You can’t talk about cinematography without talking about Robert Richardson. He is one of the best cinematographers of our generation. He won three Oscars for best cinematography with The Aviator, JFK, Hugo, and ten other Oscar nominations in the same category.

He is often found with his faithful companion Quentin Tarantino. Together they made classics such as Kill Bill, Django unchained, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. All this is to tell you that Robert Richardson is one of the icons of modern cinema. But in this article, we are not going to talk about his awards, but about his technique on how he lights his films in general, to learn and be inspired.

The Backlighting

The technique of Backlighting consists of illuminating your subject from behind. It’s called Backlighting if your backlight serves you as a key light simultaneously.

Everyone has their approach to backlighting, and in this article, we will see Robert Richardson’s approach as we analyze some of his best shots.

Like I’ve always said, when you look at a frame taken by Robert Richardson, the first thing that jumps out is the intense light behind his subjects. Indeed, Richardson likes to light his subjects from behind with a potent source that mimics the sun or a light motivated by something specific.

To clarify the idea, here is a shot from the movie Inglourious Basterds.

SCENE N°O1

As you can see, it’s make believe that it’s a natural source that illuminates this scene. Let’s analyze this scene carefully. Let’s focus our attention on the two actors.

We immediately notice this intense brightness that illuminates them from the opposite side of the camera. This is called Backlighting. Then we can see this soft, filling light on their faces. It’s probably the reflection of the backlight bouncing off a reflective surface.
I’m not 100% sure, but I think there is another source from above to supplement the fill light; a kinoFlo dimmed a bit, in my opinion. Now let’s focus our attention on the background.

As you can see, we have a background intelligently lit by a more or less soft source. Hard to believe that it all comes from the mole beam used to light the two actors from behind. There are undoubtedly other additional sources to light the background. It could be something else, but in my opinion, it is KinoFlo. Let’s look at all this on a diagram.

Let’s go straight to our second shot.

SCENE N°2

This scene is from the movie Django Unchained. Although it appears to be less realistic since the scene takes place at night, this scene remains iconic. Again, the same Setup; Strong backlight on the actor, and a bounce board. This strong backlight gives an outline to the actor, separating it from the background.

But as you can see For the fill light, the light illuminating his face is much more warm. This is done on purpose to mimic the lights coming from the house that our actor is about to visit. To have this color effect you can use a gold sliver reflector or simply the gold side of your reflector and set your source to 2700K to have a warm temperature, otherwise put a CTO gel on it. I almost forgot, here, pointed in blue, there must be another source lighting the actor from above to complete the fill light.

The background is perfectly lit by large and wide sources. Big budget. Let’s see it all on a diagram.

For your information, as always I use the Ci-Lovers lighting diagram toolkit to create my Lighting Plan. Check it out, it’s a very useful tool.

Moving on to the next shot

SCENE N°03

This shot is from the movie Venom: Let there be Carnage and it is still Robert Richardson the cinematographer.

As shown in the illustration, there is a window at the top left of the screen that is probably lit from the outside. And it is this window that motivates the background that illuminates the actor’s back and hair. Remember what I told you in the second episode of the lighting breakdown? Backlight should always have a motivation to make it look natural. Here is the motivation window.

For the fill light, we can already see the color contrast, that is; the backlight is much warmer while the source we serve as fill light is much bluer. It simply means that there is another source under our actor that acts as a fill light. This is done on purpose because you know, lighting an actor from below makes him look mysterious. To give chills to the viewer. Let’s look at all this on a diagram.

From what we could analyze, the backlighting technique can make a difference in your shots. However, don’t overdo it. Always find balance in each of your takes. Next time we will focus much more on Visual Storytelling to be there. Subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss the episodes or follow me on social networks.

Next time we will focus much more on Visual Storytelling to be there. Subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss the next episodes or follow me on social networks.

See you soon for a new episode. Tchaouuuu!!!!