Lighting
April 7, 2024
Here’s a quick demo showing you the difference between lighting with unbleached muslin versus bleached white bounce materials. Using muslin is an easy way to warm up and revitalize a lighting design that’s yielding asty skin tones or generally muted results– and it’s easy to DIY! Let’s see how it’s done.
If you’d like to learn how to make great dialogue audio for your film and video projects, please have a look at my courses including processing dialogue audio in Adobe Audition and DaVinci Resolve/Fairlight, recording sound, how to use the Zoom F4, F6, F8, and F8n, and how to get the most from the Sound Devices MixPre series of recorders. Our latest courses cover Sound for Live Streaming with the ATEM Mini and an Intro to Izotope RX. See https://school.learnlightandsound.com for more info!
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Gear used or mentioned in this episode. The links below are Amazon.com, B&H Photo, Sweetwater, or other affiliate links. As an affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases:
- Unbleached Muslin Seamless Diffusion Fabric in various sizes — B&H https://geni.us/uk2c3
- Aputure 600D Pro Daylight LED Light — Aputure, B&H, Amazon https://geni.us/3fj3g0g
- Aputure Spotlight Max 36º Lens Kit — Aputure, B&H https://geni.us/1A9aK
Some of my other studio gear:
- Sennheiser MKH50 microphone — B&H, Sweetwater, Amazon https://geni.us/iYb065
- Sound Devices MixPre audio recorder — B&H, Sweetwater, Amazon https://geni.us/O8e0
- Impact Turtle-Base C-Stands — B&H, Amazon https://geni.us/8a8tt
- Aputure LS 600x Pro Bicolor LED Light — Aputure, B&H, Amazon https://geni.us/EreRQa
- Aputure Light Dome III Softbox — Aputure, B&H https://geni.us/AVHU1p
- Amaran 300c RGBWW Single-Point LED Light — https://geni.us/uGkDX
- Amaran Spotlight SE — Aputure, B&H, Amazon https://geni.us/4DuyTz
- Rosco Prismatic Glass Gobo in Cool Lavender — B&H https://geni.us/GWKt
- Canon C70 Cinema Camera — B&H https://geni.us/ABYB
- Canon RF 24-70 f/2.8 lens — B&H, Amazon https://geni.us/qwsEs
- Panasonic GH5 camera — B&H, Amazon https://geni.us/InspOl
- Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 II lens — B&H, Amazon https://geni.us/gr47
The intro and outro music for this episode is from Musicbed - “Dynamo” by Virgil Arles. Take your films to the next level with music from Musicbed. Sign up for a free account to listen for yourself: https://geni.us/G7by
Copyright 2024, Curtis Judd
For talking-head and interview video, one way to warm up pasty or cool skin tones is bouncing or shooting light through unbleached muslin fabric — a slightly tan-colored, off-white cloth — rather than a bright white bounce surface. In this demo, a 600W daylight-balanced Aputure 600D Pro is bounced through a Spotlight Max modifier onto unbleached muslin as the key light.
Comparing unbleached muslin to a standard white-sided sound blanket bounce: the muslin produces noticeably nicer skin tones with less magenta cast and warmer highlights, versus the whiter, cooler highlight from the plain white bounce — a subtle but real difference.
The seamless piece of unbleached muslin used here (with grommets and ties, made specifically for gaffing/lighting work) cost about $79, though you can also DIY it affordably by buying unbleached muslin fabric from any fabric retailer. A simple, inexpensive addition to your lighting toolbox for subtly better skin tones. Get out there and make some great videos. Talk to you again soon.
