Help!Searching for a lighting workshop

[Rick Wise]

Could be a terrific workshop, could be a dud. That they advertise themselves by stealing clips from beautifully shot movies which they did not shoot (I presume, perhaps falsely) makes me doubt them a lot. Note that one workshop will not make you a great lighting DP. I teach graduate students three hours a week for 15 weeks, and in spite of my examples, words, exhortations, almost none of them can at the end of the class “see” light. (Of course, maybe the fault lies with me and not with them….) They are still using formulas, not looking at what is there and what might make what is there better (or worse.) It takes years of practice to learn to see.

At the start, copying older masters is probably one decent way to learn for yourself, and you can learn a bunch of “tricks” (as one student put it to me.) As you keep working at it, your eye will develop, provided you have some innate talent. I doubt everyone has that talent, but a lot do have the potential and a very few actually put it to good work.

If you end up taking this workshop, let us know how it worked out for you and for others.

Rick Wise
director of photography
San Francisco Bay Area
and part-time instructor lighting and camera
grad school, SF Academy of Art University/Film and Video
https://www.RickWiseDP.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rwise
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Laura Montiavel]

Thank you for this answer!

I asked them about the video and other things. They answered very kindly actually.

The purpose of the video was in fact to show great pieces, to wonder how they light it and as a consequence in the workshop try to show the participants how they did it. Besides, the purpose of the workshop is to teach us techniques to light with a small budget.

What do you think?

[Laura Montiavel]

Hi everyone,

I went to the workshop last Saturday and this was really great. I’ve already learnt a lot of tricks and techniques that I’ll be able to use in my next project. Eric (the teacher) is enthusiastic and makes the lecture easy to follow.

I’m going to the next workshop on October 10 and 11, this is an intensive workshop with hands-on so that we can train. If you need some catching in lighting I really think this is the right place to go.

Here is their website if you are interested https://www.solarnyc.com/lightingworkshop