Cinematic lighting from “Spectre” using LED lights, a powerful shot from “Hail, Ceasar” with one light, a train scene from “Casino Royale” using one light, and a daylight exterior scene from “Looper”; That’s all we’re going to see in this all-new episode of lighting breakdown. Let’s go!

SCENE N°01

To give you some context, the scene takes place on a train. Let’s analyze it more closely;

Here marked in blue, these are practical lights. We can say that it is these three Practical lights that illuminate the scene, but in reality, they don’t—as you can see, marked in green, we have top light or hair light, whichever you want. So why the headlight? Let’s see all the answers in a picture;

It’s just to have consistency. As you can see here, there are lights all along the edge of the train, located at the top, so it makes perfect sense that their hair is lit up. So to have control over the lights, for this scene, Hoyte Van Hoytema and his teams chose to use two LED tubes placed above our two actors with the same color temperature as the Practical lights. Let’s see it all on a diagram:

Made with the Ci-Lovers Lighting Diagram Toolkit

SCENE N°02

A Roger Deakins classic, the use of practical light. So you can understand the context a little more, here’s a wide shot of the scene.

In this way, we can see the arrival of the young woman, and thus we can see the decor and especially the two lamps on the table. Of course, when she sits down, it will probably be the two lamps that illuminate her face. To do this, Roger Deakins placed a loose Muslin on the left side of the screen, and a Tweenie bounced onto the loose Muslin, thus imitating the light emitted by the Practicals. Take your notes; A tweenie and a reflective surface like a loose Muslin, and that’s it. The shot is remarkable. Let’s see it all on a Diagram;

Made with the Ci-Lovers Lighting Diagram Toolkit

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Let’s move on to the next scene:

SCENE N°03

Same as scene number one. The scene takes place on a train. We can say that James Bond loves trains. Let’s look at the wide shot first for more details on the scene;

Now we have a lot more details. We have a practical light on the table that seems to illuminate the whole scene. So if we go to the medium shot, it is perfectly normal to think that it is the practical light that illuminates their faces. To do this, they just placed an LED tube to amplify the practical a little. A Quasar Science LED light, set to 3500K to match the practical light. Let’s see it all on a diagram:

SCENE N°04

We close this episode with this scene from the movie Looper. This is simply the definition of simplicity. No artificial light. To do this, they put a bounce board on the right side of the screen and a negative fill on the left to add a lot more contrast to the shot. That’s it!

You don’t always need loads of stuff to have nice, well-lit shots. All you need is to get a little more creativity, and that’s it. Don’t complicate things because sometimes, as William Shakespeare said, “Less Is More.”