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Brand New Core Lighting Curriculum

Announcing all new lighting lessons, which visually guide students through lighting tools and techniques. We partnered with LEDGO to produce an intensive, on-set series that demonstrates key lighting tools in visually-engaging video tutorials.

Lesson 1

Techniques to Reduce Light

The all-new video tutorial methodically guides students through the tools and techniques used to reduce light on your subject. This lesson covers:

  • Working with wire scrims
  • Working with dimmers
  • Remotable Wi-Fi dimming options
  • Solids, cutters, and floppies
  • Creating negative fill
  • Lensers and Courtesies
  • Protecting fabric scrims
  • Scrim and C-stand rigging safety
  • Neutral Density gel on windows

Lesson 2

How to Create Soft Light

In this in-depth tutorial, students learn how to create soft light using a variety of techniques:
 
  • How to control the size of a light source
  • Using Fresnels to craft the spread of light
  • Controlling wraparound
  • Working with diffusion on barn doors
  • Working with soft boxes and Chimeras
  • Skinning 4x4s
  • Working with 6×6 overheads
  • How to control spill from soft light sources
  • Real world demo

Lesson 3

Techniques to Shape Light

Creating light is easy – the art of lighting is in how the light is shaped. In this lesson, students experience industry-standard techniques to shape light to create the desired look. 
 
  • The power of shadows
  • Creating internal vs external shadows
  • Benefits and drawbacks of bard doors
  • Working with black wrap
  • Egg crates and louvres
  • Flags and solids
  • Creating gobos
  • Working with a cucoloris and brancholoris
  • Building duvatyne skirts

Lesson 4

Working with Reflected and Bounced Light

While the previous lessons teach direct lighting techniques, this lesson shows students techniques on how to work with bounced and reflected light.
 
  • Factoring in the Inverse Square Law
  • Foam core and bead board
  • Collapsable reflectors
  • Shiny boards
  • Physics of reflected light
  • Bouncing light off ceiling
  • Working with overheads
  • Shaping hair lights
  • Working with mirrors

Lesson 5

Color Temperatures and White Balance

The all-new video tutorial introduced students to color theory, how color is rendered on screen, and how common light sources appear on screen. This lesson covers:
 
  • Defining how a camrea sees white
  • The Kelvin scale – origins and how it’s used
  • How the imaging sensor sees color
  • Measuring light sources with a spectrometer
  • White balancing techniques
  • How to cheat white balance

Lesson 6

Working with Mixed Light

From gelling lights to working with variable-color temperature LEDs, students learn how to color balance lights on set to achieve the desired look. This lesson covers:
 
  • How to use gels to color correct light sources
  • Light loss calculations through gels
  • Working with LEDs
  • Working with sunlight
  • How to gel windows

Lesson 7

How to Light and Shoot Green Screen

The all-new video tutorial methodically guides students through the process of lighting, exposing, and recording green screen footage.  This lesson covers:
 
  • When to choose green or blue
  • Differences between chromakey and digital blue/green
  • Shooting in a studio vs on location
  • How to light green screen (space lights, cyc lights, LED, Kino-Flo, book lights)
  • How the bit depth and compression affect a key
  • Capturing in LOG vs REC709
  • How to expose actors
  • How to reduce spill and create a cleaner key

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