Kaan Gulerdogan

Uses of Lighting in Films

The Machinist (2004; Brad Anderson)

Brad Anderson’s mystery thriller “The Machinist” has some very clever uses of lighting. For example, as Trevor’s mental state deteriorates his apartment suffers a power cut, meaning that he needs to use small lamps to illuminate the dark rooms of his apartment. The use of lamps means that you never see all of Trevor’s face or all of a piece of furniture; there is always a part blanketed by darkness.

Another clever use of lighting comes when the Police chase Trevor into the sewers. Trevor eventually gets to a ‘fork in road’, where he has to choose between the tunnel A or tunnel B. Looking at the screen shot below, we can clearly see that tunnel A is pitch black, indicating that it’s the worse choice.

The Prestige (2006; Christopher Nolan)

In ‘The Prestige’, director Christopher Nolan uses a spotlight to create a focal point; the point of focus being Angier emerging from the theatre’s balcony.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011; Joe Johnston)

During the scene where Johann Schmidt is having an artist painting him, his partner; Dr. Zola, interrupts the session. Schmidt then turns of the light so that the only light in the room is coming from the window behind him, creating a silhouette effect which keeps the audience from seeing his face.

Another use of lighting comes at the beginning of the film when Schmidt finds the Tesseract in Norway. As he opens the box containing the Tesseract, a very bright blue light emerges from the box, letting the audience know that the contents of the box are important.

The Dark Knight (2008; Christopher Nolan)

Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece ‘The Dark Knight’ uses light in a specific and unique way, in that Nolan uses very little light to create varying effects throughout the film. An example of this comes when Batman seeks out crime boss Salvatore Maroni in a Gotham night club. As he is working his way through Maroni’s henchmen, the night club’s strobe lights make his movement seem fast and lethal (well, more than it is already).

Another utterly brilliant use of lighting comes when Commissioner Gordon is interrogating the Joker regarding the disappearance of Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. The room is dark except for a small lamp on the desk separating the Joker and Gordon. The lamp creates a small area of illumination, meaning we can only see the Joker’s face. This creates a ghostly effect, making him seem more like a floating head or clown than human.

Leon (1994; Luc Besson)

Within the first ten minutes of Luc Besson’s legendary film ‘Leon’ a heart-stopping effect is created using a dark hallway. As the “Fat Man” waits terrified for a police officer to answer his 911 call, Leon emerges silently from the darkness of the hallway and holds a knife to the man’s throat. This use of darkness, light and silence makes the assassin Leon seem like more than a human.

Another clever use of light comes at the end of the film. As Leon makes the walk to freedom, he is unaware that Stansfield; the corrupt DEA officer eager to kill Leon, is following him. Just before Stansfield pulls the trigger, the camera cuts to a POV shot of Leon walking out of the building. As the shot is fired, a bright white flash appears for roughly half a second. Leon then falls slowly to the ground. Because this scene is silent with only music playing the flash of light is the perfect way of telling the audience that he’s been shot, rather than a loud bang.

Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau; 2010)

After the Arc Reactor in Tony Stark’s chest begins to poison him, due to it being unable to produce enough power to keep a cluster of shrapnel from penetrating his heart, he is forced to find a suitable replacement power source. After rediscovering an element that his late father discovered, Tony builds a particle accelerator to synthesise the unnamed element. Upon it’s creation, the audience can clearly see that it is a thing of extreme power because the power used to light the room has been used instead to create the element. It is also glowing so much that it is the only light source in the room; creating a focal point.

Keeping our focus on Tony’s new arc reactor, upon first testing it in his chest, it powers up and a bright light slowly grows from it. It grows in size and brightness until the screen is white for roughly half a second. When the light dies down, the audience sees an extreme wide shot of the ‘Stark Expo’. The director has used he bright light as a cut-away shot.

Project X (2012; Nima Nourizadeh)

‘Project X’ is filmed almost entirely with POV shots. Also, many of the film’s events take place in one of the main character’s garden, meaning that there is very little light. The camera used for filming is mounted with a small spot light, so that whenever the camera is pointed at something, the light makes it the subject of the shot.

Thor (2011; Kenneth Branagh)

When Thor hears of an immovable object in a desert “50 miles west”, he sets out to investigate. He finds his hammer “Mjolnir” surrounded by a make-shift base of the S.H.I.E.L.D agency. After working his way through the S.H.I.E.L.D agents, he catches a glimpse of the hammer through a thin plastic tunnel wall. There is a bright light shining from behind the hammer creating a silhouette effect through the plastic sheet.