How to improve your videos through simple lighting techniques

Lighting is one of the most important aspects of video production, regardless of what camera you have or how talented your are. If your scene is poorly lit, your video will not be engaging and chances are, you will not see results.

The best kind of light when shooting indoors will be light that you are able to control. This usually means turning off all of the room's normal lighting and using just your filming lights, giving you complete control of shadows and light direction. For example, overhead lighting from a ceiling lamp can cause undesired shadows on the face of your talent, something that is to be avoided in most cases.

For lighting an interview, I start by using a three-point lighting setup. That is, a key light, and back light and a fill light. The key light is the main light on the subject, normally positioned at 45 degrees from where the subject is facing. The back light is often positioned opposite to the key light, this will avoid any shadows and create a nice halo effect, separating your talent from the background of your shot. The fill light is used to get rid of any shadows on the face caused by your key light and should be positioned similarly to the key light, at 45 degrees but on the other side, for a more dramatic effect, use a dim fill light which will give you more shadow on one side of the subject.

This isn't the only way to light an interview, but it's a good start. You will get best results by experimenting with the environment you are shooting in. Small tweaks such as shining a dim light on a wall can bring your background to life and make your shot a little bit more interesting.

If you find yourself limited in terms of lighting equipment, you can still achieve a well-lit shot by being creative in the way you use what's available to you at the time. For example, in the video below, I used a large window that was allowing a generous amount of natural light into the room. By conducting the interviews with the subjects facing this window, I had a nice soft light and with the projector screen behind them it made a great background which even had some of the relevant branding and graphics on display. 

Tip: If you are shooting a projector screen and you find the image is over exposed even though your subject is very dark, try turning down the brightness on the display settings of the projector.

The most important thing in all this is to plan your lighting, don't just get the camera out and start shooting, put some thought into how you want your shot to look and use everything at your disposal to get as close as possible to the look you are after.

If you have any questions about lighting or anything else, you can Tweet me: @SANTpilgrim or email: santiago@zoodikers.com