Basic lighting tips for amazing stock footage.

By SouthWorks 

Good lighting is an essential ingredient of high-quality video footage. When you understand the basics of lighting, you can create a stronger portfolio of stock video that really stands out to potential buyers.

The good news is that if you already have some photography lighting skills, it’s easy to make the transition to lighting for video. At SouthWorks, we have a lot of experience with both natural and artificial video lighting, and we’re happy to share some of our favorite tips and techniques to help you improve your lighting skills. 

If you're just starting out with lighting for video, don't overcomplicate things. Try to shoot in locations that have plenty of natural light, whether that’s outside in the sun or indoors in spaces with big windows.

 Keep in mind that the larger a light source is, the softer your lighting will be. If needed, soften harsh light with scrims and reflectors or use white sheets to bounce light back into the shadows. Try shooting in areas with indirect daylight, and play with the position of your models until you're happy with your result. And if your location has an abundance of natural light and you need to create some shape, use flags and black sheets for negative fill.

 Another best practice is to shoot outdoors at what’s known as “the golden hour” — the hour right after sunrise or right before sunset. This is when the light is low and soft, giving your footage a beautiful golden glow. Shoot with the sun backlighting your subject, and use white sheets for that soft fill. Handheld footage looks amazing when the sun flickers in and out from behind your subject and makes your content pop.

 You might wonder: Why not shoot in natural light all the time? Natural light isn’t always consistent — weather changes and the day’s progression can throw off your exposure and color balance. So be sure to factor in the weather forecast and time of day when thinking about lighting your set.

When natural light isn’t available or adequate for your video shoot, you’ll need to use artificial lighting. In traditional photography you’d light your set with a flash, but with videography you’ll use continuous lighting.

 Continuous lighting is exactly what it sounds like — a form of light that stays on continuously. This includes LED lights, tungsten lights, table lamps, or fluorescents. At SouthWorks, our personal favorites are LEDs because they’re cheaper and more portable and they run cooler than other types of lights. LEDs can be used with multiple modifiers, bare bulbs bounced off walls, or our preferred option, through a scrim. We use a range of Aputure LED COB lights to make sure we have all situations covered on set.

• How powerful is the light? You want it to be powerful enough for what you need but not so powerful that the output is hard to control.

• What’s the size and weight? Is it easy to transport the light to your shoot and move it around on set? 

• Can it run off main power? The last thing you need is for your lights to trip fuse circuits and cut off power to your set. (Trust us — we’ve been there!) Check the power drawer and make sure you can run multiple lights on a household circuit.

• What’s the color temperature? Different light sources appear either warmer or cooler. Warm lights are more orange/yellow and cooler lights are more blue/white, with temperature measured in kelvins. Try to keep your color temperature consistent across all lights for better-quality footage. 

• Which modifiers can you use? Can your light be used with multiple modifiers to either increase the output and intensity or soften and lower the intensity with a soft box or scrim?

As we mentioned in a previous article, you can't use shutter speed to adjust for exposure. When shooting in natural light, you might need to up the ISO to bring in enough light for the camera to expose things correctly. Newer cameras offer a much higher usable ISO. Check to see what your camera can handle and then adjust your settings and lighting to suit. 

When shooting with continuous artificial lighting, there are a million and one ways to set up a shoot with multiple lights. One of our favorite options is the classic three-point lighting setup, which allows us to illuminate our subject well while also controlling shadows.

Here’s how to do it:

    1. Use a window or other back light behind your subject to separate your subject from the background.

    2. Use a main key light through a scrim at 45 degrees in front of your subject.

    3. Use a fill light bounced off a wall, or a reflector that fills the opposite side of the key light to lift            shadows if needed.

Lighting can be the difference between stock footage that gets passed over by buyers and stock footage that draws buyers in. Take your time to shoot in natural light at different times of day, use sheets and scrims, and try a variety of camera settings to see how they affect the look and feel of your footage. Practice with continuous lighting at home using different modifiers, lights, and positions until you have a go-to setup that gives you consistent results.

Once you have the basics down, you can light your sets with confidence and create high-quality stock footage — every time.