My A2 media class and I worked together and participated in an exercise to research into the best angles and positioning of lighting in order to make camera shots and filming in general look more advanced. This exercise was very useful in relation to my pre-production activities. Before I start filming I need to consider what type of lighting will be involved in my trailer and whether I will need equipment to achieve the high-key lighting that I'm hoping to achieve in the majority of my shots as my trailer is of the romance genre and therefore I want the mood to be mostly positive and excited and these are themes often shown through high-key or natural lighting.
In the above two images we have 3 lighting rigs; two of these are positioned either side of the camera at the front, but are out of shot and the final light is behind the subject to highlight certain features and give the shot an overall brighter feel so that the image is clearer and the models face is displayed clearly. The model has fairly dark hair and is wearing dark clothing on her top half, the light at the back exaggerates these and makes them stand out more so they don't get lost in the shot because of their dark shade. As you can see from the shot on the right, the model's hair stands out and is very clear so that it's whole shape and detail is displayed in the camera shots. If my actors have dark hair or are wearing dark clothing or if I want to exaggerate a certain feature that may otherwise blend into the shot and get lost in it, then I might want to consider positioning a light behind the actor and out of shot.
If I did decide to use proper internal lighting in my film then I would aim for the lighting to be similar to the lighting set-up in the image on the left. The image shows a male and a female character, likely to be the two protagonists of the film. The lighting is used very successfully here as it is subtle but it lights up the characters fully and exaggerates features that may have been hidden without it. For example the male character has very dark hair and the blue/night-time background colour is very dark also, therefore the characters hair would have been lost in the background without the internal lighting to make it stand out. The male is also dressed in very dark clothing which too could have been lost amongst the dark background colour without the lighting to exaggerate it. The female is dressed in bright clothing so this wouldn't have been lost too much in the dark background, however her facial features and hair highlights are shown more clearly and crisply due to the lighting in place. The extra lighting behind is included as part of the shots and the audience are deliberately meant to see them, however they still add to the shot and give the shot a more positive and high-key atmosphere, which is what many romance films aim to achieve. The shot is inside a building and would have been very dim if it wasn't for the extra internal lighting used.
