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Cinematography · Intermediate · Brief

Lighting — Key Setups, Mood & Tone

Key, fill and back. Natural light versus artificial. Building mood and tone with contrast, colour and direction.

The brief

One Light, One Subject

Reveal a person's interior life using a single practical source. The light is the second character.

Week 4

Deliverables
  • 3-shot sequence (under 60s)
  • Lighting diagram
  • 100-word reflection
Constraints
  • No additional fixtures
  • Locked tripod
  • Diegetic sound only
Learning outcomes
  • LO1 — Explain hard vs soft, key/fill/back, and colour temperature.
  • LO2 — Build a three-point setup that expresses a specific mood.
  • LO3 — Justify lighting choices against a script and reference image.
What you'll practise
  • Key, fill and back — what each is doing and what happens when you remove one
  • Ratios (2:1, 4:1, 8:1) and where high vs low contrast belongs
  • Motivating a source: window, practical, off-screen
  • Colour temperature and gels — warming, cooling, gel-to-white-balance
  • Metering to the face, not the background
Before you start
Prerequisites
  • Camera framing & movement completed.
Kit
  • Aputure LS 600d Pro (key)
  • Astera Titan tubes ×2 (accent)
  • Bounce, flag, diffusion frame
  • Colour meter or LED colour picker on phone
Safety
  • 600d fixtures run hot — use gloves on barn doors.
  • All stands sandbagged. High rigs require a spotter.
  • No modifier changes on a hot lamp — turn off, wait, adjust.
Step-by-step
  1. 01

    Reference in

    Bring one still frame from a film that matches your target mood. Name the source, the ratio and the colour temperature you see.

  2. 02

    Key alone

    Light the subject with key only. Meter the face, expose correctly, record 10 seconds. Ugly by design — this is your baseline.

  3. 03

    Add fill

    Bounce fill onto the shadow side. Meter both sides and record the ratio you land on.

  4. 04

    Add back / accent

    Add a rim or a coloured accent behind the subject. Motivate it (practical, window, streetlight).

  5. 05

    Push the mood

    Regel to warm or cool by 500K, adjust ratio, and reshoot the same frame. Cut A/B alongside your reference.

Watch this

  • In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)

    Doyle and Lee Ping-bing on hallway light — high ratio, single motivated source, colour as feeling.

  • TodoAdd a Deakins Team Deakins podcast episode timestamp on ratios.
Read this

  • Team Deakins Podcast

    Any episode on motivating light. Listen once before the workshop.

Common pitfalls
  • Flat lighting because you're afraid of shadows — shadow is the point.
  • Mixed colour temperatures with no intent — the audience reads it as an error.
  • Over-lit background stealing attention from the face.
How you'll be assessed

Your Assessment 1 short must show a considered lighting choice. Keep your A/B stills and ratio notes for the portfolio.

Tutor notes — TODO

Fill these in below. Notes save automatically to this browser.

  • TodoAdd a ratio cheat card printable (2:1 through 8:1 with sample faces).
  • TodoProvide a curated Frame.io of past cohort lighting tests.