ABSTRACT
One of the most creative and visually exciting tasks in video and film production involves lighting. Visual artists refer to lighting as painting with light. A lighting director or director of photography can use lights just as effectively and expressively as any painter uses color pigments to evoke a specific mood or visual impression. Lighting can be used to emphasize and dramatize a subject by bringing objects into sharp relief or contrast, or it can be used to soften and to harmonize. Lighting directly affects the overall impressions and feelings generated by recorded visual images. It is a complex art, but basic video and film lighting can be reduced to a limited number of concepts and techniques. This chapter provides an introduction to the basic aesthetic approaches, techniques, and equipment needed to design and control the lighting of moving images.
