Lighting in Films: Shaping a Scene

 This week's blog post will be about lighting and how it affects scenes in films.  Lighting in a scene can affect many elements of scene and it can change how an audience views a scene.  For example, lighting can dictate the mood or tone in a scene.  Take the opening scene of The Batman as an example.  While who we presume to be Batman is monologuing, the lighting of the scene is darker, and people, things and places are only seen through street lights or lights in stores.  The lighting in this scene points to a darker toned movie, like how most other Batman movies are.  The scene also changes how the audience views the Batman himself.  The lighting is intentionally making the audience view Batman as a scary, intimidating character, but also a protector of the city.  The design of a scene is also affected by the lighting of the scene.  Specifically, it can focus on certain elements of the set of a scene, like props or characters.  A good example of this is the team up scene in The Avengers.  Here, the lighting is solely focused on the group of heroes as they get a team up shot before working together to defeat the villains.  With the use of lighting in this scene, it creates a sense of unity and wholeness for the audience, and gives the audience the confidence that the heroes will win in the end.  Lighting can affect many parts of a scene in a film, and is a key element to making good scenes and bad scenes, as well as good films and bad films.