Reading Summaries

Sight, Sound and Motion - Herbert Zettl

Chapter 2

Light allows us to identify spacing and time. It has the power to change the way we interpret different objects, people, places and scenes. Not only in real life but also in video and film – lighting is used not only to make things visible but to also set an atmosphere and emotion/mood to the scene. Not only is the lighting important but a lot of the time shadows formed create a bigger effect and feeling to the film.

Lighting Purposes

‘Lighting is the deliberate control of light and shadow’ -> page 20.
Lighting allows us to identify objects and the texture of them.

Nature of Shadows

A lot of the times, we take shadows for granted. Only sometimes do we actually take time to notice shadows casted. When shadows are created, you can make an object look three dimensional rather than flat and two-dimensional.

Attached and Cast Shadows

Attach shadows is inevitably fixed to its object. It is impossible to remove if kept under the same lighting conditions.

Cast shadows always fall on something. It not necessarily attached to the object.

Fall Off

==> The brightness contrast between light and shadow sides of an object.
==> The rate of change from light to shadow.

Contrast is measured by ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ falloff.
Change being measured in the same.




Chapter 3 -> Structuring the first aesthetic field -> lighting

The standard photographic lighting technique is knows as the ‘photographic principle’ or ‘triangle lighting’.
==> This consists of a key light, fill light and back light = usually placed in the shape of a triangle.







The two principle lighting techniques are chiaroscuro and flat.
Chiaroscuro -> emphasises contrast light and shadow areas with fast falloff.
Flat -> slow falloff and highly transparent shadows.

Chiaroscuro -> organic, directional, spatial, compositional, thematic and emotional, realistic looking, leads eyes to specific areas of picture, emphasise theme of scene and emphasise the emotion and mood.

Flat -> provide optimal visibility but also can emphasise the emotion and theme of the scene.

Chiaroscuro is broken down into rembrandt and cameo.

Rembrandt -> selectivity and fairy fast falloff.

Cameo ->only illuminates the subject with the background remaining unlit.

Flat -> highly diffused with extremely slow falloff. High – key lighting implying high energy and cleanliness.


Chapter 4 - The Extended First Field : colour

Colour

Colours are created by waves from the visible spectrum. Objects do not process colour - they just reflect back coloured light frequencies they are unable to absorb. 

Colour can make an object/scene or almost anything look different. It brings excitement and joy to everything around us. Our daily lives are influenced by colours. We make judgements on colour. 

Colours do not always remain the same under different conditions. 

Hue - describes the colour itself. Hue helps you classify colours. 
Hue circle - arranges the major hues (red,green,blue) in a circle and fills in everything in between with how the colours change from one to the other. 
High/low saturation- saturation describes the richness of the colour - the strength and purity of the colour. 

Desaturation - when a colour desaturates with white

Brightness - indicates how light or dark a colour appears. 

Additive and subtractive primary colours

Additives - red green blue

Subtractive - cyan magenta yellow

Colours and feelings

Colours can influence our emotions. Red is usually classed as warm and blue as cold which is why all the colours along the red end of the spectrum are classed as warm and blue end as cold.  
Highly saturated warm colours can make us feel more uplifted and less saturated cold colours can dampen our mood. Colour has the power to portray our emotions.