Cinematic lighting doesn’t necessarily require a truck packed full with grip hardware and next-generation lighting equipment. Sometimes there are situations when you really need to make the best out of what’s available on set, and simple candlelight can do the job. When talking about lighting using only candles, it’s hard not to think about Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (1975). And indeed, in his ARRI Christmas Master Class on MZed, Julio Macat, ASC (Home Alone, Wedding Crashers) admits that he borrowed the knowledge for this type of cinematography directly from Mr. John Alcott, Director of Photography of the Kubrickian masterpiece. Macat’s course is an insightful journey into the roles and workflows of a professional film set. It explores composition, lighting, camera movements, and even a little bit of set lingo. Particularly, in the Lighting a Scene with One Source module, the Argentine-American cinematographer takes his students by the hand to show them how to set up a basic Christmas dining dialogue scene from scratch, using (almost) only one candle. So let’s take a look at his approach. ARRI Christmas Master Class with Julio Macat, ASC on MZed. Source: CineD / MZed The Importance of Honest Lighting Lighting a scene using a single candle can be tricky for many different reasons. To start off, since the candle acts both as a light source and as a prop, this element takes on greater importance in the frame. It’s the only motivation for our lighting, thus its placement and relationship with other elements in...
Published By: CineD - Friday, 19 August, 2022