Lighting Isn’t Always Essential for Indoor Filming: A Rogue Filmmaking Perspective

Rethinking Technical Priorities

Filmmaking involves both “soft” skills like storytelling, acting, and directing, and “hard” skills like camera operation. Unlike professional productions with highly skilled crews, hobbyist filmmakers—like us—often work without technical expertise.

But hiring professionals would defeat the purpose. The joy lies in the act of “trying it ourselves,” even if imperfect.

So let’s talk about prioritization.

Don’t Let Image Quality Become a Trap

It’s tempting to think that visual quality should be the top priority in a film. But I believe the most important skill is the ability to complete a project through creative adjustment.

In fact, reducing the stress caused by poor audio is often more important than image quality when it comes to viewer experience. Next in line? Editing rhythm—how you pace your cuts to avoid boring your audience.

Given our limited resources, we should consider lowering the priority of lighting in indoor scenes.

Does Bad Lighting Ruin a Film?

Film textbooks always emphasize lighting. It’s true—light can express emotion and influence viewer psychology. After all, “cinematography” literally means “writing with shadows.”

But for DIY filmmaking, lighting should not be a top concern.

Think about the films you couldn’t sit through. Was it because of poor lighting?

More likely, it was:

• A boring story
• Annoying sound
• Unpleasant elements

I’ve never seen a film ruined solely by weak indoor lighting.

When “Trick” Broke the Rules

In the TV drama Trick, there was a scene shot indoors without studio lighting. It looked unusual for a TV show, but it didn’t make the scene boring. Most viewers probably didn’t even notice the absence of professional lighting.

Tradition vs. Reality: Film vs. Digital

Modern filmmaking techniques were shaped decades ago during the film era. Back then, shooting indoor scenes without studio lights was nearly impossible. Without enough light, the film couldn’t capture natural-looking images.

When I started filmmaking, I used an 8mm film camera borrowed from my father. I failed many times due to insufficient lighting. Unlike today’s digital monitors, what you saw wasn’t what you got. Outdoor daytime scenes were the only safe bet.

So yes, lighting is essential in commercial film production. But for amateurs, poor lighting can be worse than no lighting at all.

Unless you’re a YouTuber who just needs a bright face, achieving natural lighting across multiple angles in a drama is extremely difficult. It requires formal training and years of practice.

And don’t forget: adjusting lighting slows down your shooting pace—often by more than half. If the result still looks unnatural, it’s not worth it.

Lighting for Green Screen Filming

I often use green screen to shorten shooting schedules. Lighting for green screen is a unique case.

If the scene involves a special light source (like a glowing screen), I’ll use studio lights. Otherwise, I rely on ceiling lights for simplicity.

The whole point of green screen is to accept some artificiality in exchange for speed. Spending extra time on lighting defeats that purpose.

However, lighting the green screen itself is crucial—not the subject. Especially in full-body shots, the lower part of the screen tends to be darker. This makes clean compositing difficult.

So I softly light the lower area to ensure the screen appears evenly colored. Ideally, this setup should be adjusted once and left untouched for the entire day.

I’ll share a simple green screen lighting pattern in a future post.

Hope this helps!