Lighting talent is already a tough job, but when you have to consider different skin tones, it takes a whole new level of expertise. You need to have a thorough understanding of how to control light to achieve the perfect shot. If your talent has different skin tones, you can usually get away with placing the darker-skinned person closer to the key light. This way, the exposure falls off quickly near the light source and more slowly as it gets further away. By doing this, the darker skin will get more light and even out the exposure. However, if the difference between skin tones is much greater, you may need to bring in flags and extra lights.
To create two zones of lighting, bring in a flag or cutter close to the actor so that more of the key hits the darker-skinned actor than the lighter-skinned actor. This technique requires the actors to stay on their marks to be correctly lit. If you’re outdoors or using a bright light source, you can use exposure for the darker skin and use scrims or negative fill to take light away from the brighter skin. This trick is also used by corporate headshot photographers to avoid overexposing white shirts.
Don’t forget about your ratios when lighting talent. You need to light both sides of your talent’s face, not just one. A fill light can help you achieve this. It doesn’t need to be as big as the key, but it needs to be more controlled. You may have to pan the light away so that no light is hitting the lighter skin, and you may also need to add more negative fill off-camera to prevent the light from bouncing everywhere and bringing up the levels over the whole room.
Moving shots are more challenging, but you can devise a system of lights and flags that’ll work for every position the character moves through. Alternatively, you can have a grip carry something like a follow fill light with the camera to bring up levels over the entire camera move. In the digital age, you can also relight the talent in post. However, this is a last resort since colors can often be muddy or less than optimal.
In conclusion, lighting talent with different skin tones requires a lot of expertise and attention to detail. But with the right techniques and equipment, you can achieve the perfect shot. Check out our other tips on film lighting to take your skills to the next level.
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