The Math Behind “Cinematic Lighting” - PART 1
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- Опубликовано: 22 ноя 2023
- A deeper look at what goes into that sweet sweet cinematic look. Considering photometrics is a great way to be prepared when approaching how to light in a scene. Here we look at Arri Photometrics, and the Illumination Handbook built into Sinus Link. We then look at how to use these apps to make calculations for other film lights that are not included in either app. Part 2 will dive a bit deeper into lighting large sets. We will also take a deeper look into the inverse square law and how to maintain consistent lighting in large spaces.
Set a light 3D 15% off code:
WSTRPP - www.elixxier.com/en/set-a-lig...
(right now this software is also on sale, it is a true necessity)
Although there is no music in this video, I have been using Audiio for the past few months and I love it. Use code Blaine70 for a nice discount: audiio.com/blainewestropp
join the discord: / discord 
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I’m sorry, but the amount that you have changed my knowledge on exposure on the last few months is astonishing. Never stop posting, I will never miss a video
Thank you thank you! More to come 😇
This dude... quickly becoming my favourite channel!
Both of you guys are legends.
Wow ! Huuuggeee compliment coming from the master of lighting! This is awesome !
Thank you Jacques! :)
I remember when I found Arri's app and how much it helped me, especially when I needed to know what lights would give me enough output to keep windows from clipping. It gave me the confidence to tell the producer why we needed an M40 or 18k HMI for some locations.
Yep. Love it. Helps in many ways. Helps to justify fixtures on the order, helps to be prepared, and even sometimes kind of spurs some inspiration when making the calculations. Makes you think about one light at a time. Which helps me slow down a little and do things step by step when preparing for something.
I love being enrolled in the Blaine Westropp school of film production I'm learning so much, thanks for this it's so incredibly helpful.
😂 thanks Ed!
Probably one of your most helpful videos yet. Thanks Blaine!
Thank you! Part 2 will be good too
A Turkey Day surprise upload. Loving all of your content Blaine, seriously has been super insightful and helpful!
thank you Jeremy! more to come.
Id love to learn more about contrast ratio theory and implementation!
Stay tuned!
Blessing the internet with your videos
Thank you queen!
I love this kind of stuff! Thank you for making this!
thank you thank you. more on the way.
Great stuff man, look forward to part 2
Thank you. Me too!
Insanely valuable info and explanation. Thank you.
Thank you!😊
Great work, the practical examples are so helpful. Thanks!
Thank you :)
i just started using this way of prepping this summer, still figuring it out.. always learn a thing or two in your videos! please keep making more and hopefully we meet soon in nyc! :)
thanks Bruno! maybe see you soon! more to come...
Thank you Blaine! This is next level information and technique!
THank you for sharing!
Sure thing thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing this Blaine!
🫡 more to come!
God damn. I will never look at lighting in the same way again. THANK YOU.
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Thank you for this Blaine. I also really like what you had to say about Intention. Cheers my man
Thank ya :-)
This one video has taught me so much about how to best utilize these digital tools!
Hey thank you! 😎
Just incredible... Thank you from France, you made me level up tonight...
Bonjour! Merci :)
Happy thanksgiving.
I’m thankful for Blaine’s videos.
Bro..happy thanksgiving!
Same, he’s always dropping gems of wisdom.
Thank you!
Thank you for the effort & knowledge in this video .. Would love to see more videos on how to approach a project from the beginning to delivering.. keep up the good work man!.
Hey thank you! Stay tuned, more to come 😊
Hey Blaine, really interesting class you have given. Appreciated
:)
Learnt a lot over here in just a few minutes. Thanks for sharing this.
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Such a useful video! Thank you so much!!!
Thank you :)
Wow, thank you for this!
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This was great. Thank you for being straight to the point. Subscribing off that alone.
Thank you ☺️☺️
Thanks for making this!
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Changing my life yet again! You are the GOAT . I honestly always go by instinct and follow a lead I find in my head... Honestly not the best way to go about that. I'll start implementing these techniques. Thanks mate!
😇😇 thank you. Following your intuition is fine. I just find that sometimes it’s good to know this stuff. It helps a lot when choosing the lights.
@@BlaineWestropp1 Most definitely. The tools we have in our belt the better
thank you blaine this has changed my life
Knew it would 😇
Straight to the subject matter 🔥🔥🔥
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Great stuff man!
Thank you :)
So incredibly helpful!
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Seriously Man. I had thing confusion about Lights placement and the power output lux etc, where to put, what to do, getting things in focus and I don't know that these calculations exist.
I mean watching your stuff helps a lot just to bring the life in to the images.
