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Lesson Info

Lighting 101: Gels and Diffusion

Uh gels and diffusion actually let's keep the lights down and let's bring let's grab some diffusion bring the cart over a little bit so we can get at it a little easier you can leave that there for now actually uh let's get you want you to want to come up you've been up here yet so we have these jealous that you can put right on the light this's diffusion here you got all different kinds of diffusion we really only have one here to demonstrate but when it comes into fusion you could put it right on the on the light it's better to get it off the light get bigger services but a lot of times we don't have that option so getting it right on the light is just fine so josh and uh start going to come back in you want to take this you put on that led actually josh one of this continue operating and so this one was a bit harsher than the kino and say we have one kino and we bring this led and we kind of want to start blending them and it's a bit harsh from this one compared to the kino we could...

start defusing that you're going to get your sorry get this gary they hit it for whatever reason let's take it up a bit right to about here and you could just hollywood the gel in front of it I want to go a little lower so it's easier to get into in front of it it was a very thick diffusion so it's going to stop down but what? The light's giving us a swell take the exposure of having difficulty what balances go so you can see it it's wrapping a lot more right? These these shadows are a lot less harsh on josh's face on that's what the future is going to do if you bring it to bring it away from the light a little bit keep coming right there and let's go a little to your left and you could see it is even a little bit more it's rapping a little bit more because we got a little bit bigger of a gn area that we're covering now so you can always throw diffusion on these lights on the tungsten to start softening them up a lot to get them closer to what something like aquino is going to do are you could drop that you grab me some cto see teo is color temperature orange, which is on orange gel that's going to uh you can take that one down away. So if you're shooting, uh you have a day light light like this one and you want to, uh, actually way if we could flip it over because this is doing both right now let's go let's give me the daylight gels so this is please just a little bit later with the key now I got a really big piece for for the kino but I want to sit you know back up but if you got daylight you'll switch throw something like this on the start balancing it out more for your tungsten likes so you can balance those lights out so you're not getting a crazy blue compared to your conscience but you can still you know, one fourth one a fool you could die elin how much warmth you want to put on that day light so you can keep a little bit of blue to start doing some color contrast there's one on the top there that they're very small small deals let's do that one got cto see tv diffusion and endy way did the diffusion cto color temperature orange ctb because you're blue obviously it's going to be the opposite so now we've gone full tox on this you want take it over there hollywood and from the lake no stand right here let's switch over to daylight you hold it down for a second you're here that's the that's the you know how it goes really, really orange right now so why don't you get that up in front of their and we're balancing out a lot better right now a little bit more get a little bit of orange peel but you could see how automatically we're already getting a much more accurate color skin cut skin tone just with this one gel and again you have all different flavors levels of it from one fourth all the way to fool you bring that down then let's switch over to diffusion you wanna put that away you got gels which we already talked about you want the largest source possible again for diffusion so is big of a source that you can get to try to defuse your talent the light of new talent the better so one of my favorites is a book light which will build right now and we're going to do it through d I y sources like ah bed sheet you can also bounce off walls which we could actually do right now so let's let's cut that light and josh won't you stole that light for now you can move that back let's get a bed sheet uh you want to come up, come up grabbed me to see stance wait don't have much space so this might be a bit difficult. All right, I want you to grab some pony clamps we're gonna set up the two c stands right here when a drape the sheet cross it uh axel walter, you guys want to grab the mole we're going over here for me actually you know what let's do the part instead so grab the stinger instead okay let's come over here with let's get it right about here again making sure that knuckles are on the right so we'll go that way with it so you're gonna want to flip years around make sure the knuckles are on the right not the left you go your foot brown that's fine bringing up match it and then just go ahead and drape it and axl walter you know what you can go ahead and leave that stinger there and then just come over here for this part light we're going to set this part light up right here hit the sheets okay so this guy put it right here you could you could leave it at the level that it sat on his face the sheet let's not uh cover then you can go ahead and lock it down right there that's fine who's gonna be a little bit sloppy that's okay we have a chair way could fly in uh not a tall just a normal sized and go ahead and football are we on tungsten way our let's go three feet right three feet camera right on go ahead and back up like two feet good uh you could plug it in right there in the corner that's fine right here stark you wantto sit right here and we'll face camera face camera you could take that on but we're going to kind of want to face it right where stark is so these were gonna be on the switches which can we see this so not all lights are gonna have to be on so the suitcases you know what? I'll show