Technical Codes - Lighting

Lighting and colour can be used to create a certain atmosphere or mood

and can even be used symbolically.

Certainly directors are aware of the power of cultural connotations - for example if I say WHITE? -  what associations immediately come to mind… or RED?

Certain genres use colour more obviously than others and you have probably already noticed colours used in  sci-fi?    Horror?

Filmmakers use colour and lighting effects to make audiences well aware of the kind of film they are watching and when teaching your students the basics of film language, here’s what you need to know about lighting effects:

•The basic organisation of  lighting looks like this:

The KEY LIGHT is the term for a powerful light that casts sharp, black shadows behind the things it illuminates. It’s the main source of light in a scene.

FILL LIGHTS can be used to soften these shadows and basically fill them in. More or less of these will be used depending on whether images are to be sharp or soft.

If people or objects are lit from behind it makes them stand out from the background and they become more prominent. Underlighting (from below) and toplighting create different kinds of shadow.

There are two main ways of describing the use of these lights -

HIGH KEY LIGHTING - means the use a lots of fill lights along with the key lights so everything is brightly lit and there are few shadows. This is the style you would expect in romantic comedies, youth pictures, the colour you’d expect from a glossy Hollywood film.

LOW KEY LIGHTING - uses fewer fills, so more shadows are created with definite pools of light interspersed - you might associate this with horror films and is the style of lighting associated with film noir.