What are the different types of lighting equipment used in video production?

For me, it is the cinematic foundation of a scene. You’ll use it to craft your contrast ratios, motivate other sources with or against, ensure proper skin tones, and set a color in either temperature or theatrical. Start by reading the script and determining the basics. For example, Day/Night and INT/EXT but also look at the mood of the scene, characters wants, their emotions, and what the action is. That will begin helping you determine what kind of light you’ll need and what style of lighting you want to start as a base with. If it’s a highly emotional scene at night, consider using a higher contrast ratio, backlighting, and warmer or cooler temperatures for you fill lights motivated by practical lights and actors movement the scene.

In video production, lighting equipment varies based on requirements. Continuous lights like LED panels provide consistent illumination, while tungsten lights offer warm tones. HMI lights provide daylight balance and are efficient outdoors. Fluorescent lights offer soft, even lighting. Additionally, modifiers like softboxes, reflectors, and diffusers shape and control light. Each serves a specific purpose, contributing to setting the scene and enhancing visual aesthetics in filmmaking.

The fill is what you use to control the contrast ratios. Let’s take about this from the perspective of a subject's face. The key light not only sets the direction of the shadows, but the base level for your contrast ratio. You’ll adjust the level of the fill light to hone in on the desired ratio. Just keep in mind the quality, hard or soft, makes a difference texturally on your subject. Some cinematographers prefer larger soft sources which is very nice for an actors skin and some prefer pinpoint accuracy arranged around the actors marks as to not overly effect the background contrast ratios.

Backlighting is where you can really show artistic flair as a cinematographer. Famously Robert Richardson uses strong backlighting well over two stops brighter than the key light. Look at films like The Hateful 8 (2015) as a reference. Contrast that with Greig Fraser on The Batman (2022) which uses a less intense approach augmented with framing and art direction. Just keep in mind the only job of the backlight is to help separate your subject from the background.

When shooting EXT. be careful not to walk yourself into a corner when using the sun as your key. I’ve always found it’s better to shoot with the sun backlighting out subject (it’s still our key) and use other methods to wrap and shape our light. Neg on the ground or to one side. And because your key is “backlit”, you can wrap for fill etc. What I mean by backlighting your subject with the key is change the order of how you stack everything, what way you don’t create a flat image, or sun sandwich. Camera > talent > sun

Everything revolves around story and adding to the “performance” of the actor. (I use quotes because I think that products have a kind of performance too, at least from how I’d light or film them.) it should never take away. Cinematography is about adding to the experience and helping, not being the star.