2 Essential Lighting Techniques

[@khirobenglia7764]

man you are helping all filmmakers around the world and for that i thank you

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Very happy you're finding my videos so helpful and thank you so much for the kind words - I appreciate it! :)

[@bekzela]

@@RobEllisCinematographer the goat

[@elineev]

You are such a good educator. Very insightful and explained perfectly. Nothing too much or too little. Clean and clear. Thanks so much

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I do worry I over or under-explain things quite a bit when writing these, so it's great to hear I'm striking the right balance - I appreciate your kind words, thank you so much! :)

[@testowykana1763]

I think this is my favourite channel when it comes to lighting. I like how quick yet informative these lighting tips are.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Very happy to hear it and I’m glad my videos are proving useful in some way - thank you so much! Great to hear the pacing is working too :)

[@eyosiasg.8557]

Rob, I have been watching you for 2 years now. I think you have the best lighting tutorial videos I have ever seen-such attention to detail and logical progression. Thank you for helping us improve!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Too kind! I put a lot into these and I'm glad that's reflecting in their usefulness. I appreciate your kind words massively and I'm happy you've continued to find my videos helpful over the last 2 years - thank you so much! :)

[@carlobortoli]

The man who never smiles, but always teaches us a lot.

[@iñagutierrezfilms]

Best lighting channel on YT. Thanks

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Wow, thank you! I appreciate that, glad you’re enjoying/finding my videos helpful!! :)

[@johnstewart3391]

Rob, I used to work in feature, local, national, and indie productions, as a gaffer, Dp, an electrician. On smaller shoots I would work as G&E. I have day played on several feature films such as " Need For Speed, October Sky, just to name a couple. " Your lighting skills are spot on for any production. I hope you are getting to use these amazing skills in production. You are very talented, and really understand how lighting, or the lack of light works. Your knowledge of lighting is remarkable. I always look forward to your videos. Thank you for sharing!

[@cheesi4632]

i was blown away when you revealed that table scene was all natural light. i didnt expect that at all! incredible video as always.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Glad you appreciated that part, it was a fun shot to do! Thank you so much! :)

[@BehindThePhoto]

Your videos are simply some of the best educational filmmaking tutorials on the web. Sincere thanks 📽🙌🙏

[@FenzirL]

The amount of effort put into such tutorials is massive! And the fact that we are able to watch it for free is mindblowing! I have been able to learn alot of filmmaking and lighting techniques from you! Big thanks from the bottom of my heart! 🙌🏻

[@cfsactor]

Beyond techniques and practices, you are incredibly effective at showing us what we should be looking for in our frame when shaping the light.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Super happy to hear that! Sometimes the small things can be let off without a super meaningful impact on the image, like the light hitting the side of the sofa here - it does look more realistic blocked off and helps with the lamp light direction, but it may not even be noticed by the general audience. So it’s always a case of balancing that finesse with how important it is overall/how much time you have to shoot, etc! But developing an eye to look for these bits is always going to be extremely useful if you want maximum control!

[@DulinaChandrasiri]

Who needs film school when you have Rob Ellis! Thankyou 🙏

[@jochenretter]

Now I have an idea how much work one single shot can be for a cinematographer, impressive!

[@ruancarlodop]

Cant thank you enough. Thanks for being my inspiration for the past years.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Very happy my videos have been inspiring you over the past few years - thank you for continuing to watch them and support me :)

[@71-Films]

You are a true legend Rob! Every time you drop a video I look forward to watching it and I am never disappointed!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Too kind - I hope I can continue to not disappoint! :D Thank you so much!

[@TheTjark57]

best light tutorials out there thx.

[@bulletintubeofficial]

You are Amazing ♥Don't stop making videos , it's a Big help for Filmmaker around the World ! I have a Request can you please make Something in Zero budget as most beginners don't have budget so we need a Zero budget Lighting Tutorial Pls.....

[@jayanthonyolson]

Your breakdowns are so good. Thank you for making these!

