An Easy Way to Make Your Lighting More "Cinematic" - Motivated Lighting

[@lenavoyles526]

“The reality of the image” - such a cool, evocative phrase.

[@heyimceli7999]

I will never stop thanking you for every single thing I learn with each of your videos. You're an absolute legend!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! That means a lot and I'm super happy to hear you're learning from my videos, I really appreciate it! :)

[@DANAMIONLINE]

👏🏾

[@MiguelQuilesJr]

Fantastic video! Definitely using this to level up my video lighting.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks Miguel, glad it was helpful!! :)

[@lonewalkerproductions]

By far my favourite channel on lighting. You're just brilliant mate, thank you!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks Charles, I appreciate it and I'm happy to hear it! Thank you for your kind words! :)

[@Niklondon]

Man the amount of times I’ve struggled filming, your vids have been the ticket. Superb content bud thanks 🙏🏽

[@wono5688]

Thank you I am learning hard in Korea after watching your videos Thank you very much

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Happy to hear it! :) Thank you!

[@MichalKuzminski]

Simply thank you Rob.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

And thank you for watching! I appreciate it :)

[@uniworkhorse]

This was the best ad for apurture I've seen, I love practical demos ...consequently now I believe I can never be a filmmaker without their products LOL

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! Haha not at all - you can do this with any bulbs really, you just won't have the flexibility of an RGB one. Nanlite make them too :)

[@AllThingsFilm1]

Another excellent walkthrough of lighting techniques. As an owner of your mini lighting course, I can say without hesitation that it is a must have for those wanting to improve their lighting skills. I'm always turning to it for reference and inspiration.

[@DGVFX]

Fantastic video as always! That part at 0:19 is really helpful so you can see the original image without the grading.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! Just a cheeky way to get the affiliate link in - but I'm glad it's also helpful to see the original image! :)

[@johnstewart3391]

What amazing talent you have. Thank you for sharing!

[@karliemorris7318]

THANK YOU FOR THESE ROB

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Karlie!

[@stela_camera_girl]

I've replicated two scenes from your previous video and it turn out pretty well. Thank you :)

[@nes.torfernandez]

I was just watching the lighting tutorial but somehow this guy managed to sold me the aperture light kit 🤣

[@rathuone3001]

Thanks a lot brother 💐🙏, God Bless!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Absolutely - hope you enjoyed the video! Thank you so much!! :)

[@sightsoundandsoul1449]

The setting where you stand at the table by the light almost reminds me of resident evil 7 at the dining table XD

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha you're right, I should have cosplayed Jack Baker for the shot! 🤣

[@KantSleep]

Tomorrow, I'm going to go get a bunch of white sheets and some clamps, then I'm going to do some experiments. Still not sure if my issue is only lighting, but I'm on my way to finding out. thanks again. Great stuff

[@kataichanda]

Rob Ellis, you are a genius. I love your videos.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Aah I wouldn't go that far haha! But I appreciate your kind words and I'm happy to know you're enjoying my videos. Thank you so much!! :)

[@imDonDiestro]

These lighting tutorials are so helpful. Could you do one on camera composition/framing if you haven’t already?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Happy to hear that! That one has been on the list for a good while - so it will be made at some point, yes! :)

[@aimaneldani2849]

Keep going, you are a legend

[@Outforthesushi]

Bro... you are a fkn master at lighting

[@flochfitness]

Yes!!!!! Let’s go!!!!!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Woo! Hope you enjoy the video Sean!

[@rodrigo8269]

great video Rob!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks Rodrigo! :)

[@JoshReels]

Always the best. Thank you!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Joshua! Hope you enjoyed the video! :)

[@davidmultimedia2024]

Excellent video!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks so much David, happy you enjoyed it!

[@kit888]

Haven’t tried it myself but some people say they tape a mini LED brick light to the inside of the lampshade. Gives you brightness and color temperature control too.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Absolutely, great way to do it! I think now with these newer specialised bulbs, it's a lot easier and a generally smoother process to achieve brightness and temp change though - they're pretty great!

