5 Lighting Tricks using 1 Light

Published on December 8, 2020

Cinematography & Filmmaking

Cinematography, Lighting

Working with a Single Light

When starting out there’s no need to purchase a whole set of lights. Having a single light already opens up many different possibilities. Besides, when you focus on just your one light, you’ll learn a lot better to work with it.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that aspiring filmmakers think they need lights to learn lighting. But the principle of creating contrast or a more interesting cinematography can already be applied with sunlight, windows or practical light. In my class about lighting for beginners, I talk about this principle and how we can use any light available.

Cinematography and Lighting

Cinematography is much broader than lighting alone. It’s about visual storytelling and setting a mood, which can be done through various ways. So with lighting you wanna do just that; create a story and a look and feel.

This is where you’ll find yourself reaching a lot towards natural or practical light sources. In a short film we shot last year, we needed to create a basement look. We didn’t used any professional lights in this scene. Everything was practical; old lights you can find in your garage.

Rotolight Titan X1

Big thanks to Rotolight for their support on this video. They provided us with the Titan X1, a brand new light in their collection. It’s an RGBWW light, able to create over 16 million different colors. With the Smartsoft feature and database of LEE filters, this light replaces all your other lights.

Until the 31th of January 2021 you can get a free battery adaptor by using the coupon cinecom-titan upon checkout