One of the most crucial aspects of a video production is lighting. Lighting can make or break you video. Here’s how some of the best cinematographers in the business get inventive with their lighting during a video shoot.

Use the lamps that you have for small spaces

When filming in a small space, having lamps shine in corners can create extra light across more parts of the space than just off one wall. Dave Wurtzel, a cinematographer based in New England, did this for a shoot in a very small apartment. “I used an open-end book light (with a 120d) as the key [light], which flooded light out of the top and sides to raise the overall ambient light level in the room,” says Wurtzel. He then ran a second book lamp of the same size on an adjacent wall, and a third household lamp away from a window. Using a lamp in a different light created contrast from the natural white light, to tungsten warm light in the corner.

Use your phone for light

Your phone is not only a mini computer, but can also double up as an extra light, especially when you are trying to look inconspicuous to get a shot. Three iPhones combined with a light panel on his camera meant James Adames was able to capture an important scene for his documentary on human trafficking. Once the subjects of his film crossed the Mexican border, “I [asked] them to turn on the light from their phone and point it towards them as they walked towards the van that was going to take them to a stash house. At the same time, I pointed my camera above the light panel to get as much as I could get on film of them walking past the borders and into the van.” The phones and light panel created an eery scene and didn’t bring any unwanted attention to the shoot.

Use your lights outside the scene

Sometimes the solution is not putting lights inside the room, but putting them outside to create the right look and feel. Director of Photography Wesley Kabakjian did this to transform a whitewashed apartment room into a space that hinted at captivity for a film on kidnapping victims. Kabaijian put a 650 watt fresnel outside a window of the apartment. Thanks to the overcast weather, and Venetian blinds, the light created lines against a wall, making the victim being interviewed look like a captive.

Rethink your Scene

Sometimes it’s not a lighting issue, but a scene issue. I might then be time to rethink the angle of your shot. Aaron Randerson had to do just this during a major film production. Instead of relying on natural light coming from the wrong angle and a constraint in space, he “completely blacked out the windows to avoid shifts in light,…[and] lit the bar top scene’s principal actor first and filmed everything one way. Then, we shifted everyone to the other end of the bar and filmed the reverse, both giving it the impression of a longer bar top and creating room for us to light.”

Let Mother Nature work for you

If you are not constrained with time, creating your scenes to cater to the sun’s positioning during the day. Instead of relying on LED lighting to light an interviewee, Director of Photography Travis Johansen simply waited “until the sun moved a bit and positioned him in a way that the light wasn’t directly competing with our subject’s key and fill. So while we thought we would use way more lights to overpower the windows in the shot, we were able to position our main character where the only lights we needed were in front of him. We dialled them to daylight to match the outside light.”

You don’t need a complicated set up to solve your prime lighting issues in your video shoot. Creativity is key, but the solution might be easier than you think.