LLBM2: Lighting Research

Lighting Research

Lighting is extremely important in the production of a film as it can create a mood, present a character's personality and more importantly, a well lighted scene allows it to translate clearly on screen. There are various types of lighting that are essential to know before the production of a film, therefore I have researched the lighting used within films and how they can be achieved.

THREE-POINT LIGHTING

This is the most basic lighting setup. It consists of a key light, a fill light, and a back light. The key light aims directly at the subject –most likely the main character or object in the shot – and is the brightest light source for the shot. The fill light is a softer light, and is usually placed opposite the key light; the fill light cuts down on shadows created by the bright key light. The back light shines behind the subject or object, separating him, her, or it from the background, enhancing the sense of depth in the shot. Back lighting sometimes creates a halo effect around a character’s head, particularly at the edge of the hair.

FILL LIGHT
Fill Lights may be used to reduce the contrast of a scene to match the dynamic range of the recording media and record the same amount of detail typically seen by eye in average lighting and considered normal. From that baseline of normality using more or less fill will make shadows seem lighter or darker than normal, which will cause the viewer to react differently, by inferring both environmental and mood clues from the tone of the shadows. Basically, a fill is a light used to eliminate or soften shadows caused by the main source of illumination. The positioning of the fill affects the overall appearance of the lighting pattern.

KEY LIGHTING: Low and High Key

Key Lighting can either be high key or low key lighting. High Key lighting is used to call the light in a specific scene/area in which it is intense. High key lighting is also used when a high proportion of fill lighting lighting is used and key lighting, this is known as high key lighting. The effect is both brighter and more even than when they use a low proportion of fill light to key light, which is called low key lighting. . Bright high key lighting is often used in comedies to enhance a sense of liveliness or in particularly dramatic scenes in dramas to emphasise the intensity of the situation.
The lower the key lighting, the more shadowy the effect. The shadows created by low key lighting work well in mysteries and horror films; such lighting has become a convention of those genres.

Many films use a combination of high key and low key lighting set-ups, depending on the nature of

the scene. Imagine a western outlaw, for instance, walking from a brilliantly lit, high key exterior into a darker, more low key saloon. The director might be contrasting the external world of bright nature with the confining, dark, interior world of civilization.

BACK LIGHTING
Back-lighting is the process of illuminating the subject from the back. It lights foreground elements from behind. In other words, the lighting instrument and the viewer face each other, with the subject in between. This creates a glowing effect on the edges of the subject, while other areas are darker. The back light can be a natural or artificial light. The use of Back Lighting in Close Encounters of the third kind uses extreme lighting as the aliens open up their space ship, this allows them to appear mysterious, however the combination of high key lighting creates an intense back lighting on the human's who greet them. The back lighting creates a black shadow on the humans, hiding their reaction and also create suspense as to the audience, they are in the unknown. The use of back lighting in The Nightmare on Elm Street creates a dark figure of Freddy as only the back is the source of light. We can not see his face, only the outline of him. This has been used to create intrigue and a sense of eeriness. The back light within the attack scene in A clock work orange is a natural use of back lighting and is used to highlight what the men are doing in the underpass. Finally the use of back lighting in Inception highlights the character in an ethereal way, suggesting he is of importance.

Close Encounters of the third kind use of Back-lighting

Nightmare on Elm Street Back lighting

A Clockwork Orange: Back lighting

Inception use of Back Lighting

TOP LIGHTING
Top lighting is another common lighting technique. Top lighting is when the upper areas of a subject are lit by a source generating from above it.