, the practice has been to cover the windows with sheets of plastic similar in color to the No. 85 filter. This reduces the color temperature of the natural light to that of the artificial light. When the windows are very large, blue filters are sometimes placed on the lights and the No. 85 orange filter is used on the lens, as if filming in exterior daylight. Yet another approach is to supplement natural daylight with metal halide (daylight-balanced) lights. With the increase in location shooting, daylight-balanced high-speed films have been introduced to allow shooting in mixed-light situations without light loss due to filters.