Light: five sources and what each one costs
If a scene looks bad and you cannot work out why, change the light first. It is cheaper than changing the location and it works more often than changing the style.
The reason is technical. A model that was not told where the light comes from lights everything a little from every direction. The result is a flat grey image with no volume — the one people describe as "looks like AI". One sentence about the source removes that feeling entirely.
The one-source rule
Name one source and say what happens where it does not reach.
Bad: night street, neon signs, atmospheric. Good: night, exactly one source — a street lamp; the character stands in its pool of light, everything beyond that pool is true black with no fill.
The second is ten words longer and an order of magnitude better. "True black with no fill" is not decoration: without it the model politely lifts the shadows, and night turns into evening.
The five sources
| Device | When | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Golden hour | almost always, if the scene is in daylight | nothing; it is a free upgrade |
| Against the light | when the face will not come out | you lose the face — only the silhouette remains |
| Night, one lamp | night scenes | discipline: one source, not "atmospheric" |
| Neon wash | city at night, hard beat | two colours for the whole clip, or it falls apart |
| Lit by a screen | a phone, a monitor, two in the morning | the scene is tied to an object in frame |
All five are open on the free plan.
Golden hour
Low sun, long shadows, warm skin. It works on everything: a person, a building, an empty car park. If a storyboard looks dull, move half the daylight scenes into this hour and look at the contact sheet again.
Against the light
The source is behind the subject and the subject becomes a shape. The main value is not beauty but repair: this is how you hide a face the engine keeps getting wrong and turn the problem into a decision. A silhouette cannot be drawn incorrectly.
Night on one source
See the rule above. One addition: it is better to show the source in frame — a lamp, a bulb, a fire, headlights. When the source is visible the engine knows where the shadows go and puts them in the same place from frame to frame.
Neon wash
Two coloured sources from opposite sides, nothing neutral anywhere in the frame. The device is not only about looks: keep the same two colours in every scene and twenty different locations start reading as one clip. It is the cheapest continuity we have.
Lit by a screen
The only light on the face comes from a phone or a monitor, from below, cold. It reads as contemporary and specific. It is also structurally convenient: the source is inside the frame, so the engine has nothing to invent.
Steps
- Walk the storyboard and split the scenes into daylight and night. These are two
different jobs.
- Give the daylight ones golden hour — except where you want documentary
flatness.
- Give the night ones night on one source, and where a scene is in the city,
neon wash with one and the same accent colour.
- Find the scene where the face came out worst. Put against the light on it.
- Regenerate frames — free.
What to look at
Look at the contact sheet, not at individual frames. Look for two things:
- Are there any dark frames at all? If the whole sheet is uniformly bright, the
clip will read as an advert rather than a clip.
- Is there one accent colour? If scene three is orange neon and scene eight is
pink, they do not look like the same night.
The usual mistakes
"Atmospheric lighting", "cinematic light", "dramatic". These are judgements, not instructions. The model does not know where to put dramatic. Write where the light comes from and what is in shadow.
Three sources in one scene. Every extra source subtracts volume. A night scene with a lamp, neon and a fill light under the face comes out flat — which is exactly what you were running from.
Golden hour for the whole clip. Thirty sunset scenes in a row is a postcard, not a clip. Flat overcast frames exist so the golden ones can work. The catalogue has a device for that — "Flat overcast", deliberately boring.
The accent colour changing scene to scene. Fill the accent colour slot once for the whole pack.
The artefact
Pack "Five lights" (light_basics) — one scene per lighting decision: golden hour, against the light, night on one source, neon, screen light. Applied in one click to five consecutive scenes, so you can see the difference on your own material. Slots: character, location, accent colour. Free plan.