Video Lighting Illuminated

Reviewed and recommended texts for your lighting library.

All of these books on lighting for video and film are easilyavailable from any of the large online booksellers.

Over the years, I have received a number of requests asking me torecommend books on TV lighting. While I have always pushed my readersto read as much as they can, I must admit I have been remiss in thelast few years in replenishing my library shelves with up-to-date textson lighting.

I proposed a book review article to my editors, they said yes, and Iimmediately started my search for useful lighting texts. It has been awonderful assignment. I have had many hours of enjoyable reading andhave even learned a few things that I didn't know or didn't remember Iknew.

I've rated these books based on the information in the book, howwell it is written, and how valuable an addition I think it would be toyour library. All of the books are available at any of the large onlinebooksellers.

by Chuck B. Gloman and Tom Letourneau

Gloman and Letourneau have written an excellentintroduction-to-lighting textbook for the novice videomaker. Like manyof the books on lighting, this text devotes many pages to the technicalneeds of the lighting director. In fact, it's not until almost 100pages into this 200-page paperback that the authors actually discusslighting techniques.

This book is very up to date, and includes newer lamps and fixtures.It gives the reader a solid background on the types of lighting unitsavailable, how they work, and how they are used. Anyone who did well inhigh school science will find the technical aspects of this book easyto understand.

There is also specific information on properly setting up videomonitors for good color reproduction and working with waveforms,vectorscopes, and light meters. Although the authors cover indoor andoutdoor lighting and color balancing adequately, I would have likedmore extensive lighting setups with detailed diagrams andphotographs.

There are black-and-white and color photographs in the book, but thequality of the reproductions is only fair, which detracts from desiredlighting effects. There is a nice section on location scouting and amust-do list for every lighting director or videographer.

If you’re into the technical aspects of lighting, this is theperfect text for you. It’s very comprehensive, with a completeglossary of lighting terms and fixtures.

by Gerald Millerson

This heavy text is not for the faint of heart or faint of brain,especially the first few chapters. Millerson jumps right into thetheory of light, the eye, and perception, and he underscores his pointswith scientific theory and formulas. If you're into the technicalaspect of lighting, this is the perfect text for you. An example:“Using trichromatic primaries, i.e. primaries equallyproportioned to add to unity, equal energy white is derived.”

The technically challenged can easily skip the theory sections anddive right into the practical aspects of lighting, which this Britishauthor covers in minute detail. There's a great section on lightingpeople, with dozens of photographs showing what happens as you move alight around to different angles. And Millerson covers a wide spectrumof topics, including locations, atmospheric lighting, lighting sets,and visual effects. The book also has a complete glossary of lightingterms and fixtures. Anyone wanting a comprehensive text on lightingshould add this book to their library.

Film Lighting: Talks with Hollywood's Cinematographers andGaffers

by Kris Malkiewicz, Leonard Konopelski, and Barbara J. Gryboski

While not strictly a video lighting book, this is one of my all-timefavorite books on lighting. It's a must for every-one's lightinglibrary. I've had my copy for years, and it's recommended reading inmany film and video schools.

The author covers a variety of subjects, from working with thedirector, art director, or designers; through measuring light; tolighting a scene in daylight, at night, or on location.

What makes the book so interesting and valuable are interviews withfamous lighting directors, cinematographers, and gaffers. These includesuch names as Haskel Wexler, Vilmos Zsigmond, and Caleb Deschanel. Theinterviews are split into sections to illustrate each of the lightingpoints. For instance, this elaboration on the use of color bycinematographer Robert Wise: “To me, more often than not color istoo rich, too full of color, too unreal. The very nature of photographyis not quite realistic.”

The one drawback of the book is that it is outdated. You won't findany of the newer lighting instruments covered, but the lightingtheories that come to life through the interviews more than make up forthe dated material. There are also photographs, illustrations, anddrawings that add to the book's value. If I could have only one book inmy library, this would be the one.

Lighting for Digital Video & Television

by John Jackman

This is the most up-to-date and comprehensive book on lightingtechniques for TV that I could find. Jackman writes with a wry sense ofhumor and at a technical level that is easy to digest. I really likehis approach to the subject. Not only does he tell you how to light aparticular scene, he details the psychological and technical reasonsbehind his decisions.

