By John Jackman, April 25, 2005
The French have a saying, "Les yeux sont le miroir de l'ame": The eyes are the mirror of the soul. Nowhere is this more true than when you're shooting video. In many cases, it's subtle motion of the eyes that sells a scene in drama or convinces the audience that an interview subject is genuine. This important but subtle information is lost if you haven't lit the subject correctly.
One of the sure hallmarks of professional lighting for interviews or close-ups is a tiny glint of light in the cornea of the subject's eye. This little touch, unnoticed consciously, makes a terrific difference in the viewer's ability to connect to the subject emotionally, and to make subtle judgments about the subject's honesty or dishonesty, emotional state, and genuineness. Don't believe me? Try having a subtle and nuanced discussion with someone wearing dark sunglasses.
Generally speaking, if you set up your key light in a fairly traditional position-off to one side of the camera and shining down into the face from about 40 to 50 degrees-then you'll automatically create that lovely little glint. If you use a large, soft light source such as a Chimera or a Kino Flo as key, then the eye light will also appear but will be larger and take on the shape of the source. That's because it's a direct reflection of the light source from the shiny surface of the curved cornea.
But what happens when you can't have key light shining into a person's face? In documentary interviews, this usually shouldn't be a problem. But in drama, the key often shines on the talent from the back or side in a way that throws the eyes into shadow.
In some cases, you can leave the shot as is and allow the eyes to be in shadow. But in most cases, you'll need to brighten the eyes with an extra light. This is especially true when an actor is facing the camera.
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| Specular reflections of a properly positioned key light in the yeys allows the viewer to clearly perceive the eyes and connect emotionally to the subject.
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In the film world, the light you'd use to do this is called an Obie, a small light (often 200 watts) that's mounted over the lens of the camera. Cinematographer Lucien Ballard invented the light to help wash out the facial scars that his wife, actress Merle Oberon, had sustained in an auto accident. The light quickly became known as an Obie light.
In the video world, a small on-camera light such as a Anton-Bauer Ultralight (www.antonbauer.com) or Frezzi Mini Sun Gun (www.frezzi.com) will do the trick. I've always been a fan of the on-camera lights with built-in dimmers because you can dial in just enough light to create the proper effect without making your subject look like a deer caught in the headlights.
Some DPs work hard to get two eye lights in their subject's cornea-usually a large eye light and a smaller one
. Some less-natural variations have cropped up in recent years. The Kino Flo Kamio 6 is a fluorescent ring that fits around the camera lens; this creates a ring-shaped reflection in the eye-not a glint that is going to appear in nature. But at least the circular reflection echoes the natural shape of the cornea. A few DPs will mount four straight flos in a square around the lens, which produces a very odd and noticeable square outline reflection in the eye. I think this just looks silly, but I am something of an old fogey, so it may just be a generational thing.
Unusual eye lights can be used to effect, however, as was done with Cate Blanchett in The Lord of the Rings films. Her eyes always reflected an array of tiny lights, suggesting the stars. It certainly gave her eyes an unusual and otherworldly quality.
If you haven't ever given much thought to eye lights, start looking for them in professionally produced drama. You'll suddenly start seeing them everywhere-and pretty soon you start to see how shots without them are lifeless and lacking.
The delicate and complex set of perceptions that allow us to read the emotions and thoughts from another person's face and eyes has only lately been studied with any accuracy. Subtle cues that a normal four-year-old can quickly perceive can only be simulated with computer recognition in the crudest way. In fact, studies at the University of Iowa and Vanderbilt University have confirmed that an important part of autism is an impairment of the ability to recognize the body language and facial motions that most of us use to gauge the feelings and responses of others (www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/faculty/blake/PDFs/BlakeEtAl_PS_2003.pdf). Many autistic kids can't read emotions in others and may completely lack any information about emotions as extreme as love or anger in interactions with others.
In a way, your viewing audience is hampered in a similar way-not by autism, but by not receiving all of the normal information we use in real life. You are presenting the audience with a two-dimensional picture created by flickering colored dots. The detail is significantly less than in real life, the contrast range is compressed, and the whole physical dimension of depth removed completely. Some of the tools we use in the real world to enhance our perception are gone. In conversation, we can lean toward the other person, we can shift in our seat, and we can do a number of things unconsciously that may help us pick up on obscure clues in the other person's face. That's not true with video. Lean closer to the screen and you just start to see the pixels.
We videographers must work to give the audience the visual clues they need. In the case of the eyes, not only do we have to provide appropriate lighting on the face to create a proper exposure, we must ensure that enough light goes into the eyes to make them easily perceptible to your viewers. That means enough light to allow the viewers to perceive little muscle motions around the eyes and the specular reflection in the cornea we call the eye light.
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