2013 Post 12: Media Language Lighting 2 (Quality & Direction)

Over the past week I have been focusing on lighting and a great video to watch to focus on lighting is Madonna's Vogue music video, it uses elements of light very well to highlight important features that the music video includes. These features highlight importance when watching the video and it is clearly visual with what the lighting used is trying to achieve. When watching the film for the first time we sat down and watched the video together, after we had watched the whole clip we started talking about what types and styles of light have been used and why they have been used.

In this picture it is clearly visible to see Madonna's face highlighted by light being used, we also had to think where the lighting would be coming from to create this effect of highlighting a key character in a video. In the picture I understand that the light is coming from in front of Madonna and it is above head height as there are shadows being created under her chin. After talking about this in our group and with our teacher the task became easier and easier as we had more idea of how and why lighting has being used.

In this picture a male is highlighted on the right of the photograph and the male on the left is in a darker toned lighting. This is because the male on the right needs to be highlighted as he has a bigger part to play in the music video then the character on the left. When watching the video it is clear what Madonna and the lighting used is trying to achieve, the actors who have a larger part in the video will often be highlighted to make this more clear to the viewers.

I have used this picture to show how light can be used from different angles to highlight objects that are important towards the film. For example in this picture it is clear that the highlighted object would be the small pillar as it has a important object on top that may have a effect on the film or what happens next. In the picture the light being sued has come from the right of the male character, I know this as there is a large shadow behind the male character and the lighting used would be coming from a high/mid angle as the shadow is bigger then the character.

In this photograph there are two highlighted areas that use artificial lighting, the lighting used highlights two areas that almost seem to be glowing. Madonna has used this style of lighting to create a glow effect and the glow is easy to create as it is a rectangular base that has lights behind it, this is a simple effect used and it creates a glowing effect where necessary. The pathway Madonna has created looks like she is going to be walking out to heaven, this shows how high class Madonna is as she has used lighting to highlight importance.

There are two types of different lighting that can be used when creating a video using lighting, the two tpyed of lighting that can be used are hard and soft. The soft lighting is more direct on a persons face that still shows details that are visible. Hard lighting is more doll and dark but focus's on creating shadows and effects around the character rather then focusing on using colour and a soft shadow. In the photographs below there are two types of lighting used, the picture on the right is hard lighting as it's doll and dark and creates shadows around the characters nose and eyes. The soft lighting photograph on the left is easier to see visually as it doesnt use dark lighting effects and is still in colour, this is what all soft lighting effects will look like visually.

2013 Post 11: Media Language - Lighting 1 (Shape & Texture)

When preparing for our short film we needed to take into consideration the qaulity of video production through technical elements such as lighting We devided these sections into two as we thought that this would help when starting to film out project. These two elements were direction and quality as we thought that these would be most nescesary to focus on when filming out short film. The quality of our filming would have been to focus on the illumination given to the viewers, for example hard and soft shadows will be used to create effects throughout our short film.

On the right is a example photograph oh hard lighting being used when using quality in filming, it is clear that it is irect light source creating bold shadows with crisp textures and edges. 

The second element of lighting is a soft shadow, this shadow would be used to highlight textures as this is a indirect lighting. This would be used to create blur contours and textures and there are softer contrasts and shadows between the light and shade.

The direction of light focuses on the specific light source and where it has been positioned in order to make the shot. For example how it bounces off the different surfaces after being positioned at either the front, back, side or above. Ultimately every light source has a point where it is at its brightest.

After the two varieties of the elements of lighting had been defind we then watched a example video where the two elements of lighting had been used the most. The example video that we watched was on youtube and this was Madonna's Vogue music video as it captured and used  great ammount of light resources. When watching the video we had to identify where hard and soft lighting had been used, this was very helpful because at the start when exaplinign hard and soft lighting it was very complicated, but when looking at examples where hard lighting had been used it was clear to spot the differences within each element.

Not only does the video use the Film Noir effect it also includes distinctive soft light sources where in which images have blurred contours and textures. This is most noticeably seen on the faces of characters, they appear to not have defined shapes or curves and a lot of the women’s clothing is unclear due to the softer light source illuminating the clothing.

After analysing the different elements of lighting and defining the quality and direct aspects to lighting by understanding has improved dramatically. I now have a better understanding of the different effects of lighting and how it can change the films affect and tone easily. When it comes to creating our own short films it is important for us to consider the different light sources available and how they will in due course help convey different moods for the characters. The workshop has made me realise that during the planning for our short film we need to consider the lighting and how effective it will be. It is also important for us to remember and use the different types of equipment to manipulate the light. This includes using barn doors and light diffusers. 

