Lighting in Film

Lighting in Film

Lighting in Film Noir was extremely limited with technology due to the times Film Noir was in so they were in turn bound by lighting, however not limited in their talents to show all the different concepts they created with shadows and use of chiaroscuro.

Chiaroscuro emphasises shadows and the harsh lighting to create a sense of depth and volume which was first originally shown in paintings and then entered the film scene to create a number of dark connotations in these films particularly the one's with people containing the dark cynical attitudes.

In the Classic Film Noir Era between 1940-1959 as only black and white photography was used they were able to show the contrasts between dark and light in a lot more clearer perspectives and with intentions to create dark meanings, as for most of the actual Film Noir films we see this distinctive recurring themes of cynical characters and the interplay of light and dark.

Three Point Lighting

 

Three point lighting is the fundamental system used in filmmaking and is one of the oldest lighting techniques used in shooting video and essentially it consists three lights:

To Remember - 3 Point Lighting
Key Light - main light on a subject (not always the brightest).
Fill Light - softens the hard edges of the key and balances the light out.
Back Light - light behind a subject creating separation from the background.

The primary light is the Key Light is the most important and mainly the most dominant light in the scene(usually the brightest). It's there to bring light directly to your subject so that whatever you are filming, the subject is well illuminated in the shot. Key lights should not be placed directly in front of the talent or subject, but instead slightly off to a side. While just having this light may look enough light, of you want a well lit piece, you'll want to include both the other two lights to provide the subject in shot with more dimension, all depending on how you want the subject to be portrayed.

Complimenting the Key Light is the Fill light which is usually placed opposite of the Key light to fill in the shadows that have been left over by the Key light. The Fill light essentially fills the dark side of the subject. The Fill light allows you to control the overall feel of your shot depending on how much you dim or lighten the Fill light. A dim Fill light will give you more of a harsh, film-noir type of a shadow, while having the light brighter will help give your subject a more even look. You should always have a Fill light in place even if you want a shadowy look to your subject so that you are able to see a little detail on the darker side.

The final light is the Back light which adds a light at the back which separates the subject from the background. A Back light will put another element to the image of your subject and will push them off from the background, again adding another type of dimension. For this all you need to do is place a light behind your subject pointed at the back of their neck and high enough to be out of the frame. Watch that you don't have the light too bright or the effect you get may not be the one that you were looking for. 

This is a very basic overview of he standard three point lighting technique The most prominent lights in the setup of film noir were very String Key Lights and Strong Back Lights.
However Fill lights were not used as often as the other two because they don’t show the big exaggerating contrasts like the others. Film noir generally uses hard lights, the type of shadow it creates created by a single point source of light light is emerging from a single point. Hard shadows define the film noir look, the alternating patterns included throughout the whole genre to create an eerie and unsafe look. Soft lighting is used more conservatively sometimes to glamorise female's characters.

Rembrant Lighting

This lighting technique is used in studio portrait photography. It can be achieved using one light and a reflector(fill light) and is popular because it can create images with considered lighting by using a minimum of equipment. Rembrandt lighting is characterised by an illuminated triangle under the eye of the subject, on the less illuminated side of the face. It is named after the Dutch painter Rembrandt who often use this type of lighting

Butterfly Lighting

This technique takes the key light up much higher than the subject and is shooting down onto them to cast a butterfly type shadow on their face. It is thought to project more glamorous and complimentary connotations than other techniques. It is also known as 'Paramount lighting' named for classic Hollywood glamour photography, as you can see it was often used on 1950's film stars.

Edge Lighting

Edge(or split) lighting is slightly more dramatic than Rembrandt and hugely more so than Butterfly. It defines and separates one side of the face from the other more obviously. The highlights are lighter and the low lights darker, therefore the contrast is higher. The first two images below show the technique can fall int the low key lighting family if the key light used is from a small source and your studio is pitch black. Image 3 is Edge lighting used from a soft light in a studio with natural light present.

Lighting Setup's with examples

Here are some of our work during the HNC where we constructed the studio to take photos surrounding the theme of lighting. 

As you can see from these photos, using lighting in different places enhances different elements of the person you are photographing, in this case using lighting from above makes the subject look more innocent and in less of a position of power in this circumstance. She is shown to be fully brightened which means there is barely any darkness to the photo when it was taken.

Whereas in this photo by moving the lights to either side rather than on top of the subject you get this type of chiaroscuro view where only half of her face is lightened, as we know this is often used in the film noir techniques to show the darkness in a subject. 

Chiaroscuro emphasises shadows and the harsh lighting to create a sense of depth and volume and in this case we can see half of the face has been obscured to crate this certain look.

In this video you can clearly see that we have distinguished our use of lighting to create this shadow type chiaroscuro look. By using a dark studio and harsh light on one side we create this effect. Not using all three lights and only one - the key light and placing in from certain angles can obtain different effects.

In this video we can see that by using the exact same technique on a different person we can carry out this same harsh darkness on one side of the face by just moving the one key light in place. The shot is slightly out of focus but a bigger improvement fro the first video.

In this raw video we see that we are making a mistake by not focusing the camera but trying to achieve however still creates this really raw look about it.

In this video we see that we have corrected our mistake of the lens focus, so we eventually have achieved this amazing looking shot and showing the darkness which hides within someone could be useful in horror genres or genres involving darkness in someone(film noir etc).




REFERENCES

https://www.slrlounge.com/glossary/butterfly-lighting-definition/

https://tubularinsights.com/three-point-lighting-technique/