High-Key Lighting vs. Low-Key Lighting

Subheadline: The first of a series of 5 blogs that will help readers know more about different aspects of filmmaking, now simplified and easy to understand.

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The first topic I will address this week is lighting.

Lighting is one of the most important aspects of the visual look of the film that the director of photography gets to control.

How light and shadow work together can greatly affect the mood of a scene.

For example:

In the first picture from the movie The Butterfly Effect we see Ashton Kutcher being photographed with dark shadows under his eyes and cheek bone, contrasting greatly with the rest of his well-lit face. This creates a sombre effect and will give the viewer a sense of apprehension.

The name of this technique is low-key lighting. Low-key lighting creates a greater contrast between the lights and shadows on a person's face or on an object. It is used for crime dramas and horror films.

On the other hand, high-key lighting is the opposite. A person's face or an object is lit evenly and provides a more appealing and lighthearted feeling to the scene. High-key lighting is typically used in comedies and romance movies. Below you can see a still from the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty that shows an example of high-key lighting.

The genre of a film greatly determines the lighting techniques that you have to plan throughout the scene. Keep this in mind on your next film project.

Next week we will be talking more in depth about how to achieve these techniques by addressing 3-point lighting.