it on another life so we're bringing that soft sources close to our actor as we can without getting it in frame preferably yes, we're good on then look, just look how soft that is you saw before how harsh that other tungsten was that we had on him and now we could see how soft and clean this light is and even what this sort of light will do when it wraps around it's not bringing out all the imperfections in the skin it's going to start covering some of that up things like wrinkles and what have you it's gonna wrap and soften that up a lot so beauty shots are going to be done with nice soft sources like this there's a really good pop up filter that's similar to a bed sheet so expensive but if you want to go that route you can it's a five in one it comes with a bunch of bounces and uh some confusion is well but a bed sheet as you could see works perfectly fine we've got a really, really nice soft pleasing light of course shooting up against a white wall is not idea ideal but also nice but what I was telling him back there that you guys couldn't see was you have some lights where the swish theon switches obviously right right on the light itself but then you have others where it's actually on the cabling so if you're not being able to find it, we're doing over here it's either on the source or just follow the actual whip. All right, cool. So this is direct defuse this is not a book like what a book light it is you're bouncing light into your diffusion to create crazy soft light and what we're gonna do for bounce want to grab me that phone call right there? Yeah, the big one, the little one could stay, so I'm pretty sure we just sources for free somewhere it's just got like graffiti or something on the background I don't even know. So this is just a free piece of something that was scrapped that we grab that we're now going to use as our bounce. So, uh, bill, you want to come just unclip this for now so they could see what we're doing just flick this off so it's not good, I grabbed the last second, so we didn't find anyone uh, you get that side, why don't you just, uh, man this side and you man the side yeah there you go right so we're gonna bring the light somewhere like weaken let's do right here I want the source to be all right that's fine just wrangle it in right here in between these guys can I find that all right let's do the other side then that's fine right there let's go a little closer they're alright now go ahead and angle it to bounce off this let's get sam you want to grab me another c stand not the one that I hoped out on I guess. All right, let's get the whole csi stand. Why not right here? You wanna grab me a pony clamp? I just want to I just want to bring this up again. I did this with my muscles. I'm so proud so josh maybe watch it the next time you give me a hard time all right? And we're gonna clamp this down right on this, all right? Let's get uh so you're gonna wanna clamp on the arm itself so it stays okay? All right? And then you're gonna watch your eye stark go and flick it on and find your angle good that's actually looking pretty solid all right and let's take the sheep back up so now it's not a direct light on our diffusion we're bouncing our light let's bring it over a little bit and make sure this the light you want to grab gloves off the grip cart but bring the barn door in so we're not hitting direct light onto the sheet you want a little bit more room to do something like this but you'll see the main idea here all right? You want to step that way a little bit more that way? Cool. Grab your exposure I just look directly in the lights I can't see anything and now you can see how how muchmore softness we're pulling out of this how muchmore uh you know, we're cleaning up any kind of imperfection on the skin how much smoother is skin looks just start right here for me so this is just a crazy soft light how much its wrapping around his nose is great and we got on awesome I light uh such a chiseled god but lookit lookit bill shirt yeah and you could see the I light that we're getting is just this massive awesome doe eyed I like he kind of looks like puss in boots from destruction so that that's a book late it's one of my favorite lights to do it takes a bit of setup obviously you don't need c stands you could use anything you could use chairs two ladders doesn't really matter the fact is you're draping it over you don't need a professional light like that you could use something like a home depot light you know anything that's pumping out a lot of power that you could bounce that light off into another softer source just softening the softness and you got a really really great light with really good quality again this is just straight bounce let's fix the exposure so straight bounced like this is gonna be very soft already so we're already softening the light but then when we bring in extra it's just crazy how much it cleans up the skin all right let's get rid of the sheet if you would please bill, you wanna get rid of the c stand for me? Just move it to the side there yeah don't bend it in half and uh sam, you want this one to the side for me as well and let's just let's bounce this one off the wall now I'll do this often feel like uh if it were in a big room and I don't have a lot of lights to work with, I'll just bounce light off walls let's move it this way more right there is good just bounce light off walls for fill light but it's also a really good way to soften the light if you don't have any other choice because again we're getting a really nice soft light even softer than what this was giving us really quick set up one night and it's already looking really good we're getting that wrap around the nose so we're getting a little bit of uh oh we're getting a little bit of that light on his other eye uh so it's just a really really nice quality of light were getting that bagel you could move that side so let's talk about modifiers you got flags just you wantto way okay. You want to kill that light for me to move it off to the side of it? Hey, bill want to come back up way bring the lights up just a little for this scrabble these guys that's good bring