To begin our thirteenth post we had a discussion about we can improve and make our projects to the best quality by using lighting elements. The key idea is to make our short films have a “sense of style”, to begin our research, which furthermore we will be able to apply to your own work, we looked at how lighting affects sources and colours.
The photograph to the right shows a scanned on image of the notes I made throughout our lesson on developing a sense of style. The main focus in the image is the notes I made whilst analysing the two photographs from the film Forest Gump. The additional information includes notes regarding the elements of mise-en-scene and the photograph taken backstage at Harry Potter. The notes also include a brief description on 3 Point Lighting. The 3 aspects of lighting involved during 3 Point Lighting include Fill Light, Key Light and Back Light. When using any of the elements of lighting it is important that continuity is maintained.
Whilst looking at the power point presentations the quote “Lighting can be characterised by its source. In making a documentary, the filmmaker may be obliged to shoot with the light available in the actual surroundings. Most fictional films, however, use extra light sources to obtain greater control of the images look. In most fictional films, the table lamp and street lamp you see in the mise-en-scene are not the principle source of illumination for the filming.” From this quote the most obvious thing that stands out is that the light for filmmakers may be limited, including what sources of light they can use and which sources are available. The photograph shows an example of this; you can see that the directions intention was to use the lamppost for the main source of light. Obviously, due to this not being bright enough, they have had to use additional lighting to emphasise the affect. If the filmmakers used just the street lamp, this would cause a lot of shadows and would not illuminate the characters enough. Ultimately, by using the additional lighting it still has the same affect as if it was coming from the street lamp, it just emphasises upon the source itself.
Soon after we looked at another two images and established how lighting can be used to create different atmospheres. The first image we were shown was a bear corridor. If it was to be used in a film, it is obvious that the filmmaker would have limited control over the light sources. The lights already positioned are at the highest points available and illuminate the whole of the corridor. The hard lighting creates reflections on both the floor and the walls opposite. An element of the lighting used in this image appears to also be natural; with this in mind it would be hard to adapt to different films settings.
The first two images we looked at were images from the film Forest Gump. Noticeably the first image had a lot of natural lighting as well as an element of soft lights to emphasise this style. In this image there are limited attached shadows on the characters clothes. The soft lighting demonstrates the ability it has to reduce the differences between the light and dark areas. 
As you can obviously see from the second image, the styling used is completely different from the previous shot. The hard lighting affect used made the shot look to some extent artificial and made the clothing looked bleached; this furthermore made it hard for us to see any attached shadows.
Whilst looking at the power point presentations the quote “Lighting can be characterised by its source. In making a documentary, the filmmaker may be obliged to shoot with the light available in the actual surroundings. Most fictional films, however, use extra light sources to obtain greater control of the images look. In most fictional films, the table lamp and street lamp you see in the mise-en-scene are not the principle source of illumination for the filming.” From this quote the most obvious thing that stands out is that the light for filmmakers may be limited, including what sources of light they can use and which sources are available. The photograph shows an example of this; you can see that the directions intention was to use the lamppost for the main source of light. Obviously, due to this not being bright enough, they have had to use additional lighting to emphasise the affect. If the filmmakers used just the street lamp, this would cause a lot of shadows and would not illuminate the characters enough. Ultimately, by using the additional lighting it still has the same affect as if it was coming from the street lamp, it just emphasises upon the source itself. 
The light sources they have used create shadows below the lights themselves pointing the light upwards. There is also ceiling lights hidden by the piece of wood pointing down so we can see the middle of the corridor, there is also an additional light source coming from in front of the character to illuminate the mans face. Additionally there is also a light source at the end of the corridor; this is shown through the ending being very distinctive and visible.
When deciding the different light sources it is also important to consider the elements used in the mise-en-scene before making any final decisions. All essentials including, location and set design, character movement, costume, hair and make up and props affect the lightings abilities. It would seem radical to have dark dramatic lighting if the character movement didn’t match. In order to avoid this problem I practiced making up a variety of scenarios and wrote what lighting would be appropriate.
With this knowledge in mind we learnt about the gells in which you place in front of the camera in order for the shot to change different colours. The colours could reinforce the appropriate mood, temperature or tone of the film. Before using any gells, or planning to use any gells in our production, I planned a variety of shots and scenarios again in which different gells would be appropriate.
When deciding the different light sources it is also important to consider the elements used in the mise-en-scene before making any final decisions. All essentials including, location and set design, character movement, costume, hair and make up and props affect the lightings abilities. It would seem radical to have dark dramatic lighting if the character movement didn’t match. In order to avoid this problem I practiced making up a variety of scenarios and wrote what lighting would be appropriate. 
Normally when looking at lighting throughout films we associate it with two different lights. These include key lights and fill lights. Fill lighting is used to provide the less intense illumination with “fills in” and softens the shadows created. Kay lights provide dominant illumination and normally cast a lot stronger shadows than the fill lights. During our class lessons we were looked even further into the effect of lighting and how it can be used to create an atmosphere. After the use of the photos in the corridor previously in the lesson, the task we participated in took place in one of our own school corridors. Within this small project we had to shoot two different scenes. The first was where we had to use the original lighting available, such as the ceiling lights or the natural lights. During the second scene we had to find a way of manipulating the light to change the atmosphere of our shoot. Both of the scenes are included in the video below.
