Online tutorial on the basic lighting of Film Noir (By Hayden Woodcock)

What I have learnt?

• Low key lighting is a commonly used to emphasise shadows and harsh lighting in order to create a sense of depth and deception.

Traditional three point lighting set up (in terms of lighting a face):

•  The most important light on a set is the key light. This is often the brightest and most dominate. Complimenting the key light is the filler. This is often placed opposite to the key light, in order to fill in the shadows. The final light is the back light. The function of this is to add an outline that separates the main focus or subject from the background.
• For an effective Film Noir look, a strong key and back light is essential, whilst the fill lights are not as dominant because an exaggerated contrast is vital for the low key look.
• Film Noir generally uses hard lights for a sharp edged shadow, created by a single point of light.
• However, soft lights are used subtlety. For example, for glamorising female characters.
• Another light that is used often is the eye light. This is used by illuminating the eyes and the brow for a dramatic look. In order to do this, we can use flags which are like solid cookies that do not let any light through apart from the intentional sections. Or we could use barndoors. These are leaf-like and they attach to the light fixtures, acting like mini flags.  

Since shadows are so effective, here is a list of the equipment necessary:

• Cucoloris (cookies). These are cut outs of wood, metal, plastic etc. for casting a pattern shadow, including a venetian blind pattern.
• Gobos: made of metal or glass to cast a crisp shadow, but they require a light with a projection lens.

How has this affected our ideas?
We are obviously using the convention of low-key lighting because this is an essential element for Film Noir as well as the horror genre. Also, we will focus on the key light and were it is placed in order to create emphasis and attention upon a certain character, object or setting, whilst complimenting this with a filler light (perhaps in the form of a lamp or a chandelier.) We are not planning to use glamorous females because of the struggle for actresses, so hard lights for a sharp edged shadow will be used highly within our trailer and ancillary forms. Moreover, Venetian blinds are conventions of Film Noir, but unfortunately we are planning to subvert this because of issues and the inability to source again or find an appropriate location. Although, since we are producing a hybrid, the conventions we could include have dramatically widened. As a result, we are able to subvert more conventions if we believe they are a challenge. Lastly, we would like to use eye lights to highlight the eyes and the brow for dramatic facial expressions, mainly on the Detective. However, we are aware that the equipment may cost and will require organisation, so this will be under consideration when completing the storyboard.