Welcome back to the blog, today I continued to research the various parts that create a successful horror film. In this post I go over the various lighting effects that can be used in our film introduction
Lighting is one of the most important parts of creating a successful horror film. Many popular horror films utilize low-key, dim lighting to create a mysterious atmosphere. This lighting keeps the viewer in an ambiguous state as many details are being hidden in a cloak of darkness, this also increases the overall tension adding to the fear induced by the film. There are many different way that low key lighting can be used to create an effective horror film, an example of this is in the film The Conjuring where a match is used as the only light source for the entire scene. This can easily be implemented into our own film as all we would need is a single light source that is dim and place it directly in front of our subject.
A different way that low key lighting has be implement into many horror films is by using a flashlight as the only light source and using it to illuminate the scene with a POV shot. This would be able to draw the viewer into the scene as it matches the what character see with what the viewer is able to see. This can also be put into our film introduction as all that would be needed is a flash light being placed on the camera and being moved to where the camera is being pointed. Below is a great example from Insidious as it creates a terrifying scene by using a flashlight.
Another way that low-lighting has been used in horror films is through the use of silhouettes. A silhouette can be used in order to hide the details of a certain character or object. This increases tension as the viewer isn't exposed to all of the information. To create a silhouette for our own film we would need to place our light source directly behind the subject, either person or object, and have the subject cover the light source, this hides any details on the front of the subject while keeping the scene relatively bright behind the subject. One of the best examples of this is in Psycho where the murder is scene holding a knife ready to kill.
Whilst low-key lighting is typically the main type to invoke fear within horror films there can be other ways light can be used to create astonishing horror films. One instance of this is using coloured lighting to evoke strong emotion amongst the audience. The typical coloured light is red as it can represent many fear inducing themes such as blood and violence. To achieve this effect we would either need to use coloured LEDs to produce the red light or use translucent plastic sheets and place them onto a light source creating the desired colour. An example of this type of lighting being used is in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark as the lights are flashed red to increase the tension and fear of the scene.
I plan for our film introduction to use at least one of these lighting effects in order to be a truly terrifying opening scene. I intend to continue my research of the various parts that need to be part of an effective film introduction.
Below is a list of sources that I used to gather research:
- https://media-studies.com/horror-genre/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh3LeCNRvTQ
- https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-low-key-lighting-definition/
- https://theasc.com/articles/terror-through-lighting
- https://www.tutti.space/blog/8-great-horror-film-lighting-examples
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