5 Reasons every Filmmaker Needs to have this

Published on May 14, 2019

Cinematography & Filmmaking

cinematograhpy, Flagging, Light tutorial, Lighting, list of 5, Tips and Tricks, Using a flag

Welcome to our tips and tricks festival called Creative Tuesday. Every week we try to share some clever ways to improve your film makings skills. And this week we are showing you 5 ways to use a black flag. This is a simple rectangle frame with a cloth in the middle. The cloth can vary from white to gold to black and all have different purposes. As you can guess, the white cloth will act as a reflector, while the black cloth will do the opposite, it will remove light. And that is exactly what we will be doing today, removing light.

I must say, before April I didn’t think much of flags and almost never used them. But then we started shooting the short film and everything changed. During the shoot I was responsible for the lighting of everything, the DOP in some sorts. And with such a tight time schedule, you have to be creative in your light setups. And the flag really helped me with that. When I saw that we had some spill lights or that the lighting on the actor was to flat, I could immediately intervene with me flag. Casting Shadows where needed and bringing more depth into the shot. This really amazed me how such a simple tool could have such an impact on the look and feel of the shot. After the short movie, my finding of a flag were completely changed and now I think it’s the must have tool for every filmmaker.

StoryBlocks Video

This video was supported by Storyblocks Video, an easy to use site full of stock footage, After Effects templates, backgrounds, motion Graphics and much more.