Jump to content

Lighting and character arc


Recommended Posts

Hello friends, I hope you are well and healthy, I am writing my dissertation on lighting and main character arc, but unfortunately, I can not  find movies that also have lighting that are designed according to the positive and negative Main character arc  (in fact, I could only find the godfather, the light changes according to the change of character. Can you introduce me to some movies? Thank you very much

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never got a sense that lighting was ever used to elevate a character arc in any film. Not saying lighting hasn't been used this way, but I never noticed it. You should identify films that even have strong character arcs and then scrub through to see if lighting approach changes for protagonists by the end.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There was a movie called "Arbitrage" that came out in 2012. If you find October 2012 American Cinematographer magazine, you can read about how they lit Richard Gere the dark man in a contrasty way and him as a respectable family man etc in a different way. The article clearly talks about their choices in accordance with the character arc. Hope it helps.

Edited by Giray Izcan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/21/2021 at 12:49 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

Almost any movie dealing with a character who becomes a drug addict does a gradual lighting change -- look at "Lost Weekend", about an alcoholic, the lighting gets harsher and makes his face paler as he drinks more.

Thank you very much for your answer, dear master

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/21/2021 at 12:14 AM, Christopher Santucci said:

I never got a sense that lighting was ever used to elevate a character arc in any film. Not saying lighting hasn't been used this way, but I never noticed it. You should identify films that even have strong character arcs and then scrub through to see if lighting approach changes for protagonists by the end.

Hello, thank you very much for your answer. Yes, that's exactly what I do; But unfortunately, in some films that have character transformation, the lighting is not very readable. On the other hand, in many films that have very significant lighting, there is no character change!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/21/2021 at 9:37 AM, Giray Izcan said:

There was a movie called "Arbitrage" that came out in 2012. If you find October 2012 American Cinematographer magazine, you can read about how they lit Richard Gere the dark man in a contrasty way and him as a respectable family man etc in a different way. The article clearly talks about their choices in accordance with the character arc. Hope it helps.

Hello, thank you very much for your help, it will definitely help me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/24/2021 at 9:52 PM, Christopher Santucci said:

I wish I could think of examples, but using David's suggestion, check these films out:

Leaving Las Vegas

Permanent Midnight

Requiem for a Dream

Trainspotting

The Panic in Needle Park

The Basketball Diaries

Thank you very much for your help??

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...