Composition and Lighting
Composition and Lighting is where technical craft meets meaning. The exam wants named shot sizes and angles, the continuity rules that keep an edit legible, and three-point lighting with controllable ratios rather than vague advice to "make it look good".
Framing and composition
- Rule of thirds places subjects on intersecting third lines; keep appropriate headroom and lead room (looking space).
- Shot sizes: extreme wide, wide, medium, medium close-up, close-up, extreme close-up. Angle choices: eye-level, high, low, Dutch tilt.
- Depth cues: overlapping, relative size, linear perspective, selective focus, foreground framing.
- Continuity: the 180-degree rule keeps screen direction consistent; the 30-degree rule prevents jump cuts between angles; shot-reverse-shot and eyeline match sustain conversations.
Lighting
- Three-point lighting: key (main modelling), fill (lifts shadows), back or rim (separates subject from background).
- Key-to-fill ratio expresses contrast in stops: 2:1 is one stop, 4:1 is two stops, 8:1 is three stops. High-key is bright and flat, low-key is dark and dramatic.
- Hard light comes from a small source relative to the subject and gives sharp shadows; soft light comes from a large or diffused source.
- Intensity follows the inverse square law: doubling distance quarters the light (2 stops darker).
- Colour temperature must match across sources, or correct with gels; measure with lux or foot-candles (1 foot-candle ≈ 10.76 lux) and judge colour rendering.
Worked example. Key gives 800 lux and fill gives 200 lux on the shadow side. Ratio = 800/200 = 4:1. In stops: log2(4) = 2 stops. That is a crisp but still detailed portrait look.
Traps
- Crossing the 180-degree line mid-scene and reversing screen direction.
- Adding fill until the lighting ratio is 1:1 and the face looks flat.
- Placing a diffusion frame too far from the lamp so it stops softening.
- Forgetting inverse square when moving a lamp from 2 m to 4 m.