Thanks man I am learning a lot from you !
Hey thanks so much! Glad to help. I think you’ll like part 2 as it will get a little deeper into where the lights should actually be placed to reach a desired look. :)
Great video! Just to be clear, those calculations give a perfect exposure for an 18% gray. This needs to be kept in mind when exposing as you may need to overexpose or underexpose depending on the situation (ie. skin color of talent)
Hey thanks! Yes. This is true. This is also stated in the Arri Photometrics. Maybe I should have mentioned it.
Super helpful info man, thank you for this! Only thing I would add about exposure here is that different objects reflect light differently, as you can see at the end where the 2 objects vary in how much they are reflecting the light (which also changes based on the angle of the camera). It’s a bit of a creative choice where you want to place your tones of whatever subject you are exposing, and of course will vary depending on what you are trying to achieve in story telling.
That said, I’ve definitely made the mistake of just not having enough output for the space and with modifiers, and I never even thought of using these tools you mentioned here, learned a lot, thank you for sharing all of this amazing info!
Thank you! Of course reflectivity is a different ballgame. Like chrome products, specifically beauty products with chrome lids. That is a whole batch of videos worth of technique that goes way beyond just middle gray exposure. Both the applications I show here are to obtain a lens stop for middle gray similar to what you’d see on a light meter with fixtures placed at the same distance as calculated. Similarly to how skin tones don’t always have to be at a specific IRE, you don’t have to follow what your light meter says. But to get a quick idea of how much light is needed, is super helpful for me. If it’s enough for middle gray, it’ll be enough for anything else, unless I want to overexpose the key, in which case I can just calculate how many stops over we want to be and add output from there.
Fantastic!
Thank you :)
Thanks so much. I wasn't even aware of the photometrics tool in the Sidus Link app until now.
It’s great! Download Arri Photometrics too. Both are great
@@BlaineWestropp1 Yep. I downloaded that too while I was watching. :)
Thanks so much Man, this video is helping so much
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Thank you for this level of detail
My pleasure!
Just picked up that software using your code 👍
Black Friday too, big savings!
You’re gonna love it!
broo as a young dp/gaffer I gotta thank you soo much for dropping great, concise knowledge once again. on top of that it's kinda fun to watch ur videos :D
More to come!
Very cool stuff.
Love it
So useful. Thank you.
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SAL 3D has genuinely made me better at my job. I use it as pre-vis for my clients as well and they're astonished it can be exactly how we planned it to be. It's almost like math is dependable in this scenario - who woulda thunk!
Haha I love it. I use it so often. Such an amazing tool.
@@BlaineWestropp1 sometimes dude it's even just fun to play around with it and keep like a list of hypothetical setups you want to try out 😂
This is B@d @SS to learn. Especially for planning bigger shoots. I have a corporate interview with our local chamber of commerce we’re doing and I’m definitely going to try to wrap my head around the math and play with those softwares before I’m on set and I don’t have the right lights.
Nice, let me know how it goes!
Yeah I’m locking this information in the deepest darkest parts of my brain!
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Never heard of Elixxier software before, definitely checking it out!
Dude… you need it. So good.
This is sick
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Loved the pivot at 9:00. “Ya this looks cool”.
iPhone is becoming one of my favorite lights.
Wow I'm kinda sad that I'm just now discovering your channel. This is some quality stuff right here! Brb, gonna binge your channel now...
haha glad you found it. more to come!
Jeez. I had no clue Sidus had this. Much appreciated!
sidus link has a couple gems hidden in it!
i love you, my favourite channel
❤️❤️❤️ thank you
I actually appreciate this very much. thanks for the gems
Thank you :)
@@BlaineWestropp1 ended up returning my zhiyun and purchased an amaran 100x s light.
Which zhiyun?
@@BlaineWestropp1 molus x100
Bad idea? 🙃
a video about cinematic lighting, is literally lit by a smartphone and just looks amazing :D When will this channel explode?
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Very cool
Thank you!
Life changed, ngl. Big fan of coming in prepared.
🫡 me too
thank you very much
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Thank you
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Have you thought about making a Video about your Camera Rigs? And whats your go to Audio Setup.
I could potentially make a video about the rigs. Anything specific you are looking for? Also for mics I use a sennheiser mke 400, and when I use a lav I use a zoom f2. Even when I use the sennheiser it is being recorded by the zoom f2. I wanted to get affordable mics, and I wanted 32 bit float. I think the sennheiser sounds great, and it’s quite durable. I’ve gotten it wet, dropped it, bang it around, etc. love it!
