Lighting

In a film, light can be manipulated in many ways to set a mood or atmosphere. I will be discussing the main issues and advantages of a few light sources. Natural Day LightThis is used in nearly every film as it is the main type is light used. The main advantage of using natural day light is that it's free. Film companies wouldn't have to pay electric bills for lighting. Another benefit of using natural day light is you can achieve a more realistic feel in your film as opposed to using artificial light. A disadvantage is when you want it to be a sunny scene the weather might let you down and it might rain. This is one of the main problems as it delays filming and it will stop filming crews from reaching deadlines. Artificial LightThis is done by using anything starting from a light bulb to a glow stick. The main advantage of using artificial light is that you can do practically anything you want with it. If you wanted to set a scary and dark scene you would have very dim lights and maybe cast a few shadows. A disadvantage of using this type of light is the equipment might set back the company a few thousand pounds. ChiaroscuroThis is a dimmed light effect used to create a dark mood. This is mainly used in thriller films for example Fight Club. In Fight Club they use chiaroscuro to set a dangerous mood and make the characters seem very bad as the picture shows below.

Colour also plays a big part in lighting. Different colours have different meanings, therefore it can be used to portray different things. For example if you wanted to make a character look devilish you would use red lighting for their face so that they look bad. You can also use other colours for example blue which is purity and natural to show that the person or object is very pure.

Shadows

Shadows can be created by placing a person or object in front of a light. This creates a black replica of the person or object on the surface you want. This is used in thriller films to create tension. It works well because it's very unexpected most of the time and when it does appear on screen it doesn't stay for long. The length of time that the shadow spends on screen can determine If the shadow has an effect on the audience or not. If the shadow appears for a few seconds then the audience will get scared and think what's that? But if the shadow stays for let's say for example 5 minutes it loses it's effect on the audience and it ends up being pointless.

Detjona Borizani