Vilmos Zsigmond- The Master of Light by Jade da Rocha

What is happening in the Industry with Lights - Assignment for Principles of Lighting –  D. B. Pruitt's class at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale

In a world that technology is part of our daily basis; the cinematography industry is dueling with low budged economy and the high demand on perfectionism that the filmmakers expect from the cameras and actors.
The vision of Vilmos Zsigmond to create and enhance reality to a scene is the right set of lights creating a mood to give the viewers a chance to experience magic. He makes it look bigger than life. On the other hand he points to documentaries as not necessarily the need of extra lights since the shooting is about reality.
Some filmmakers are so infatuated with the high tech of powerful cameras 
and lenses that doesn’t see the necessity of extra lights turning out to be a poor choice
by  Vilmos Zsigmond as he mention on the article Master of Light by Jon Silberg for the American Cinematographer Magazine:

“ When you light to tell a story, you don’t want to simply duplicate what the eye would see in that situation, you also want to create a feeling.”

Vilmos Zsigmond believe in a poetic perspective with the special effects lights can create to a scene improvising the outcome to the real world. He is someone that works and delivers his production with passion using the principals of light with a pinch of magic and artistic sense.
It is absolute fantastic that we are able to see everything in a monitor during or previous to a shooting and make decisions to what mood you are creating. The LED era and going “green” is a form of support the sustainability of the planet saving energy. 
The changes in the cinematographic world run fast but the principles of light plays a very important roll in a production.
As the instructor Pruitt mentioned: “First you have to learn the rules of Principles of Lighting, and then you can break them.”
 


Sources:
* Master of Light by Jon Silberg for the American Cinematographer Magazine

* From the set of “The Maiden Danced to Death.”
Vilmos Zsigmond
Cinematographer
Vilmos Zsigmond has won the coveted Academy Award for Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and was nominated three more times (The Deer Hunter in 1979, The River in 1985 and Black Dahlia in 2007).
Mr Zsigmond shot such classics as Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The Long Goodbye, or Brian De Palma's Obsession, Blow Out and The Bonfire of the Vanities.Most recently, he was the cinematographer on the Woody Allen film, Cassandra's Dream, and Executive Producer on Torn From the Flag, written and directed by Endre Hules.