Everyone's favourite lighting exercise - recreating shots from films! But is it actually useful? Rob Ellis would say yes - any practice is good practice - but when it comes to painstakingly recreating a shot from a film perfectly, he thinks it may be a little unhelpful, at least in the grand scheme of developing our own looks and practices. 

 

Instead, taking influence from a film's lighting or composition and making it your own can be far more beneficial when creating an image. We're simply using these influences as a base, tweaking them for own scenarios - and since we're not going for a perfect recreation - we're inadvertently adding our own touch and vision. Therefore, creating our own image, with it's own look. 

 


Text, image and video via  Rob Ellis | Lighting with Colour mini course