Tuesday, 21 January 2014

What are the characteristics of a thriller? - Part 3 - Lighting

Lighting in a thriller is extremely important as it creates a mood for the viewers that get them in the mood of what’s to come. In Thrillers most of the time the lighting is low key, so as to create a harsh and dark shadow across faces, bodies, scenery and props. The low key lighting in thrillers is used to create mystery and tension since it hides detail and makes us scared and unsettled as we can’t see everything that’s there, it brings the viewer back to their childhood of being scared of the dark because of the mystery and unknowing of what’s lurking. A good example of this is the first fight scene from Batman Begins in 2005. Dark low key lighting is very prominent in this scene to show Batman's skill in mystery, silence and sabotage.


The other use of lighting in thrillers is Back lighting where a large amount of light is shown from behind a person or object thus creating an extremely dark shadow of their outline, this is shown through an example of the movie Psycho where you cannot see the details of the killer keeping the mystery of who did it. But you know what they are doing since you can see the outline of the knife:


High key lighting in thrillers is used accentuate the action of what’s going on so that viewers can see the characters and not be wound up in wondering if something will happen. Viewers can focus on the details of the film so they can keep up with the story and not be confused as to what is going on throughout.

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