[@mbpaiva]

I've already said that but man, your videos are amazing! The epic soundtracks making the background for all the tips and insights you give make these videos so inspiring! Thank you again, looking foward to the next ones!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much Matheus! I've been experimenting more with piano and "cinematic" pieces a little more than when I used to use ambient styled stuff all the time, it's been satisfying to put together haha! Always appreciated - thank you! :)

[@emotionseyefilms9361]

Excellent video!! 👏

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much!

[@MayurMahapatraFilms]

Excellent.. here is my question. You first set the camera WB to the cooler light. So when the subject enters, do we need to change anything with the WB or just let it be. I hope I made my question clear. 🙏

[@Bo_Hazem]

Continue like that and we'll lose you forever... in a good way. Since seeing your videos I started seeing lots of flaws in many Netflix movies/series! I think you can help on a high budget project. Wish you all possible success.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks Bo, your kind words are always appreciated! :) haha you do start noticing little flaws when you start learning about this stuff! I find much of the time when you notice mistakes in a professional production it's more about how involved you are in the film/show itself - you're less likely to notice flaws and mistakes if you're more invested in the story and world! That's how it is for me anyway 😁 good to hear from you! :)

[@Bo_Hazem]

@@RobEllisCinematographer Many flaws in The 100 series for example, also one dead pixel or two in one season of Peaky Blinders and some scenes when watching in 4K. Well, to me at least, Peaky Blinders was 99% flawless.

[@109dreams7]

hermano eres el mejor, impresionante....

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

muchas gracias, lo aprecio! :)

[@edulozano_dop]

Legend!

[@nanomartellvideo3299]

Thank you for your work and explanations Rob. Could you tell me what camera configuration (Lens, aperture, ISO level) do you usually work with your tutorials?

[@isaiahgalante]

I own 2 of those aputure lights. They’re so freaking bad ass.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

They are extremely useful right?!

[@scott_the_dreamer]

GREAT VID

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Scott!! :)

[@JE2PO]

So good as always, thank you for another great video. Could you do a video on your grading using dehancer ?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Paul! The Dehancer video I released a while back essentially was me grading on Dehancer haha although maybe a bit long winded!

[@MadChookFilms]

Hey! Another amazing video thank you. But one question: How are your images so clean even though there is very little light in the scene, especially earlier on in the video?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! I either use Resolve's temporal noise reduction in post or I expose to the right using a lower ISO (kzbin.info/www/bejne/d4eqqWCCeNuGfKc)

[@MadChookFilms]

@@RobEllisCinematographer Thank you so much for replying, I really appreciate it :))

[@AndrewKuttor]

I am a new watcher dude, you instantly become one of my favorites. I love lights... I own a couple Aputure 100ds, a couple Aputure 60xs, some PavTubes 4ft's, but I'm not the best at lighting. You sir, have taught me a lot. Thank you That said, I want to be able to simulate a sun, like you do in a lot of videos. What fresnel and light would you recommend that is cost effective, but not cheap?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Wow thank you Andrew!! Super happy to hear you've learnt a lot from my videos, makes what I'm doing worth it! :) At the moment I think the best cost effective, but not overly cheap way to do this is with the 600 - 800 watt range of lights from Aputure, Godox and Nanlite. The Aputure 600X Pro and the Nanlite Forza 720B are similarly priced and are both bi-color units, so you've got the flexibility for changing the colour temperature for more of a morning/evening sun, a midday cooler sun and anything in between, to your taste or what you need to shoot. The Nanlite 720B is more powerful, so it is definitely more cost effective since they're the same price! You've also got the Godox M600D which we looked at in my last video, which is the cheapest of the three and isn't bi-color, only daylight. But if you use gels you can save a little money and get a similar power output! Each of these has their own compatible fresnel too. I've actually got a video looking at the Forza 720B coming out soon too. I hope this helps in some way! :)

[@ok-fd7gq]

Very informative. Thank you! Question: do you use any special angled hdmi adapters on external monitor? I hate sticking out cables from monitor. Yours look neat

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! Right angle adapters and specific cable sizes - when I built the rig for the Pocket 6k I roughly measured out how long each HDMI cable would need to be, with a tiny bit of headroom. Although I tend to misplace my cables when I de-rig so it doesn't always look that neat haha!

[@parthbhanushali9722]

you are the real one *fist bumps*

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much Parth!! :)

[@CarterCreativeContent]

Hi Rob, love your channel 👍 If you didn't have any, and were going to buy one light to start a video business, which would you get??