[@germanrobledo]

I'm learning a lot with your videos! 🤓 Cheers from Spain!

[@merakimade7440]

I was just watching one of your tutorials and "BOOM" here you are again!!! LFG!!!! 💯😀

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha excellent timing on my part! :)

[@maturename9817]

probably your best video yet

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! Appreciate it!

[@Visethelegend]

I swear this and Wandering Dp are the best cinematography channels out there and I’ve watched a lot of content.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I love his videos! Appreciate your kind words and your support - thank you! :)

[@KaanSenel]

Always super excited when you post a new video. You're the goat of cinematography - lighting on KZbin my man, thanks for these!

[@AbdullaevSalih]

Пожалуй, у вас лучшие уроки по освещению. Вы молодец.

[@verebellus]

love your use of different cameras and older ones specifically, cant even tell that you swap vetween them

[@bensaben3681]

Great job, I feel like each of your videos is a master class on its own, keep up the great work, you’ve just earned your self a raving fan! Cheers!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I really appreciate it, thank you so much!! :)

[@Bradleersmith]

I am a cinematographer from Jamaica and I am learning so much from your videos tbh ❤

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Always happy to hear someone so far from me geographically is finding my videos useful, makes doing them worth it - thank you so much! ❤️

[@MylezNevison]

My liege has done it once more🔥🙌🏾 . Brilliant presentation, m'lord!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Too kind, always appreciate your kind and regal words haha - thank you so much!

[@ruizchen181]

Rob , thanks so much for these tutorial , I just keep learning lighting from the best teacher on YT !

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Too kind and so glad you’re finding my videos so useful! Thank you so much! :)

[@DoublewideCinema]

Awesome lesson, thanks

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Happy you enjoyed it/found it useful - thank you so much!

[@Dieje]

Next LEVEL

[@alexandernilssonmusic]

Thank you for a valuable lesson!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Absolutely - happy you found this one valuable! :)

[@scott-trout]

This was very helpful. Thanks. I always enjoy when a new video of yours comes out. I recently made a quick short and found myself recalling and utilizing tips and tricks from your videos.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

That's awesome! Glad my videos have been helpful to such an extent, I hope they can continue to help also! Thank you so much!

[@bastian8597]

Thank you so much for the advice Rob!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Glad you found it helpful in some way! :)

[@pierrezapata90]

Been a subscriber of your channel since the 30K days or so. Always making great content! Keep it up. Gives me motivation to make content for my own channel too

[@FLVXVLF]

Woah, the OG Black Magic Cinema Toaster! Still holds up!! 😂

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

@@FLVXVLF I love that toaster! 🤣

[@bboyakwel]

So amazing and well explained thank you for all that free content 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 so so so helpfulll

[@biniyamromi5654]

this is so helpful, thank you

[@welchworks]

I friggin' love the dramatic sound design in these videos. Whoosh! Whooooosh! You can FEEL the effect of that negative fill! 🥲 🤣

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Hahaha I love that you love the whooshes! 🤣 Those little sounds take me ages to finesse in the edit so I'm happy to see them recognised!

[@theindiefilmdude]

PERFECTION! Loved seeing the Neewer Scrim Kit put into action! I use the Impact version. Works great😎

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! Yeah they are useful little kits, always nice to have them to hand!

[@theindiefilmdude]

@@RobEllisCinematographer Absolutely! Saves you some 💸💰 as well.

[@DushtYantr]

You're THE best.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I appreciate it massively, I hope the videos are proving useful in some way! Thank you so much!

[@verebellus]

learned so much from your videos

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Happy to hear it, I hope I can continue to help with future videos! :)

[@aaronthecameraguy]

As always, amazing Rob.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Aaron, glad you enjoyed this one! :)

[@akashissfun]

This video should be shown in film schools. I can’t believe it is free.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Happy you found it so informative - thank you!

