Focus: Lighting

In openings lighting can be used to create many different effects and change the atmosphere radically. In some of the films looked at previously such as Jaws, The Ring and Shrooms, the lighting often follows a certain theme, and this is that it is usually very dark, and could have been shot at night outside, or using low artificial lighting inside a building. We can use this when looking at filming our own film opening, and decide how it is best to achieve a dark atmosphere, hopefully making it as effective and scary as possible. I will look at each film and pick out some key points which are effective for that opening.

Jaws:

• During the opening, an establishing shot is used to show the characters running to the beach. When looking at camera angles for this section, we see that the characters are just silhouettes and we cannot pick out any details about them. This makes them quite mysterious and the lighting means we can't tell much about their intentions. This film opening features an instant death, and the dark lighting could be foreshadowing this because of it's darkness.
• When Chrissie's friend falls down the hill, we the sunset in the background for a few seconds. This use of lighting shows that any happiness is now leaving the scene. We could use this in  our film opening to show how the darkness becomes a threat to any characters in the scene and engulfs the happy, almost safe surroundings.
• Overall in the opening of Jaws, the lighting is dark throughout, and this could be foreshadowing what is to happen in the rest of the film. It also suggests to the viewer immediately that this bad experience can happen again at night, and gives them something to look out for in the rest of the film. We can use this overall darkness in our opening if we were to use an instant death because it would show the danger the character is in and how vulnerable they are.

The Ring:

• In the opening shot of The Ring, an establishing shot is used to show a house at night, during a storm. This immediately sets the scene at nighttime, and we again see the theme of darkness being used in an opening. It is a sign of bad things to come.
• As the girls talk and tell each other about the tape, they are in an artificially lit room. However, the lighting is still not very bright suggesting that they are in danger and are vulnerable. It also shows that the danger they fear has already 'found' them. For example, in our own film opening we could use darkness repeatedly to show how characters are in danger as soon as there is darkness, because it presents the unknown and allows threats to manifest and surprise the unsuspecting weak victims in the scene.
• Katie's main threat in this opening is the television, as this is ultimately what will confront her, what is important to look out for in this scene, is that the room which the main television sits in is in darkness. There are no lights on in that room, only a small shaft of light seeps in through the window from a street lamp. This shows how when she is face to face with the television, she is no longer in a safe area, she has gone into the darker parts of the room and therefore is in incredible danger and has no escape.
• This shows how we use the idea of darkness itself as some kind of threat in our film opening.

Shrooms:

• In the opening of Shrooms, we see a girl running through the forest, juxtaposed with images from inside a building. As she is running, the area seems to be quite bright, however, the trees and shrubs around her are in darkness - they are just silhouettes.
• Throughout the shots from inside the building, often both sides of the frame are complete darkness, there is only a white coloured light on the dominant part of the frame, this ranges from a rope to an extreme close up of some body's eye.
• This shows how the viewer is being made to feel very confined by the lighting used. By using darkness at the edges of the frame not only suggests that darkness, and therefore the threat is getting nearer and nearer to the characters on screen and the viewer, but also that it is inevitable and there is no escape.
• This idea continues even once we see the characters on the plane, their seats are the only ones which appear to be lit up, again drawing all the attention to them as they are the dominant part part of the scene, but showing how again, the darkness is nearly upon them.

By looking at all these film openings and their use of lighting, we can see that in ours, we should try and incorporate lighting as an addition to our chosen threat. This means we will be able to give the threat more power, by associating it with darkness, as this is a common theme in film openings.