Middle School Media
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Lighting
In early cinema natural lighting was all that was available. Filming took place outside in the sun or in studios with vast glass roofs. Some studios even had opening roofs. This partly explains why the early film studios moved to the sun-drenched Cali- fornia desert, and what was then the small village of Hollywood. Around this time, during World War I (1914–18), Hollywood film studios found a peaceful use for the arc-searchlights that had been developed to spot enemy aircraft. Thus began the expressive film lighting that we know today. From around 1915 Hollywood’s standard three-point lighting set-up was introduced, and practice has changed very little since then.
The need to run studios like factories working around the clock was one reason that standard three- point lighting was introduced. Another was the arrival of the star system with its emphasis on glamour.
Lighting is considered part of the mise-en-scène because of its power to suggest ideas and emotions. Lighting helps the viewer to construct meaning. It can suggest time, place, mood or genre. Lighting is a powerful tool directors can use to express their art.
Three-point lighting
In standard three-point lighting there are three main positions for the lights. These are:
• Key light. The key light is the hardest and brightest light and is focused slightly to one side of the main subject. The key light is normally the main source of illumination.
• Fill light. The fill light is a softer, more diffuse light that is placed slightly to the other side of the main subject at about the same angle as the key light. The fill light fills in the shadows cast by the key light.
• Backlight. The backlight is placed behind the subject and works to separate the subject from the background. If the subject is against a wall, the backlight creates a sense of three-dimensional distance or separation, preventing the subject from being ‘plastered’ to the wall by the intensity of the two main lights. Backlights are usually hard lights to better create an outline around the subject.
Three-point lighting is used in most situations even today. Audiences now accept it as natural looking, yet within the mise-en-scène it also has the effect of glamorising its subjects.
Low key lighting
Low key lighting casts shadows across areas of the set or across the faces of the actors. Low key lighting is created by directing the key light so that it is aimed straight at the scene instead of being high above it. This casts long shadows. The key light may also be of lower intensity relative to other lights around it. Often there is only the key light and the backlight.
High contrast lighting is often used together with low key lighting to create sharp contrasts between areas of light and shade. This is called chiaroscuro lighting. Chiaroscuro combines the Italian words for light and dark. Low key lighting is a feature of the mise-en-scène of German expressionism and film noir.
High key lighting
High key lighting is like standard three-point lighting on steroids! The key light is mounted high and is of high intensity. All other lights are also of high inten- sity and are directed at filling in shadows so that none remain. High key lighting often uses lots of different soft fill lights.
The very artificial, brightly lit look of many day- time soap operas is a result of high key lighting. High key is also often used as standard mise-en-scène in studio musicals and comedies. Director Peter Weir shot many of the scenes in The Truman Show (1998) with high key lighting to build the sense of an artifi- cial, overly perfect world. The same technique is used for a similar purpose in Edward Scissorhands (1990) during scenes showing suburban life.