[@nordfilmcompany]

133k now, here we go. Well done mate👊😎

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Woo! Thank you so much, I appreciate it! :) KZbin is a tough game with it’s algorithm but happy I’ve got this far with it - and it’s thanks to you and the other viewers that I have, so thank you, it means a lot ☺️

[@nordfilmcompany]

@@RobEllisCinematographerYou are more than welcome mate! We do the same with photography on my partners account, so I have an idea of how much effort that goes into it, so thank you very much for sharing it. Well done👍

[@sudarshankar9094]

The goat 🐐

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Appreciate it, thank you so much!!

[@flochfitness]

Excellent

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you Sean! :)

[@josephpaahana]

Marvelous

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much, glad you enjoyed it!

[@greglory]

Not the OG BMCC 2.5K!!! Love it!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Absolutely, still makes a great image!!

[@greglory]

@@RobEllisCinematographer that camera was another 5d Mark II moment, you knew things were just going to get better and better for us film guys. You make that image sing my brother👏🏽

[@vramit24]

Thank u for supporting us without saying do subscribe and like share❤

[@AllThingsFilm1]

Fantastic video. I recently picked up the LUMIX S5ii and I'm shooting a lot of sample footage to share. This is perfectly timed to inspire some of my samples. You have an amazing sense of timing , it seems. 😀 Cheers!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I've not yet shot with the S5ii, but I love the original S5 - I hope you're enjoying the camera! Haha, yes I always seem to time them well don't I - glad I am though, hope I continue to! :) Always appreciate your kind words, thank you so much!

[@artyomgordeychik5274]

Great job👏🏻🙌🏻

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much, happy you enjoyed it!

[@Rafael-r2e]

THANK YOU

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you for watching!! :)

[@shueibdahir]

I had no idea the old BMCC 2.5K could look this amazing. That's crazy

[@gaarax0x]

Fairchild sensor looks pleasing, almost ARRI like

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

It's produces a great image! The original Blackmagic trio of 2.5k, Pocket and Micro all have lovely images to work with, I believe they share a sensor!

[@SoloTraceur]

@@gaarax0x yep it's a reason that ON Semiconductor (who manufactures the ALEV 3 sensor in the Arri cameras) bought out Fairchild for $2.4 billion only four years after the BMCC 2.5k came out.

[@SoloTraceur]

still using mine for films

[@davadh]

Still doing God's work, my friend. Thank you for teaching us!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you for watching! Beyond happy you’re finding my videos useful in some way - appreciate it massively! :)

[@elgh0sh]

DUDE! THANKS❤

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you for watching, hope it was helpful in some way!! ❤️

[@Bo_Hazem]

Your videos are addictive! They should be illegal.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha thank you Bo! Always appreciate it :)

[@RenukaDeviPictures]

Awesome

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Glad you enjoyed it! :)

[@JourneytoMorocco]

thank you , very important informations

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Hope you found it useful! :)

[@CormacTully]

7:45 That's probably a better solution. I was using gaff tape lol

[@suryasingh6983]

​ @RobEllisCinematographer Lovely video! Could you do a video on shooting on log and lighting for it? As with some you need to overexpose by 2 stops etc .and how one can manage these ratios. Still a beginner, sorry if what I am saying is not a huge problem to solve.

[@harikrishdop]

Lovely, Need some techniques on lighting a scene in like a wide ,closeup and some moving shots in interiors

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Something like this has been on the cards for some time, it will arrive at some point! :)

[@bslbsl5857]

With low equipment now i can achieve cinema grade. Thanks for your free knowledgeable videos

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

I hope the video has helped with your work - thank you so much!

[@imagineeverythingvegan]

Great!

[@mediabox4579]

love it

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Happy to hear it - thank you! :)

[@arashgoodarzi3152]

Dear Rob , are there any paid courses or anything like that from you that we can purchase and use an A to Z tutorial ? anything that teaches lighting completely ? BTW this one was amazing , as a creator I underatand how much time and effort you put in this❤

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

The “Recreating Daylight” course on Moment goes from the very basics of daylight to recreating it entirely, but besides that, it’s just the “Lighting with Color” mini course that’s available right now! Thank you so much for your kind words, it does take a while to put these together and I appreciate anyone who understands how tough that process can be - thank you! ❤️

[@Ptpop]

How much money would I have to invest in equipment to shoot this scene?

