High and Low Key Lighting

Recently we were set a task to blog about films that utilise High Key or Low Key lighting however due to me wanting to work on Television Series when I graduate I decided to look at Television Series that use these techniques.

From my understanding high key lighting is "a style of lighting for film, television, or photography that aims to reduce the lighting ratio present in the scene. This was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to suggest an upbeat mood" (Wikipedia) and low key lighting is "a necessary element in creating a chiaroscuro effect. Traditional photographic lighting, three-point lighting uses a key light, a fill light, and a back light for illumination. Low-key lighting often uses only one key light, optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector.
Low key light accentuates the contours of an object by throwing areas into shade while a fill light or reflector may illuminate the shadow areas to control contrast." (Wikipedia)

The example of high key lighting that I looked at was Outrageous Fortune:



Outrageous Fortune is a New Zealand comedy drama series. Comedy's are more commonly shot with High Key Lighting as they have a more 'upbeat' mood. As you can see here, there are hardly any shadows on the characters as they look into a cardboard box sent by Wolf, thinking something dangerous may be in there, however, it turns out that he has sent them a cake.

The example of low key lighting that I looked at was True Blood:



True Blood is a horror fantasy show which is full of dramatic and scary plot points. In this example here you can see there is a lot more shadow, Sookie's face is almost completely shaded except for a small rim light on the very front edge. Eric's face is half shaded with highlights on his shoulders. It is much more dramatic than the image from Outrageous Fortune.