Article Response: How to Make Your Film Look Cinematic When Your Lighting Setup is Less Than Ideal

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    A common issue that all amateur filmmakers have to face at some point in their career is how to make their films look cinematic. Sure, you can have some of the best camera shots, angles, audio, dialogue, and special effects ever created, but usually what makes or breaks a scene is the lighting techniques you use and how it affects that scene. You don't want daylight scenes to be too overexposed, or nighttime scenes to look rather grainy. But what if you don't have access to any professional lighting equipment that could help you? DSLRguide from YouTube explains in two of his recent videos on how to make a film look cinematic and how to create powerful images on a budget.

    Natural lighting is your friend. Whether it be cloudy or a sunny day, both can have an impact on your film. Using a window as a soft back light can easily make a scene look brighter. However, this technique doesn't work for every shot, mainly closeups and insert shots. Don't worry if your scene has a bit of darkness in it, as darkness can be found in almost all Hollywood films. What's important to remember when creating a film, is that location, color, emotion, and senses can be used to make interesting cinematic images. 

    Each of these assets tend to blend together with the others. With location, it's all about where you are and what's placed in the scene. For example, having a birds eye view of a city with people and cars quickly going by, or a calming scene of someone looking out the window at the rain falling onto the glass. The colors of the city scene would probably contain a lot of grays from the buildings and pavements, bright yellows from the cab cars, other small colors coming from stop lights, people's clothes, signs, etc. As for the rain scene, it would contain some dark colors in contrast to the bright light outside - the person is most likely silhouetted - and some blues from the overcast sky. The colors then affect how the viewer feels. With the bright colors and grays mixing together from the city scene, you probably feel a sense of excitement, as if you were around that amount of people and looking up at the skyscrapers towering above. The rain scene, however, could create a sense of sadness, loneliness, or calmness, as the rain hits the glass and the actor stares out into the world.

    Lastly, senses. Getting closeup shots of things happening in a big city can affect a persons senses. For example, maybe someone is selling hot dogs outside, you would know exactly what that smells like. Or maybe in the rain scene, the actor blows out a candle, you would know what the smell of smoke is like. This is how a viewer can sympathise with what's happening in a scene if they've ever experienced these things in their life. I really enjoyed watching Simon Cade's video on this subject, as it's a somewhat difficult thing to learn when making your own videos. You really just need to have the right visuals in order to make a film look cinematic.