them in so we got flags and nets here. Uh, this guy is obviously net uh this takes down a full stop of light. We call it a double the green one. I just knocked that the green one grab the green room for me, it's the same thing but we're going half stop. We call that a single these guys were diffusion in the form of flag and then we have this guy which is just gonna block like you're goingto use this to modify your life, to trim it, to really dial it in and then you have, uh, screams you know what? Let's, uh way have that one still blood in let's get the flag moving off about, uh, foot away and that's good right there I just want to point it at the wall and let's just let's bring just the solid take that over to that light there uh other side just a little switch right on the fixture itself I's sorry no worries all right and just pointed you can actually move out stark all right, now just put that flag half pack cut off half out light for me on the wall other side yeah that's fine you can just do have straight up and down that's fine so that's good right and you could see that it's soft now move away keep keep the same sort of area of where it is and you could see it's getting sharp maurin mohr sharp as you move away from the picture so the further away from the light you get with anything that you're cutting it the sharper the line's going to be the closer you get the softer it's going to be so if you're cutting this in to try to trim the light down maybe you have light on the subject and trying to keep it off the background and you want a really nice soft edge you're gonna want to get that really close if you need a hard edge that you're trying to match a wall with or something like that you're going to get it a little bit further if you could bring that back thank you you cut that and go ahead and take a seat for a second. Thank you, sir. These guys here share hold this. Uh, these guys are scrims. Does the same thing is what annette is going to dio except these air going to actually go in the fixture themselves. Uh, like these guys got the barn doors with the opening and you just going to drop it in on that's going to start cutting the light, right? It's like a quarter into a slot machine. You got green and red, same thing is the net full in half and then you got half screams, which is going to take half light coming down. So if you got half of you know that light that you need to take down, maybe you have an actor with a white shirt obviously that's going to blow out a lot more, right? And you could put this guy in and try to dial that light in to take it down for to do with the net, but you can't do it with screams and you just drop them in like, so I'm not gonna get that scream because going crazy out thank you want to drink that? Just back on the knuckle of the light I'm going, I'm going past my, uh my key note here, cookies. You create patterns with these guys uh let's grab the small one you make props I'm gonna have you do it bring me the leatherman uh yeah, this small guy right here we'll bring this want to bring the stand right to here yeah, give it to him I wanted to just cut like shape of blinds like straight down just lines you know what I mean so like, you know yeah, yeah like straight straight down to, like five that's a better night do that then we might move past this why he does that because that's going to take it back but the idea is you're going to cut patterns into slight teo break up your light for either an effect or just to create a bit of breaking up on you you could do solids or they also have, you know, soft cookies which will the light will pass through it won't be like this the light's not gonna pass through this except for where we make our pattern with a soft cookie is going to pass through everywhere but fully through where the pattern is. So you're going to get all the light on your actor but some of it's either gonna be diffused or stopped down another piece is there going to be a bit hotter so you're creating these patterns like to break up the light to make it a bit more interesting because you saw some of this flat light just write on your talent it's not that interesting once you start breaking it up and molding it that's where it comes really into really filming let's uh let's let's just go let's just go with put one. Give me one right in the center, right? Yeah and let's make it half the size of the one you did? Yeah. Let's uh get this like here, let's get it on. You could go ahead and do that. Let's, take it up out here. Uh, well, first let's, take it up. You got the safety cable? Yeah, was I couldn't get to switch. Got chest. Okay, let's, take it up to about here. That's good that's. Good. And then stark, you want to come here since you're so chiseled, we didn't the lights down again that ought to do it. I mean, two sorts weight. We can use that as flags, actually. All right, uh, god inflict that on eyes before you do great. And now we could start dialing and patterns like maybe, uh, you know, a film the war type thing, you know, they mean, uh, or even on the background, you can kind of see the point on the background you can make blinds out of these things which we do all the time to break up the background will do that a little bit later, start because that will do that a little bit later. But, you know, breaking up white background like this something where it's such a boring background, you got to start figuring out ways to make it interesting. And if you don't have set dressing, you could do it with light. Start breaking up the light on the background to make that a little bit more interesting on dh. This is what's really gonna help do that sort of thing. I love not something that harsh, but if you have your scene litte, I've done it every now and again if I want to make something a little dramatic or a little interesting, maybe it's a romantic moment to people looking at each other, just create the most subtle pop on the eyes with this exact effect. We just put that on here you have your actress and you just have just the slightest pop on the eyes it's really, really subtle, but you can dial in with the grade and it goes a long way.