[@brandserie9824]

Love you. Do you color grade the scene afterwards

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Yes! Everything is color graded :)

[@gaarax0x]

Rob Ellis for President 2025 🎉

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Haha I'd be a terrible president but I appreciate the sentiment - always appreciate it! Thank you! :)

[@palmaproductions4237]

Do you or can you provide links to purchasing these tools and equipment?

[@luckyboy5nu]

Wow this is such good advice, i'm sorry if this is a big ask but where do you even learn these fundamentals? it's nice to have a video like this that summarizes everything in a neat 9 minute entertaining video but i'm just really curious how i could learn how to apply these principles myself, for context i'm a Game Developer so i usually use these Lighting Techniques in 3D Environments, Where did you start learning the fundamentals?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Videos like this help to start with and even after you understand the fundamentals, because you can always pick up new stuff - but how you really learn, in my opinion (and this applies to most things!) is to just start making stuff. You’ll fail at achieving what you want to achieve, try to figure out why it’s not working, analyse why this might be (by getting advice from things like tutorials and also thinking about it yourself) and then try again. The more you do this the more you’ll start being able to put together what you know and even find your own way of doing things too. This is a constant process and it’s how I learn anything!

[@bearland7541]

what if relocate the plane led and only use that light to lit the sense, is it gonna achieve the same effect?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

You would be changing the pattern of light on the face - by having the panel at such a sharp angle to the face, creating the lightest point on the face, and the second, larger source (the 4 x 4) lighting more of the front of the face at a slightly dimmer light level, you have the graduated wrap of light around it. Moving the LED and only using it would look a lot flatter - which could be ideal if that's the look you're after. But it would look different to this!

[@bearland7541]

@@RobEllisCinematographer thanks for that 👍

[@WhySteve]

More like "positive fill" with the beneficial results if you ask me 🤣

[@manavsnapp]

Value!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Happy to hear it! :)

[@akulanyy]

God blesse you 🙏

[@ТристоферКёрк]

Gem.

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much!

[@Asturev]

guys Ive invested a lot of hardearned money on videography gear and camera and now ive seen so many youtube videos of iphones vs highend cameras. I feel frustrated and ridiculous that I have been called out by clients who tell me that I should change to iphone because its better and those who stopped calling for videoservices and instead are recording themselves on iphone even when it looks awful even on socialmedia. Im about to do a 10k investment in a ful-frame camera and lenses ( because of lowlight ) but im really thinking in weather this is my call to stop investing on this bc ill be actually losing it all. Please help me decide what should I do. I feel ridiculous going around with a big bulky camera that ive invested so much of my needed money. should I quit or should I continue investing money?

[@kingmuhu]

Rob, do you have a vimeo account with shorts?

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Unfortunately, I do not!

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Although, you reminded me of an older Vimeo account I had for camera tests, I just did some digging and found it - vimeo.com/robellis - these are all pretty old and not really up to par with what I feel I could produce today, but they're all fun little edits. Probably more interesting for me to look back on than for anyone else to see though haha!

[@vijeeshkumar3353]

0.10 which bgm is that

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

This is "It's a Miracle" by Luke Wieting - from Audiosocket!

[@connorquigvids]

you could've actually just rotated the mattebox if you wanted to save time

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

This is true, but I really wanted to demo the finger flag for something - and I liked the DIY-ness of it!

[@connorquigvids]

@@RobEllisCinematographer hahhahah fair enough

[@eliaslimapro]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thanks so much Elias!! Always appreciated! :)

[@PeterDiBussolo]

This shouldn’t be free

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

But it is! Woo! Haha, I hope you enjoyed/found it useful in some way - thank you! :)

[@Direct19681]

Good stuff Rob

[@RobEllisCinematographer]

Thank you so much! :)