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you! A single source COB light - so like a Godox VL150/200 for example. A decent amount of light output and you get a lot of flexibility from a point source light, lots of ways to learn how to use it!

[@CarterCreativeContent]

@@RobEllisCinematographer Thanks, keep up the good work 😋

[@NicCorbett]

Will any bleached muslin material from amazon work?

[@MarcCotterill]

Another really great video, thank you Rob. Can I ask perhaps a simple question? I always assumed that the in-camera white balance setting would usually be set to achieve accurate skin tones, however in this video you showed how it was used initially to cool the exterior lights to mimic the look of nighttime. How do you balance that aspect whilst maintaining accurate skin tones? Or have I missed the point here, and the light and colour temperature set from the practical is what then balanced the look to achieve the correct colour/skin tones?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Marc! So if you've lit the shot how you intend to light it, then generally there's no need to adjust skin tones - it's more about the intention of how you want your image to look, why you want it to look that way and in this case, backing it up with the motivated light. We set our lamp and key to a super warm 2000K so it still appears as a naturally warm indoor lamp light with our cooler white balance - so we end up with an image in which the skin tones look natural because we've presented that warm tone as lamp light - so there's no need to try and find a "correct" skin tone, the lighting itself is explaining the warmth on the face. If we wanted the whole shot to be lit by moonlight, for example if you take a look at the shot when we just introduce the fill - you'll see that the blue tones work for the skin, as we've presented the image as being lit by moonlight. If we go and try balance for some sort of correct skin tone in that situation, we'd just be warming the image up and removing the moonlight feel, or we'd be making our face warm and keeping the rest blue, which would look very odd haha! Skin tone correction is best used when something is initially wrong with the image, like there was a reflection from something green catching the skin, or there are multiple sources mixed together and the skin looks off, or you'e pushing for a really stylistic grade (which doesn't usually look too good unless there's a reason for it, in my opinion)! To sum up this extremely long response - light with intention and you will barely need to correct skin tones! I hope this helps in some way! :) it might be nice to make a video on this at some point!

[@MarcCotterill]

@@RobEllisCinematographer thank you for this explanation, makes total sense. Really appreciate your help and videos!

[@SianCKB]

I'm having trouble with the white balance and giving that film look. I set my white balance correctly but when I try to give like let's say a joker look (green tones) even the whites go green.. is this normal? how can I fix this

[@AndroidTech]

Great video!! were the video samples shot in flat or natural?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

This was all shot on the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6k Pro in Log and then graded :)

[@AndroidTech]

@@RobEllisCinematographer awesome! Keep it up bro you're so underated on KZbin!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

@@AndroidTech thank you so much! 😄

[@lfcruzsierra]

Do you feel like you have to justify light motivation in every scene? Thanks for the video.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

You don't have to do anything, that's the beauty of creativity and finding ways of doing things that are suitable for the work you're creating - but it helps to understand these basic techniques so you can utilize them when you feel like they're needed. For a more direct answer, no, haha- but if your scene feels "lit" and unnatural, and that's not your intention, then you might need a practical to motivate from!

[@a1selecta1]

What was the camera color temperature set to?

[@StringerBell]

Awesome video! What kind of spotlight combination are you using? I was looking at LS 60 and Mini Spotlight combination, but the price is kinda insane.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! This was the Forza 60 and the compatible PJ-FZ60 projection mount.

[@smonomono4194]

Thought this was Austin Butler at first

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I'll take it 🤣

[@KAPALBATTHFILMS]

Bro How much you earn from youtube ?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Not much from KZbin itself! It's the things around it that earn more :)

[@KAPALBATTHFILMS]

@@RobEllisCinematographer i wanna start youtube channel any tips from you ? :)

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

@@KAPALBATTHFILMS I don't really have any tips in particular, I just started doing this because I enjoy it - my income around it became a happy bonus! I personally wouldn't start a KZbin channel purely to make money, because if it doesn't take off you'll end up a little disappointed. Do it because you have something you can offer to others and do it because you enjoy creating and can practise and learn and improve yourself through your work. That's my advice! :)

[@KAPALBATTHFILMS]

@@RobEllisCinematographer thank you buddy :)

[@Sjaubi-qf6wd]

Simple trick that cost $1,000 not practical at all.