Rembrandt Lighting
- Santa Stuart
- Jun 9
- 2 min read
In my Santa Video Work Course I teach we have an activity where we each gather a few photos/still frames/portaits/pictures (whatever you'd like to call them) that we like which contain Santa. It could be anything from Coca Cola adverts to a picture of a plate with Santa on it. Pinterest is really helpful in finding artwork which features the big man.
These photos are chosen by the individuals because they like the aesthetic of the mood that the photos encapsulate/portray. We use these photos to reverse engineer the lighting in each setting. Developing this skill enables participants to replicate in their own video/photo setup the mood of any picture they like.
Rembrandt is one of the artists my instructors had us study at school. We learned about "Rembrandt Lighting" and how to achieve it. We covered the typical 3-point lighting, but making something cinematic is difficult without examples. Rembrandt's works were many of our examples. It is the classic "go-to" for my Santa Claus look when lighting.
The lighting is characterized by a main light, known as a "key" light placed above or pointed down at the subject which can create a shadow for the nose. This is much different than the "ring-light" phenomena that is common in many YouTube/TikTok/other social media videos. This lighting isn't flat (like the ring-light) but creates depth by using shadows.
Imagine my surprise last week, when after setting up my video setup (lights, camera, etc.) I filmed myself and took a still image from the coloured footage, and realized that perhaps in this day of AI imagery, the lighting may have made me look TOO good. Perhaps it's a sign that I've graduated to a new level of cinematography. I don't know. I'm just glad the videos look good and I didn't need to tweak the lighting anymore.
When emulating the lighting of a subject, the clues are all in the shadows. Is it a well defined or soft shadow? Are there any shadows? We can determine the placement, brightness, and size of lights by examining what qualities the shadows have. Participants of the Video Work Course learn, above all, that the mood/tone/brand that they develop is crafted from what they use. The type of lighting, music, camera placement, quality of sound, and performance skills all play a part in capturing the essence of Santa Claus.
It takes work, but it's not impossible. A little here and a little there. I'm looking forward to seeing what the participants come up with during this run of the course.
Yours, as always,
Santa Stuart
Thank you for this additional information. The assignments between classes are daunting for a newbie like me.
Just a small correction or maybe addition to the "Rembrandt Lighting" technique. The "give-away" to this lighting technique is the small triangle of light under the eye on the opposite side of the face that the key light directed at. Another tip on figuring out lighting placement is in the eyes, the eyes show the reflection of the light sources, this will tell you the amount of lights in front of the subject and the shape of the modifiers that were used. For example if you look into the reflections of the lights in the eyes you can tell if window light was used or a variety of different shaped soft boxes I.E octobox, square soft box, round soft bo…