How Lighting Tells a Story in Film and Why It’s So Integral

S ay I ask you to imagine a scenario. It’s the middle of the night, and a little girl wakes up in her room from a nightmare she’s had. In your imagination, what’s the lighting like in her room?

In the US, on average, a lighting designer makes $48,000 per annum. Questions like the one above are what scriptwriters and lighting designers ask themselves. They keep in mind how lighting tells a story in film and carefully decide how well lit or dimly lit a place should be.

In the case of the question we began with, it is a) the middle of the night and b) sleeping time. Both of these contexts set a precedent for zero artificial light except perhaps a little night lamp because a young girl was asleep, and if the windows aren’t curtained then moonlight would be pouring in. As such, we know the room is relatively dark, to be a comfortable place to sleep, but not pitch black.

When filming, it is important for the scenes to be realistic and true to the time they are portraying. That is, in essence, how lighting tells a story in film.

Types of Light

It is important to understand the types of light to know how to use it properly, or to analyze when it has indeed been used properly. There are two main types of lighting:

• Hard Light: sharp shadows, sharp edges, light source relatively smaller than the subject
• Soft Light: blurry shadows, blurry edges, light source relatively larger than the subject

These types of lighting can differ in intensity. These intensities are called:

• High Key Light: a lot of light on the subject
• Low-Key Light: a little light on the subject

Whichever type of light it may be, the direction matters a lot. These directions can be:

• Backlight: the light source is behind the subject
• Front light: the light source is facing the subject

And lastly, the color of the light plays a big role in the meaning it creates. For example:

• Cold: blue tones are referred to as cold light
• Warm: yellow tones are referred to as warm light

Regardless of whether the light source is artificial or natural, all of these factors and types come into play when light is used. Sometimes they are beyond the director’s control, but most of the time they are deliberately used to create a particular meaning such that they tell a particular story.

Understanding the Human Psyche

As humans living on Earth, our main light source is the Sun. A lot of what we consider “natural” lighting is how the Sun shines upon us, that is, from above. In our rooms, we mimic this by hanging our lights at the top of the walls. If we shine a light on a subject from a low angle, the result we get is rather unnatural: because the human mind is not used to seeing objects lit from below.

Thus, if directors want to convey a naturalistic setting, their light sources are going to mimic the features of the Sun. But, if they want to convey something eerie or rather unnatural, perhaps strange and delving into the surreal, they will make use of techniques that are unconventional in regard to how the Sun gives us light. They will employ multiple strobe lights, the direction will be either to the side or from the bottom, etc. These sorts of techniques are most often used in thriller and suspense movies.

How Lighting Tells a Story

If a buff man in an alleyway has a cold backlight, his silhouette will be the most prominent thing in the frame. Given how the light is hard and low-key, we can tell that the buff man is our antagonist. However, if a woman sits at a table and has soft, warm, and high key light shining upon her face, we will see her features well-defined and lit up, and the lighting will send the message that she’s the protagonist.

Lighting also directs the attention of the audience from one object to another. If the frame shows three people sitting, but a man far in the background is brightly lit or has some sort of light on him, we will understand the context to mean that he is important to the storyline despite not being at the forefront.

Why Lighting Is So Integral

Given the power of light and editing said light, we can easily infer that it is one of those things that truly makes or breaks a film, and thus it is very critical to be vigilant of which type of light to use in conjunction with another type. And by coming together in different types, that is how lighting tells a story.