Lighting

 

        I have never paid attention to lighting in films as closely as I do now because I now see how important lighting can be to tell a story within the story. If there isn't a lot of dark or dim lighting, then we can assume the mood in the scene is a happier scene or there isn't much conflict. If there is dark or dim lighting then our character or characters could be depressed, maybe the darkness plays into the character or characters personality, or maybe that dark lighting is telling us something scary is going to happen. It depends on the genre of the movie though. Or they are possible night owls naturally like we saw in rear window, Jeffries would stay up at night and his room would be dark and the natural moonlight would peer into his room as he watched Thorwald throughout the nights of his broken leg and the investigation he started from his room. It really depends on the movies context because I think lighting can be interpreted in many ways.

        In Chapter 5 of Moving Pictures, it talked about lighting a great deal. I thought the term low-key lighting was quite interesting, I have never heard of it till now and this term meant that the film has a lowering or removal of key lighting and relies on more indirect, relatively hard fill and back lights, these create shadows and high contrast in a scene. This type of lighting is used to create mystery and terror and reflecting back to many of the horror films I have seen low-key lighting has been used quite a bit, especially in the scary parts of a horror movie when the jump scares happen. I think a lot of the scary parts in a movie can be predicted, but some are so hard to see coming. There is also natural lighting and artificial lighting. A lot of movies use natural lighting from windows in a morning scene when someone is waking up and artificial lighting in maybe a lab where there is an experiment is being done. I think of the scene where Peta in the Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 was going crazy in the white room as he was tied to the hospital bed when he saw Katniss again, but his brain was so damaged from the capital he couldn't think straight, that to me is what artificial lighting is in a scene. 

        The rule of thirds was pretty interesting to me too, we use this concept in drawing too when we map out how we want to draw something and certain areas may have more emphasis than others. The same thing to me is done in film, there will be certain boxes within the frame that will have more emphasis than others and that will depend where the character or characters are in the frame and where everything else in the frame is, it will vary for each frame. The lighting could feel proportionate in the frame or maybe it doesn't, maybe one area has more darkness than the other areas or visa versa with bight areas or even color or certain colors, even objects. There are many possibilities to tell a story by just breaking down a frame by its lighting and what is included in the frame. Some are easier to interpret than others, but each will tell a unique story.