In this video it shows the effect used creates a blind effect which was made by myself. To make this effect I used a large peice of card and simply marked out rectangular guide lines for me to cut using a craft knife and cutting mat.After I had cut these rectangular peices out I then used the light to penetrate through the blind creating this effect. My group and I will be discussing whether this effect will be needed to use in our short film as it can be used to highlight facial features that will be recognised by the audience.

2013 Media Language - Lighting 1 (Shape & Texture)

When creating our short film, the aspect of style is massively important towards our end product. Throughout our planning and development stages of our short film we knew that lighting was a key effect within the films production process.

Film Noir

When researching lighting "Film Noir" was a great example of how light can be used to add effects and create a feeling within the viewers. "Film Noir" was often highlighted as the aspect of the films style, this is also refereed as a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, one that particularly emphasise cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. The time period that classic film Noir was used was stretched around the 1940's to 1950's and was used in some of Hollywood's greatest films to highlight important characters to give the viewers a more clear understanding. Film Noir of this era is associated with low key, black and white, visual style with both bright lights and effective shadowing.

 Film Noir usually contained a character who contained a cynical, hard hearted male character who encounters a beautiful promiscuous amoral, double dealing and seductive female. This theme and style is clearly linked to the era that film Noir was first established as woman had more power over Male's but this was shown differently in film Noir as woman's roles on screen did suffer. The photos situated to the left and the right of my text are examples of film noir ways of lighting.

As a group we all watched a short film based on Film Noir as this helped us choose our lighting techniques when using lighting for our short film. When watching the film we had to focus on the angle of the lights and how the variety of positions and techniques can vary, we watched this very carefully as there was alot of information to take in. Lighting is commonly used to highlight and create shadows that can be used to manipulate the space of the different scenes. There are two different types of shadows and these are:

• Attached shadows: Attached shadows occur when lighting doesn’t illuminate parts of the object due to its shape and size.
• Cast shadows: A cast shadow is when objects block the light source and “cast” a shadow.

When using lighting it can be used for a variety of effects, for example lighting can be used to highlight a charcters importance in a film, for example the film named 'Lolita' is a great example of this as she has been highlighted throughout the film where she takes part in, this highlight her great looks for the male viewers.

On the right I have used a example photograph that i found on Google. When looking at this photo it is clear that the male standing up is highlighted.The blinds appear to be blocking the light source from the outside sunlight and are forming a cast shadow onto the man standing directly opposite. The man has noticeable lines across his body from the pattern of the blind, this can reinforce the theme of being imprisoned. The noticeable pattern draws attention to him rather than the man positioned on the chair.  

2013 Post 10: Script Feedback

When we had completed our srcipt within our group we had checked over it to make sure there were no errors and we also had to check that the language used was appropriate for our target audience. After we had double checked our script it was ready to be shown to our target audience so we selected a few random people and showed them the script. By doing this they gave us feedback of what they thougth could be improved and what was needed to be done to make it complete. This feedback was very helpful as it gave us more idea's on what could be done to make our script suit our film more, the feedback was taken into consideration and as a group we looked over it to create more ideas.

The main feedback point was to make sure the characters part in the script were suitable for there ages and ability, for example the girls are very young so this means that they have to use words appropriate for there age. The feedback given was also helpful as Alan used words that the girls would not have understand, we simply changed these words as one of the target audiences that gave us feedback said that the words used were not appropriate.

2013 Post 9: Script Workshop 2

When working on the script we worked in a group as we all has to participate on improving the script and all of us gave idea's and opinions on what we thought would help improve the script. As a group we all sat around a table and worked as hard as possible to create a script that we were proud of, we all gave opinions towards what would improve the script and we took on what everyone said even if it wasn't worth doing it still gave us idea's and helped create out final piece.

There were many rules that we had to stick to as we used two young girls as as characters so our language had to be necessary to suit the girls ages. This was hard to stick to but luckily Alex, a member of our group has dealt with younger children as her mum is a carer so she had a good understanding of the language used by younger children. The main discussion that was relevant towards our script was how we would get the point across to the viewers that Alan is a groomer, we did not want to make it to obvious as this would have made our film a lot shorter and would have less of a meaning. We wanted to show the viewers the stages of a groomer so we had to make the script work it's way up so the viewers could then realise what Alan actually was. We needed to make it appropriate for Alan so we couldn't have a script that was too graphical so we created the script so it was very suttle and disguised.