Lighting is the
final stage of our
animated film making process where the image visually comes together
for the first time during the course of a production. It's where
we finally see the characters, environment, materials, and visual
effects fully realized and integrated through lighting and
compositing. During this stage we create mood, atmosphere and
drama through the use of light, shadow, depth of field and other visual
techniques we will soon explore. We use light as a visual story
telling tool to drive the composition, direct the viewer's eye, create
emotion, support or reveal a character's performance or sometimes
simply advance the story. The cinematic opportunities that can be
found in lighting come from a combined understanding of aesthetic and
technical principles. In
order to create rich images, a lighting artist
also balances the craft of image making with an understanding of light
and shadow behavior, reflections and occlusion, surface properties,
camera principles, layering, rendering, image processing, problem
solving, debugging and data management. Lighting is a collaboration between the
art and science of creating images where it requires an artistic
temperament and an awareness of our physical surroundings. This is where we breathe life
into a world inspired by vision.
