Lesson 4 · 16 min
"Cinematic light" in a prompt says nothing: the generator needs to know where the light comes from, which side it hits, whether it is hard or soft, and what color it is. In this lesson you decide the light for your scene and write the look card, the fixed block that goes into every prompt for it.
Start the lesson
Goal: decide the source, direction, quality, temperature and atmosphere of your scene's light and write the look card that goes into every prompt.
In this order. Click each one.
Terms like high-key, low-key, backlighting and volumetric lighting appear in Google's official video prompt guide.
During the batch, the lit-up bakery is the only light on the street.
Lighting everything makes the image flat: everything visible, nothing felt. Good cinema is also deciding where the light doesn't reach.
On a set, the black flag that blocks light is called negative fill. In a prompt, ask for shadow with words: low-key, deep shadows, one side of the face in the dark.
Replace "cinematic lighting" with a source and a side: "oven light coming from the right", "cold glow of a screen".
A named source adds credibility and also pins down direction and temperature at once.
Side light from the oven on the right, soft on the counter; outside, only a cold streetlamp on the dark street.
The same dominant tones in every shot tie the scene together. Each shot with a different temperature makes the scene fall apart into pieces.
Pick three or four colors and repeat them. If the story calls for a change, change it on purpose, at a turning point.
The look card gathers the five decisions and the palette. It goes into every prompt of the scene exactly the same, and that holds continuity.
In course 1 it becomes the light and style block of the prompt. Here you only decide.
The look card and the lighting phrase in the format of the English prompts.
Source: <where the main and secondary light come from> Direction: <front, side or backlight, and from which side> Quality: <hard or soft, and where> Temperature: <warm, cool or neutral, and where each one appears> Contrast: <high or low; high-key or low-key> Palette: <3 or 4 dominant colors> Atmosphere: <fog, steam, dust, rain or clear air>
Lighting: <fonte> from the <lado>, <soft ou hard> light, <warm ou cool> tones, <low-key ou high-key>, <atmosfera, ex.: steam visible in the light beam>. Color palette: <cores>.
The page asks for the seven fields and checks that you named the quality (hard or soft) and the temperature (warm, cool or neutral).
The light of your scene, decided before any prompt.
Fill in your scene's look card: a named source, direction, quality, temperature, contrast, a palette of 3 or 4 colors, and atmosphere. Check it and download the look.txt into your project folder.
Done when: the page answers OK: look card with 7 fields for your text, and the look.txt is in the project folder.
With the "Light line for the prompt" template, write your scene's light line in English and paste it at the end of the look.txt.
Done when: the look.txt ends with a line that starts with Lighting: and names the source, the side, and soft or hard.
Four questions. The explanation shows up after each answer.
Question 1 of 4
Why does "beautiful, cinematic lighting" in a prompt usually come out flat?
Question 2 of 4
What makes a light source softer?
Question 3 of 4
What is the oven steam in the beam of light for?
Question 4 of 4
Why keep the same palette in all the shots of the scene?
Pick an answer. The explanation appears after you try.