Three-Point Lighting

It seems that three-point lighting in the television industry is considered base standard in lighting techniques. During the early days of Hollywood it was 3 point, 3 point all the way. However as Walter Graff (1) points out in his article when filming you try and capture people as they would appear naturally and 3 point lighting isn't natural. He shows that there are several other methods of achieving a quality and aesthetically pleasing image without using 3 point lighting. He shows that two lights can be used to illuminate a subject and remove them from the background.
The principles behind three-point lighting still remain valid today, however it may not be the most practical in each situation. For instance the scene may be set in a room with a window letting lots of light in. In this case the primary light source would be directed from the window. This method can be seen at http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp034.htm. Here several places are shown where variations on lighting design can be seen from natural light to the exaggerated effect of a screen on a face.
The use of shadow can often replace the use of three-point lighting as seen at http://www.cybercollege.com/shadows.htm. However it is probably best in most cases to start off with basic three-point lighting, as it is often the easiest way to get a good picture for the camera. Many of the modern techniques look to have been derived from the three-point method, where light have been positioned differently but give the same effect as three-point lighting. However there are also some techniques, which seem to be totally different such as seen in the third example in Walter Graff’s article. (1) With lighting each situation is different and needs to be treated as such, to stick to one lighting style would be like only ever using a mid-shot for filming.

1.http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/lighting/graff2.php 'Beyond Three-Point Lighting' Walter Graff (visited on 27-3-05)