Lighting within film

Why film makers need light?

When watching a film as the audience you would expect the lighting to be natural, however though the  equipment is of the best quality cameras sometimes struggle to distinguish between light and dark areas as the cameras can not cope with the contrasting colours within the shots. If you shoot a film without artificial lighting certain areas, such as the light areas, become bleached out through over exposure. The opposite effect can also occur, for example a night time shot would be considered completely impossible without artificial light. They would use a large bright light in order to show all the details in the back ground and the foreground while using slightly brighter and softer light to highlight the actors in the foreground in order to separate them from the cold whiter light.

Lighting for a night time shot shows the large amount of lights used.

  Not only this, the film makers also have to consider the shadows in which they want to create and silhouettes they may be caused by the lights direction. When watching a film you would not expect to see the cameras shadow cast along the ground, therefore lighting is used to help remove and unwanted dark areas. By having the camera face slightly towards the light or adjacent to it this can help remove the risk if casting the unnecessary shadow. Another problem which may occur is the risk of glare in the camera lens and the actors becoming silhouetted by a stronger light behind them. By having a softer light situated behind them and a stronger one towards the characters it allows the camera to move freely with the characters.

Colour temperature through the use of light

Using different colours within lighting can create different temperatures and effects. The famous James Cameron took the lighting in to consideration within the ‘Terminator 2’ film, he used a red/orange light contrasting with a blue back light. The clod blue lighting also highlight the more robotic side of his face conveying the idea of cool metal.  When selecting two colours in which you are going to use, you must determine the contrast and the effect/ emotions that want to be portrayed through. For example blues and greens are both calm and relaxing colours, these are regularly seen within romance films as they are soft and bright. Whereas reds are a lot darker suggesting evil or danger, this colour lighting would be seen within action films. However the colour of light can also be used to determine the time in which the film is set, mornings regularly have a lightly bluish tone while the evenings are slighting more orange and pink. When filming at night white or blue tones are used to convey night time with the moon as the only light source. 

Hasta la vista baby! (Terminator 2)

High and low key lighting

High key lighting is an unnaturally bright light the removes most of or all of the shadows within the image. Through the use of high key lighting the director can convey a positive and happy tone, this technique is regularly used in comedy, family films and other light hearted moments within films. When using high key lighting you will need lights on both the background and the object/ person who you intend to film, by doing this it removes any shadows that may be seen in the background.

The use of low key lighting to create a eerie effect

Low is very key lighting is mainly used for a darker and more dramatic scenes. The image becomes darker as the light is more specifically placed only showing sections of the object and therefore the background ark and almost unrecognizable. This lighting is commonly used when showing just the eyes this technique uses harsh shadows to help create mystery and suspense through the manipulation of lighting, therefore are mainly seen in horror or crime films.