Motivated lighting occurs when a cinematographer lights a set using an existing light source from a scene and building on it. This can be a street light, candle or lantern, and this leads to the lighting of a scene looking more natural and sensible. This can lead to the audience being unaware that special lighting is used in a scene.
Practical set lighting: this is when a director uses existing lighting as the sole source of lighting in a scene, rather than use cinematic lighting. This is particularly used in longer and wider scenes, when a practical light source is required. Sometimes, a light bulb in a scene is swapped for a stronger one that still flows with the scene while providing superior, balanced lighting.
Consider this anecdote to understand how a small film crew used subtle lighting techniques to light their scenes:
“This method won’t always be possible, depending on your scene, but it’s always great to find ways to hide and diffuse your lights.
In this case, we were able to kill two birds with one stone by diffusing the lights and hiding them at the same time. We did this by hanging plastic painting drop cloths all around the scene. This way, the lights would just become nice, big, hot points of light in the background. As far as the viewer is concerned, these could just be work-lights or overhead fixtures in the distance.”
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