Careers in Television and Video: Identifying and Using Lights

A career in television and video may involve working with a wide range of lighting equipment and accessories. While we cannot cover everything, we will discuss the most common lights you will use when entering this field. Lights divide into two categories, hard (direct), and soft (indirect). This has nothing to do with Kelvin or wattage, as we discussed in the last segment. This has more to do with intensity of the light, and manipulating it to suit your purposes.

A hard light is a direct light. The light from the lamp (bulb) of a lighting device falls directly on the subject. Behind the subject will be a clearly defined shadow with hard edges. A soft light is an indirect light fixture, or often it is a diffused (less intense) hard light. In the case of an indirect light fixture, light redirects in some way before exiting, thereby decreasing its intensity. Both diffused and indirect lights will cast a less defined (soft) shadow. Examples of hard lights are spotlights, broad lights, and ellipsoidal lights. Box lights and scoops are examples of soft lights. There are many variations of these lights, and others not mentioned, but all are either hard or soft lights.