Harness available light using a deflector – even outside, sunshine can be deflected onto your subjects with ease. You can make a deflector by sticking some foil onto a very large piece of card. Be careful of reflecting light off walls – the colour of the wall may get in the way!

Try and introduce practical lights into the scene whenever possible. Practical lights are lights that literally appear in the scene – lamps, candles and torches. You will find that five minutes of positioning a small lamp could bring out your subjects a lot more!

If you’re doing a lot of shooting indoors, you might want to consider hiring a set of ‘redhead’ lights, which are perfect for small video productions, and very easy to set up. There are several ways you can use your available lights:

o Key Light: This is the main source of light in your shot. It’s pointed directly at your subject (with filters to dampen it down) and pretends to be an existing source of light (e.g. the sun or a room light that is off camera).

o Fill Light: This light brings up the background of your scene, and also attempts to soften the harsh shadows the key light can cast on surfaces.

o Back Light: Even when your subject is well lit, you may find that your background needs brightening up a bit. This light aims to do just that, and is particularly useful on overcast days.