Lighting In Cinema

Key light: Illuminates whole object, brightest and most influential.

Fill light: Softens out shadows made by key and back lights, there can be more than one of these.

Back light: Separates the subject from the background.

Fundamental lighting skills:

High key: Lots of light, positive effect, often seen in genres with positive connotations.

Low key: Little light, negative connotations - shadows and darkness, Mystery fear of unknown, associated with horror, crime/dark dramas/ thrillers.

Hard lighting: source of light is strong/powerful/ harsh, focused on one area/ subject, creates a spotlight effect.

Soft lighting: source of light is subtle/ minimal, lighting is spread evenly across the frame, can be used to "mellow out" a scene

Naturalism: source of light is real and non-artificial, realism: source of light is artificial but made to look real.

Pictorialism: source of light is artificial but made to look glamorous.

Expressionism: source of light is artificial but made to look artistic.

Chiaroscuro: The extremes of low and high-contrast lighting to create areas of light and darkness in films. This applies especially to black and white films. Often the light would only illuminate half of the subjects face, while obscuring the other side, giving them a three dimensional shape and volume.

Lighting Resources

Lights:

• Tungsten (warm/orange)

• Fluorescent (cool/white)

• LEDs

Reflectors ( Reflects light )

Gel ( A colour film to put over the lights )

Soft Box ( Softens the light coming through )

Verisimilitude: The belief that what is being seen is "true" or "real life."

Genre: Connoting the genre of the film through the style of lighting.

Mood: The audience can tell how the characters are feeling and the overall tone from lighting.

Atmosphere ( Location ): The lighting can connote to the audience the location and environment of the scene.

Character Identity: Connoting a character's identity and characteristics through lighting.

This is an intense horror film filmed in 2022, Directed by Zach Cregger. This movie uses a lot of low key lighting which gives negative connotations as it creates shadows and darkness. This meets up with the genre as it is a deeply disturbing film with equally dark characters so this is an example of character identity.