Lighting Makes a Difference.... for Horror in Particular. Let me tell you what I like to call my Supernatural Theory!

This week I wanna talk about Supernatural. Yes the popular show on The CW. I know an odd topic for a video blog but hey I had an idea and I ran with it. So lets take a look at the show. Now for this blog I will try my hardest to be spoiler free, but just in case I will post it here in big bold letters POSSIBLE SPOILERS! Now on with the blog. So if you watch the show the you know the premise, two brothers travel the country hunting monsters, ghosts, the whole shebang. This show is horror and  that is evident in many ways just from looking at one episode. Lets look at this scene with Sam Winchester as played by Jared Padalecki.






















This is a pretty basic set-up for a shot. The character is in the two-thirds of the shot and kept along different quadrants if we divided this shot up into thirds. Now that is not the point of this blog to discuss the thirds rule, but I will link it here for any curious minds. Any way this is a very well composed shot and holds all the characteristics of a great shot. Now lets talk about the more specific side of this shot. The lighting that this shot has for example. Most of the shots in this show are lit to a similar darkness and some even more. This intentional darkness of these shots is a technique that the lighting crew added to the filming process. This adds to the spooky and suspenseful feeling that audiences get from the show. This darkness to your brain is the unknown and one of the most basic fears of people. But hey lets look at another horror themed movie to show this some more.



I don't know what video this shot is from, but if you compare the two images both are very dark to what a normal shot looks like. So thats the theory, now lets talk about execution. This was executed in a very professional manner so I am gonna give an overview of how I know to create this effect, but please if you want to recreate this professionally do more research than this simple blog. Now the first step is to remove all uncontrolled lighting. Unless you are outside the lighting could change between takes if you are using uncontrolled sources (like the sun or moon). Nest up is to get the reflectors out because while this scene may be dark, it needs to have the necessary viewpoints. By using reflectors and a soft light this will appear natural without getting too light. Next up is to barely light any other effects in the shot that needs to be seen for the video to make sense. These don't need a reflector, but instead a lower setting on lights. I hope this helped at least a little and I hope you enjoy my Supernatural theory.