Famous director and cinematographer Geoff Schaaf ran a three-day workshop on lighting and photography at TNUA in November.
Mr. Schaaf has earned a total of four Emmys and 13 Emmy nominations, and has served as director of photography on hundreds of hours of episodic series.
He has also directed “Shelter Island” (2003) and “Portal” (2009), and served as director/director of photography on over 400 documentaries, projects which have taken him to more than 20 countries across Europe, Asia, Central and South Americas and Australia.
During the workshop running from November 21 to 23, Mr. Schaaf talked about the quality of light, the basics of lighting (from backlighting, highlighting, natural lighting, exposure, to color control), as well as his own experiences in studio and location filming. He also illustrated his talks with video clips.
He noted that during the filming of documentaries, the lighting cannot be “set.” The lighting is more about how the camera, the interviewer and the subject are positioned.
He pointed out that reflectors, white cardboards and mirrors can be used to enhance the lighting.
He said digital cameras now make it much easier for photographers to produce images that in the past would have required a lot to work to achieve.
He noted how the film company boasted about Stanley Kubrick using specifically modified still camera lenses to film candle lights when shooting “Barry Lyndon” in the 1970s. The digital cameras today can produce these images more easily, he said.