Research on lighting

Many different lightings are used in many films and TV dramas to show exactly what is going on and the lighting is mostly used to fit in with the mood that is portrayed by the character or the setting. The reason for why lighting is necessary in filmmaking is because the producers cannot cope with having normal light contrast of real life, for example if you shoot a scene without any artificial lights, then the look of the scene will show shadows completely black or the highlights of the action that is going off will go completely white. In addition if I want to start filming I need to make sure that I do it in the day and make it look natural as well, but the only way to do that is to have enough light to then make the film look professional and easy for the audience to watch what is going on. Below is different lighting techniques to maybe try and use in my film:

• Soft front light / hot backlight - when this light occurs in a film the light source is given from the front and a stronger, more directional light from the back, so the subject can have light around the edge of the subject. You can also arrange the lights so that you can leave the darkness between the area, depending on how you want the shot to be to portray someone's feelings in a particular scene.
• Mixing colour temperatures - mixing the colour temperatures can be used to create a great effect, this can either be if there is a fighting scene or someone who is scare or even if the director is trying to show an unknown life form by using lighting to show it's characteristics and that they are completely different to the other characters
• Open faced - This type of light that is used, is used to create hard light that casts some shadows. Also this light is as bright as a house light and provides nothing in between the bulb and the person who is acting, also this light has a lens in front of it this lens is there to concentrate the light people often use.
• Fresnel - this is a special type of lens that is divided into different circles, resulting in a more thinner lens of the same power. This lens evens out all the light that is produced and allows the beam of light to be varied when shining on a character or a specific scene and you can also change the distance of how far the light goes.
• Practicals - this is any light that might be appeared in a scene such a table lamp or any other lights that might be used in different rooms of a particular scene to give a better realistic effect.

An example of a TV programme that uses light to show what the character is trying to do and to show characteristics of that character as well is in Doctor Who Family of blood, in these two images below green light is used to show two people communicating towards one another and light that is used here is green to suggest that they aren't from this planet and are also from a different universe. However green connotes to something good happening in this scene and that these people are harmless and overall this can confuse the audience into thinking that they aren't harmless, but this is untrue and it kind of confuses the audience into liking them a bit more and even gives a positive atmosphere as well and maybe everyone in the episode is safe for now!

This second picture shows green in the background again, but because they are family it shows a friendly atmosphere (unless you get to know them a bit more then you are DOOMED) this also confuses the audience into falling for their trap. This links in great with the overall episode to show how easy it is for these aliens to take over people's minds and act like humans so easily.

From this analysis even though I haven't got the professional equipment to use to represent what is going on in a scene I can make sure that I film my work in the day so I can show a more realistic environment and if I need to change the colour of the background to either build tension then this would go great with my film and will make it also look more professional. Also I can use the different environments to express how someone may be feeling, for example using a rainy day to show someone being sad.