Books on lighting

[ickle_jim]

I need some reccomended books for lighting, in particular the beginer rather than huge lighting rigs, and also if it was for video that might be more helpful than a generic one.

Reccomend away... [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ickle_jim]

when i asked about books on directing there was loaads of replys! where has everyone gone?! surely someone has read about lighting

[deanl]

Hey there.

Im not sure how many books you will find on lighting for low budget movies. I think your bets bet will be picking a few books on stills photography. All the basics for lighting will be there. Try and find a book called John Hedgecoe's Introductory Photography Course. That has pretty much all the theory in simple terms and in one book.

A Google search never hurt anyone. There is a massive amount of info online.

Also try and dig out a great little doc called Visions Of Light. See how the masters did it.

Find a DP. Or anyone with a real intrest in photography. Look up local photography courses, find out whose on them Join them yourself. Make friends. I'm assuming you are more intrested in telling your stories than playing with light. (I know I am) Find someone who wants to play with light. Then Learn together.

Other than that just practice. Find out what looks good and use it. If you ARE going it alone. Thenfigure out how you plan to light things before hand. You dont want to be wasting your own and your casts time on "set" trying to get rid of or create shadows. Try and get there ahead of time and work out a lighting scheme and how you plan to do it.

One word of advise... Add as many lights to a room as you can Add a few extra lamps here and there. It will make your "fake" lighting less obvious.

Despite all the ******** I just said above I'm going to be posting a few of my own lighting questions in the next few days. So get your thinking caps on people.

Despin out.

[ickle_jim]

sounds like some good advice there...

what i plan on doing is taking photos using my digital camcorda and play with light that way. I figure once i can take photos well lit with the camcorder it wont be hard to film stuff in good lighting. So i guess in that respect photography books will be useful.

[ghillbilly]

I found this link last night.


http://www.lowel.com/download/lowellbook6_02.pdf


Basically it's for the book "Matters of light and depth" by Ross Lowell, who looks into lighting for both video and film and it looks pretty good.

Unfortunately I just checked on Amazon and they don't have the book in stock but you might be able to find it somewhere else.

[matimus]

This book, Lighting for Digital Video and Television, has gotten good reviews on Amazon, but isn't currently available there either.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578201152/qid%3D1047348211/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-0091290-4524600"]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578201152/qid%3D1047348211/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr%5F11%5F1/103-0091290-4524600[/ame]

I came across it at a bookstore and flipped through it and, speaking as an absolute beginner, it seemed to have a lot of good information on a variety of lighting concepts. I may go back to that bookstore and pick up a copy if it's still there.