@@BlaineWestropp1 Woah! Thanks for the detailed reply on the Audio, ill look in to those bc the Price seems amazing. I didnt have anything Rig specific in Mind, I would just love to see your setups in different situations.
@@prod999solo price is definitely amazing. Got 2 f2’s (non Bluetooth version) and one MKE 400. That way I could lav and use the 400 at the same time. Noted on the rigs! Will see what I can do!
love it
😊
gracias !
De nada 😊
you are a master
Ayeeee papi!
Amazing, thanks for this detailed video!
Quick question regarding Set a light software, do you recommend adding the 3D Importer?
Thanks for your help!
hey thanks! the 3d importer is cool, and super useful if you have specific objects you want to include in your scenes. if you don't have specific 3d objects you need in your scenes, you could go without the importer. you can always add it later!
incredible video, Blaine. The two apps are game changers and your way of succinctly explaining all of this is insane. Thanks so much - when you say properly exposed what do you mean? Basically what exposure value are you calculating for? 18% middle grey? You mentioned false color as your preferred tool so how are you using that? I’ve recently come upon the EL Zone System that I think is really interesting when it comes to exposure tools. Cheers
Hey thanks so much. When I say properly exposed I mostly mean not clipping highlights and not crushing shadows. More of an intuition “I know this is right” situation. I use false color to eliminate highlight clipping, save shadows, and occasionally keep faces consistent over longer shoots in different locations. EL zone is cool, reminds me of the good old gio scope on red cameras. Biggest thing is just to not clip highs and lows. Then you can do whatever you want in post. Keep the scene within the range of your sensor and your good (hasn’t always been like that but is now). Hope this makes sense.
Makes total sense -- aiming for highest flexibility in post. Gio scope, exactly! Appreciate you and the work you did on film and digital comparison video as well, I'm tuned in. Happy shooting brotha @@BlaineWestropp1
I can’t say I understood everything but I will one day thanks to your videos!
Question: do you have a recommendation on external screen/monitor for camera?
Haha thank you! I like the smallhd cine7!
Wow, I'm just an iOS developer and as an aficionado/not in the business this seems like a lot of preparation (I was a photographer so I'm more used to strobes). This is a bit overwhelming but I learned a lot of interesting things.
BTW! You used two steps to do the calculation on your mac (using spotlight).
You can calculate the square root with sqrt... for instance in your case just type: "sqrt(500/960)" and it gives you the 0.721... value right away without going to Google.
Seems like a lot.. but ya don’t need it for every shoot and once you do it a few times you start memorizing it and just knowing.
This is insane, killer, dense, quality content. WTF.
😇😇
This good
Thank ya!
as a math major that does video on the side I loved this video
Thank you. Me too. I like the objective nature of it.
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love ur grade
Thank you!
Hey, for that square root equation, I recommend another variable to avoid confusion of T with (time). An Lx with T (target) as a subscript.
Great Video Btw! It is right up my alley with the math and technical rigor.
Yes professor! 😂 How would you write it? I was having a hard time determining how to write it out and partially landed on that just bc it looked cool and knew I could define each variable.
And thank you!
Haha fair enough, I paused the video to make an assumption on the variables lmao, and couldn't assume what T was, I knew you would tell us the variable though. @@BlaineWestropp1
"...and if we're not, I'm not going to post this video." 😂
Glad it worked 😂
Hi Blaine! Thank you for the vid! just a qns, recently was on a shoot and Cast pointed out that Lights were too bright, hence I've toned down to 400-600 Lux on talent, how do you determine target Lux in relation to result and comfort, as suppose to just raising ISO slightly, or is it more of a "I just have to raise Lux levels as aperture increases"? since shutter/iso is usually locked.
Hey! Great question. It’s not always easy, but a lot of the time it is dependent on the position of your lighting. For example, you can be outside on a bright sunny day and not be too horribly bothered by the sun, which is way higher than 600 lux. but you could be inside and be bothered by an 8x8 6 feet away from you. It also depends on how much ambient light is in your scene, and how many other lights there are. So.. I’d say it comes down to experience stacked on top of experience. Step in front of the lights when you are setting them up and see how it makes you feel. I’d try backing them up a little. And, yes you can raise the iso a touch too, or bring it up in the grade. Cameras are so good now you can push em. Also, 400 lux on talent will put ya around a T5 at 800 iso, so you could open up the lens a little. It’s a delicate dance at times.
@@BlaineWestropp1 thanks for the prompt reply! also thank you for sharing all these knowledge openly! cheers :)
@alvinlim7276 sure thing. And thank you! If you have any questions at all, let me know. Love discussing this stuff.