There are a number of sidebars that give insight into how theHollywood professionals do it, and amusing anecdotes on the folks whoinvented lighting instruments. There's a great opening chapter on whatthe eye sees compared to what a television camera can capture. Jackmanalso goes to great lengths to point out what he considers bad lighting.The section on lighting instruments is extensive and includes manyrecently introduced fixtures. There's a great chapter on electricity,which even the most seasoned among us should review. It may save youthe embarrassment of overloading the circuits in your boss' house onyour next shoot.

From simple three-point lighting to extensive studio shoots, tospecialized lighting setups, to using your imagination, it's all inhere in an easy-to-read format. Jackman even includes a primer onsignal monitoring and an ample glossary. There are numerous charts,diagrams, and illustrations. These are all in black and white, and thereproductions are not the best, but they are adequate to get his pointsacross.

by Des Lyver and Graham Swainson

The cover says this small book is fully updated, but I found thematerial not as up to date as that of the other lighting books reviewedhere. These British authors, while thoroughly knowledgeable on thetechniques of lighting, are not the best wordsmiths. In fact, manytimes they assume the reader knows more than he or she actually may.Instead of photographs, crude cartoon drawings are used to illustratecomplex points.

Like much of the rest of the book, these drawings leave a lot to bedesired. This one I would pass on.

This text is crammed with great details and technical tricks.There’s also a brief history of lighting and a section on howlight shapes humans’ visual perception.

by Blain Brown

From the opening pages, I knew I was going to love this book. It isgourmet reading for the lighting connoisseur — a feast for thoseof us who love chiaroscuro, lightness, and dark. Author Blain Browngoes to great lengths to make this book as much about video as aboutfilm. Whenever he discusses a film technique, he makes sure to coverhow it should apply to video as well.

While heavily technical in certain aspects, this 214-page text iscrammed with great information, technical tricks, and data. You candevour, skim over, or skip them altogether. (Although it never hurts,even if you are a video purist, to learn about film.)

The chapters on lighting theory and practical applications reallyapply to each discipline. There's a brief history of lighting, which Ifound fascinating, followed by a detailed account of how the eye seesand the brain interprets images. But Brown goes beyond other books witha distinctive section on how light shapes our visual perception, andhow we interpret the shape of our physical world by how light andshadows fall upon it.

Make no mistake — this is a textbook, but an easy-to-digestone. The book is complete with chapters on electricity, lamps andsockets, and even basic gripology. There are plenty of photographs,graphs, diagrams, and data tables for handy reference.

While the photographs in this book are the best of any of the booksreviewed here, they still didn't quite get the job done. For instance,there is a series of color plates showing the subtle differences ofdiffusion materials such as tough frost and Hampshire, but it's hard tosee much of a difference in the pictures. However, don't let thisdissuade you from adding this excellent book to your library.

Set Lighting Technician's Handbook

by Harry C. Box

Professional Lighting Handbook

by Verne Carlson and Sylvia E. Carlson

I lump these books together because both are handy shelf referencesfor anyone involved in TV lighting. The Set Lighting Technician'sHandbook is newer and has a lot of information, such as setprotocol, tools and personnel gear, the unions, electricity and water,and other interesting data. Professional Lighting Handbookcontains a wealth of information as well, and it's not as heavy tocarry around.

The font sizes in these two texts are fairly small and hard on theeyes, but they allow the authors to get more information into shortervolumes. If I had to pick one over the other, I would choose SetLighting Technician's Handbook, although I wouldn't mind havingboth.

by Brian Fitt

As the name implies, this is a handy dictionary of every lightingterm the author could find and define. It's a highly technicalreference manual, complete with illustrations, formulae, graphs, andcharts. Here you'll find the inverse square law, a chart showing lampbase types, and a graph showing the tri-stimulus values of thespectrum, among hundreds of other definitions, values, andfunctions.

It's a handy reference source, but not mandatory for everyoneengaged in lighting. Although if you're on the set and the gaffer isspeaking a language you don't understand, this is a great book to keepin your briefcase.

That's it. Enjoy your reading, and remember, there's more than oneway to correctly light a scene. Experiment, have fun, and keep an openmind.

Contributing writer Bill Miller has been a migrant video worker fornearly four decades. He can be reached at millerfilm@attbi.com.

To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorialstaff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.