Lighting Techniques: Low Key Lighting

Low Key lighting is used and is most effective when only a single light source is present within a shot be it either overhead, eye level or at a low angle, it can create different effects on the subject. One of its main aspects is that the light casts a great deal of shadow across the subject, which can generate different connotations of the subject, such as the light source being on one side of them at eye level, casting half of their features in shadow would make them appear mysterious or intimidating. Low key lighting is often used in Noir films but also in New Wave films because as it only uses one light source it is a cost effective way of lighting a scene and effects such as Rembrandt or Edge lighting can be applied using only one small light source.

The pieces of footage below are  examples of our use of low key lighting.


Continuity 2 from Lewis Mercer on Vimeo.

This footage uses low key light as only a small light source is used to highlight the subject, the light source itself was in fact the light from a mobile phone which only created a small amount of light, a wide aperture of f/2.8 was used with an aperture of at least 800 since we were using a very small light source we didn't want the footage to be underexposed, this footage falls into conventions of new wave because it is using a very cheap form of lighting which is inventive as due to the small area we could most likely not accommodate large studio lights.



Edge light ex from Lewis Mercer on Vimeo.

This footage on the other hand uses a large light source but is very limited as we controlled the amount of light using "barn doors" attached to the light so we could decrease or increase the amount of light that hit the subject, This footage was shot using an ISO of 800 and an aperture of at least f/16 as we were using a larger light source so more light would be entering the cameras sensors, this form of lighting known as Edge lighting was used in New Wave films as a cheap way of creating studio like light effects on a budget as it is a technique that requires only one light source which would be appropriate to a filmmaker with little or no budget.