Blaine the teacherrr 👨🏫
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Hey, thanks for showing this stuff!
7:36 what do you mean by 1:1 ratio?
Sure thing! By 1:1 I mean that the exposure of the background is the same as the exposure of the model! They both have the same amount of light falling on them.
@@BlaineWestropp1 ohh, so same light in terms of the same 'amount' of Lux hitting?
What threw me off is that the background was (in terms of luminance value in the image) brighter than the skin - but that makes sense as the skin is darker than the white wall and absorbs parts of the light.
Got it, thank you!
What was your thought process in going for a 1:1 ratio? Was it a creative choice where you thought about what image you wanted and you knew you'd need a 1:1 ratio, or is that an established technique for getting white backgrounds and skin perfectly exposed in relation to another?
I hope I worded it in a way that was understandable, I don't really have much experience in this department!
Much love
@@Schlingelkind hey! yes, what you mentioned in the first part is right. same lux hitting the background as the model, and yes the BG itself is white, so it may look brighter while still being a 1:1. also it is in a 3d environment and was not rendered. if you did this on a white wall with texture, you'd see the texture. the 1:1 was just an example. sometimes I dont even consider ratios at all. you dont always have to. but it can sometimes be wise bc you can go into it knowing exactly what it will look like. and then you can say for certain scenarios you want a 2 stop ratio, or a 4 stop ratio. if you shoot something one day that you like, in a studio with a person and a wall, and you want to re create that look for something else, it helps to know the relationship that you initially recorded. kind of a way to keep things consistent in your mind, and from shot to shot, scene to scene, project to project. hope that makes sense.
@@BlaineWestropp1 yes, thank you for the explanation and examples! :D
:)
Very noobish question. When you set up your light in the scene for the product on the bathroom sink using Sidus to calculate the Distance for the equation, does the light source brightness come into play? In other words, how much of the total brightness was turned on for your light to push the lighting needed? As an example: I have some Amaran P60x lights, and I do the equation, but the intensity of the light is where I'm not sure how to throw into the mix. Can you elaborate on this if possible? Thanks!
Great question! In all of the calculations I show it is considering 100% brightness on the lamp. It’s basically showing you what you can achieve at max brightness.
If you're good at math and you know the lux outputs of a couple of fixtures you can do pretty much all of this without relying on any apps relying on 3 tested formulas
Yes:)
Costco break in the middle of the video is crazy 😂
😂😂 was packed there.
Do you also use Cinetracer? If so, do you prefer one over another?
I’ve used cinetracer a ton. I like both, but I’ve gravitated more towards set a light 3d lately. I feel like I can move faster in it. I do love cinetracer, and Matt though.
@@BlaineWestropp1 thanks! Great vid.
Which lens was this shot on?
I can tell you soon!
Blaine, What should i buy to make me happy?
A puppy
@Blaine , can you share the false colour you got with us? 😅🙏🏻
I meant to film the monitor but didn’t :( It was showing middle grey on the bottle!
Best stuff about dp on the internet. Hello from Vietnam btw ❤
hey thank you so much! Xin chào is that right?
@@BlaineWestropp1 hahaha that's correct. If you have a chance to visit Ho Chi Minh city. I'll show you around town. I'm just a small documentary DP so watching you experiment with expensive tools is my favorite hobby. I learned a lot from you. Please keep going on 💪💪💪
do a video on judging exposure based on false colors
Fine!
This might change my life
:)
That apreture change was effected in real life.😂😂
What do you mean!
@@BlaineWestropp1 lights went off right as you changed the apreture in the app.
@yaserakbari8796 ahhhh yes. Lol
Why 96fps?
96 was the frame rate I had to shoot a project a while ago that made me start looking into photometrics, so I used it as an example here.
@@BlaineWestropp1 thanks!
Blaine you eat mathcruches Lux Milk for breakfast, so when you get to work you know what to do. Haha!
Hahah
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Do you kids not use foot candles? Do they not teach the formula I. Film school anymore that 100 foot candles at 100iso will get you a t2.8? You can use that simple equation to do all this and it’s way easier math.
yep fc is easy, and in both softwares you can look at fc. I find the software useful when entering into an environment that requires settings I don't typically shoot at, like 96fps at t8. just plug it in to the software. and also.. I would say that most people do not know 100fc at 100iso will get a t2.8, let alone how to calculate that conversion to 48fps at 800iso for example.
talks about lighting faces with a phone in previous videos. "accidentally" has a light die while using a phone in a video. sneaky sneaky
Now we are connecting the dots 😊