The sun is one big ol' light that can't be beat - unless of course you have rows and rows and banks and banks of lights. So it's easier to work with it as it moves across the sky during your shoot. Diffusion, bouncing, blocking it with negative fill - these are all ways we modify the sun's light to make our scenes look good. But we also need to plan ahead to know where the sun will be during the day. This video includes an example video of positioning the camera and talent through an afternoon to keep a consistent look to the short film.

In this cinematography tutorial, I show some of my tips for creating scenes that look dark even though we're using film lights so the audience can see what's happening. Film makers often need to create scenes that are dark and moody. A mistake they make is lighting a scene with minimal light and then boosting the ISO of their camera. I talk about what it means to "light for your sensor," how to use shadow to make dark scenes, and some mistakes to avoid.

As cinematographers, we need to understand light - where it comes from, how it’s shaped and how we can use it. In this video and blog post I share some pictures I’ve taken where I’ve been paying attention to the lighting so that I can better understand how to replicate it in my own work.