Moving Image Theory: Ecological Considerations by Torben Grodel

Moving Image Theory: Ecological Considerations – Torben Grodal

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Lighting is one of the most powerful means of creating effect in films.

The experience of light is a basic one.

The following does not pretend to be able to put forward a general theory of film lighting but will provide an account of some of the dominant metaphoric descriptions of the effect of film lighting and provide dome reasons for these effects.

To describe the cognitive effects of lighting – for instance, the way in which a given light enhances or impedes object recognition and object salience – in itself poses a series of problems for description. Mostly, however, the description of the effects of lighting is aimed at a lager endeavor, namely, to describe the way in which lighting aspectualizes the emotional experience of a given scene, resulting in sad, scary, or euphoric experiences

When cinematographers want to describe the effects of different types of lighting, they mostly use metaphors. Some of those are tactile (soft versus hard light, warm versus cold colors), other muscular-kinetic: a given type of light provides a punch or a kick to the image.

The Hardwired Expressiveness of Underlighting

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Kris Mankiewitz states, “As the saying goes, good people are lit from heaven and the bad people are lit from hell” (1986, p. 133). These cliché’s are not as obvious in today’s more natural and often softer lighting, yet the angle of light and the composition of light in the frame remain some of the most powerful tools for the creation of mood and for the shaping of an actor’s face.

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Many critics assume that underlighting has an uncanny effect, mostly linked to villains, and there might also be a reason for this, namely that it is easier to provide a negative than a positive contextualization for the effects of underlighting. All other things being equal, familiarity is linked to positive, upbeat feelings, unfamiliarity with negative feelings. That does not prevent filmmakers from contextualizing underlighting in such a way that it provides positive feelings, fulled by the emotional salience of the deviating light, say, using a cozy source of light such as candlelight or fireplace. But the situation is marked as ‘extraordinary’ and is expressing a ‘mood’.

Many of the lighting clichés in cinema (and real life) are used in order to create or enhance moods – from romantic sunset scenes to horror-inspiring fog-clad cityscapes. A preliminary reason for this can be found by considering the difference among feelings, moods, and emotions.

Darkness reduces object control and enhances passive experiences whether such experiences are positive (for instance, in the context of a romantic encounter linked to a voluntary reduction of control) or negative (as in a horror environment and its forces reduction of control. The conscious or unconscious evaluation of a given type of lighting will thus be felt as mood.

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Variations in the lightness (and colour) of the different objects and surfaces will influence the attention of the human onlooker. Thus, all other things being equal, a selectively highlighted object will stand out from the less lightened objects or surfaces and thereby draw attention to the highlighted phenomena.

Ambient and Directed Light

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Directed light reaches the object directly from the light source and is then reflected, whereas ambient light is refracted by passing through some transparent material (the atmosphere for instance) or reflected from other surfaces and objects. Whereas directed light radiates from one point, ambient light arrives at a given object from multiple points, from all the surfaces of the environment of the object.

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The main cinematic way of producing those two lighting elements, directed and ambient light, is by having a key light producing directed light and a fill light to produce ambient light.

One set of variations is linked to the source of the directed light in relation to the observer. 

(example..)

The perception of a human face, facing the observer and illuminated by directed light only. If the light is coming from behind the observer (the camera), there will be a minimum of shading, and the face will look “flat”. If the face is illuminated with side light, that is, light coming from either the left or right side of the object, the face will get strong shadings that will enhance the curves on the chin and make the nose ridge very prominent, but the opposite side of the head will be placed in deep shadow. The shading will enhance a three-dimensional physical appearance but distort the overall perception of the face, which is now very asymmetrical. If the source of light is directly behind the face, the face will be in deep shadow and will only exist as a dark two-dimensional surface, defined by the contour line. Thus, except for front lighting, the main effect of strong directed light is to enhance the continuous, dramatic aspect of the face, either by enhancing its physical and sculptural three dimensionality (in combination with asymmetry) or by enhancing its nonphysical appearance as a two dimensional silhouette. Furthermore, directed sidelight enhances the dramatic three-dimensionality, but it suppresses the ability of the observer to see the face as a continuous (and soft) surface by giving prominence to those aspects of the face where there is a radical change of curvature, such as the cheekbones or nose ridge.

The reflected, ambient light will in several ways result in the opposite effects from those caused by directed light. Because the light waves hit the object from many different points, the ambient light will not create strong shading, and if a given scene is illuminated solely with ambient light, shadows and shading will disappear. Surfaces will not be seen as defined by radical changes but as continuous surfaces. This may provide an eerie feeling. If, for instance, the weather is strongly overcast, the lack of shadows may provide the objects with a two-dimensional immateriality whereas other cues (such as overlapping) point to three-dimensionality.

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When seeing a film noir, the viewer perceives the actual distorted scenes and figures, but their deviation from some omplicit norm only get access to consciousness by the feelings of expressiveness.

Darkness diminishes the intake of visual information and thus diminishes visual control and therefore the ability to act and control. So, at least on a general level, darkness should be concomitant with feelings of deactivation. Deactivation by darkness can be a forced and stressful block of action tendencies, as in horror films, and also a block of moral control, as in Martin Scorses’s Taxi driver.

So the specific expressive qualities of darkness can only be determined by its diegetic context, by an analysis of whether the depression of activity cued by darkness is concomitant with a voluntary relaxation or is opposing a wish for control.

Similarly, strong backlighting is generally expressive because it reduces three-dimensional objects to an immaterial two dimensionality, but whether this will be experienced positively as a sublime transfiguration or negatively depends on the diegetic context.

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Softness is mostly linked to tactile experience of surfaces, often produced by organic surfaces, whereas hardness is linked to solid three-dimensional objects, often of a mineral kind.

The hardness or softness of a given face or object may be enhanced by context, say, using soft light for a romantic scene or hard light for a thriller. But hard light on a romantic scene would still add experience of hardness to the scene and characters.

Innate Factors in the Experience of Light and Lighting

Light is the most important medium for gaining information about the world and guiding our interaction with our environment. Our experience of lighting is not a neutral intake of information but is welded together with feelings and moods that in shorthand tell us something about the affordances of a given scene or a given object.

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Different kinds of tacit knowledge will, therefore, be attached to the conscious visual surface information and gain conscious salience by means of different kinds of feelings, as when we experience some types of ambient light as soft or feel that strong light (within limits) creates upbeat feelings.

These feelings may indicate an expressive deviation from some norms as when underlighting provides a feeling of uncanniness.

The experience of light and lighting is a source of knowledge about an objective, exterior world. But the experience is not disinterested. It is deeply intertwined with our concerns and subjective interests. For that reason, lighting is a powerful tool for inducing and changing feelings and moods.