Portfolio Post 15 (Week 5): Lighting in Films

 The Importance of Lighting in Cinema

    Lighting is crucial to filmmaking both in a subjective and technical format. First of subjectively, the lighting in scenes can communicate to the audience emotions such as fear. For example dimly lit scenes instill suspense in viewers due to a natural fear of the unknown. If lighting does not allow for the full viewing of someone's face this could even distort a character's appearance which would undoubtedly be used to show that the person is unraveling into an antagonist like character. Lighting that allows for exaggerated shadows or even silhouettes convey that someone is there, even though the audience cannot label who it is. Though the techniques I previously listed may seem exclusive to the horror genre that is not case. Inversely, shots that have natural or bright lighting show innocence and do not bear any suspense.

    On a technical note the art of deciding what forms of lighting should take place in each shot and how exactly to achieve said lighting is of the upmost importance to the integrity of the film. For example, though the filming process might entail re-shooting the same scene over and over the lighting cannot deviate between takes to ensure that the scene is taking place in a linear fashion. This is why it is common for filmmakers to not use natural lighting and instead film scenes either inside with severe set developments or outside with all kinds of artificial lighting influencing the takes. In the context of our opening we decided at the beginning that shooting inside at nighttime would guarantee the most consistent lighting results. Though this is not always the case in film making we concluded that it would be worthwhile to film in the same order that the events are taking place.