Light Source: In the Mood? Creating Mood with Light

Dr. Robert G. Nulph
December 2000

The next time you go to a movie or rent a video, pay close attention to the way the director uses lighting to help create the mood in a scene. Good lighting designers work very closely with directors to build a lighting scheme that adds to the drama of a scene and intensifies the emotions we often just attribute to the actors or the action. Lighting can make a scene feel happy, sad, mysterious or even dangerous.

Throughout this column we will talk about the various ways you can set up lighting to achieve different emotional feels for the same scene. We will discuss light placement, color, strength and variations on the basic key, fill and back light setup that is used in three-point lighting.

To master the art of altering mood with lighting you have to remember a few basic principles. The hardness or softness of light effects mood dramatically. The more diffused the light is, the softer and smoother it will look. To remember this more easily, look at a shadow cast by the sun. On a bright sunny day, the shadow is dark and the edges are very sharp because the sun is a strong, intense light. We call this hard lighting. On an overcast day, the shadows have very little definition and are soft at the edges. This is because a huge diffusion layer of clouds covers the sun. We call this soft lighting.

Play around with your lights and see for yourself how to control the hardness or softness of the light. Keep in mind also, that light intensity is dependent upon its distance from the subject. If you double the distance of a light from the talent, you are decreasing its intensity by one fourth. If you halve the distance between the light and the talent, you quadruple the intensity of light. With these concepts under your belt, let's go to the studio.

The quality of the overall lighting scheme and its effect on mood is often dependent on the relationship between the key and fill lights. If they are about the same intensity, the scene will be perceived as bright and happy. As the fill becomes less and less intense, the scene becomes more dramatic. The back light also plays a role. The more intense the back light, the more dramatic the effect.

In a studio situation, or your living room, whichever is more convenient, set up a seat with space for two people to talk to each other. You can either have them sit in separate chairs or on a couch or bench. Throughout the exercise, they are to talk normally and say the same things without adding emotional inflections to their words or body language. Let the lighting create the mood.

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