FIlm Noir

What is 'Film Noir'? 

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly such that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classical film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

Film Noir is has a very dramatic look to it. The blacks and whites are very bold and contrasted. I personally am very fond of the film noir effect because I like high contrasted black and white imagery. 

Basic Portrait Lighting Setups

Paramount Lighting

Key Light. For this lighting setup, the key light is placed high and directly in front of the subject’s face, parallel to the vertical line of the subject’s nose (see diagram above). Since the light must be high and close to the subject to produce the desired butterfly shadow, it should not be used on women with deep eye sockets, or no light will illuminate the eyes.

Fill Light. The fill light is placed at the subject’s head height directly under the key light. Since both the key and fill lights are on the same side of the camera, a reflector must be used opposite these lights and in close to the subject to fill in the deep shadows on the neck and shaded cheek.
Hair Light. The hair light, which is always used opposite the key light, should light the hair only and not skim onto the face of the subject.

Background Light. The background light, used low and behind the subject, should form a semicircle of illumination on the seamless background (if using one) so that the tone of the background grows gradually darker the farther out from the subject you look.

Loop Lighting

Key Light. To create this setup, the key light is lowered and moved more to the side of the subject so that the shadow under the nose becomes a small loop on the shadow side of the face.

Fill Light. The fill light is also moved, being placed on the opposite side of the camera from the key light and close to the camera–subject axis. It is important that the fill light not cast a shadow of its own in order to maintain the one-light character of the portrait. The only position from which you can really observe whether the fill light is doing its job is at the camera. Check carefully to see if the fill light is casting a shadow of its own by looking through the viewfinder.

Hair and Background Lights. The hair and background lights are used in the same way as they are in Paramount lighting.

Rembrandt Lighting

Key Light. The key light is moved lower and farther to the side than in loop and Paramount lighting. In fact, the key light almost comes from the subject’s side, depending on how far his head is turned from the camera.

Fill and Hair Lights. The fill light is used in the same manner as it is for loop lighting. The hair light, however, is often used a little closer to the subject for more brilliant highlights in the hair.

Background and Kicker Lights. The background light is in the standard position described above. With Rembrandt lighting, however, kickers are often used to delineate the sides of the face (particularly the shadow side) and to add brilliant highlights to the face and shoulders. When setting such lights, be careful not to allow them to shine directly into the camera lens. The best way to check this is to place your hand between the subject and the camera on the axis of the kicker. If your hand casts a shadow when it is placed in front of the lens, then the kicker is shining directly into the lens and should be adjusted.

Split Lighting

Key Light. In split lighting, the key light is moved farther to the side of the subject and lower than in other setups. In some cases, the key light is actually slightly behind the subject, depending on how far the subject is turned from the camera. 

Other Lights. The fill light, hair light, and background light are used normally for split lighting.

Profile Lighting

Key Light. In rim lighting, the key light is placed behind the subject so that it illuminates the profile of the subject and leaves a polished highlight along the edge of the face. The key light will also highlight the hair and neck of the subject. Care should be taken so that the accent of the light is centered on the face and not so much on the hair or neck.

Fill Light. The fill light is moved to the same side of the camera as the key light and a reflector is used to fill in the shadows (see the rim-lighting diagram above).

Hair and Background Lights. An optional hair light can be used on the opposite side of the key light for better tonal separation of the subject’s hair from the background. The background light is used normally.

Lighting Setups

How to set up studio lighting: 01 High
In most cases you’ll want to have your main light positioned above the model. Notice how the shadow from the nose falls down the face, elongating the features. Ideally you want the shadow of the nose to point towards the end of the lips. The triangle of light on the cheek on the shadow side is often referred to as ‘Rembrandt’ lighting; get your model to move their head slightly to achieve this.

How to set up studio lighting: 02 Eye level
With the flashlight to the side and at the same height as the model the light falls across the face, causing a shadow that widens the facial features. If this light is balanced with one of equal strength on the other side it can be quite effective, but as a sculpting technique height would be better. Keep your flashlight’s modelling lights switched on so you can see how the shadows will lie.

How to set up studio lighting: 03 Low
There are unlikely to be too many situations when a low light is going to work well as your primary light source. It gives a spooky look, so Halloween is probably the only time you’re even going to think about using this technique. As you can see from our example, underlighting is not very flattering even on a young model. With underlighting the nose shadow is clumpy and any bags under the eyes will be amplified.

Final tips on…

Lighting
Don’t over light your subject. Start with one flash head and build up the light slowly to achieve the look you want.

Lenses
If you use a short telephoto lens it will give you more space to position your lights and reflectors.

Freytag Pyramid

Gustav Freytag was a nineteenth century German novelist who saw a common pattern in plots of stories and novels and developed a diagram to analyse them. He diagrammed a story’s plot using a pyramid.

Exposition: setting the scene, Characters and settings are introduced, providing description and background.

Inciting Incident: Something happens to begin the action. A single event usually signals the beginning of the main conflict, sometimes also called ‘The complication’

Rising Action: The Story builds and gets more exciting.

Climax: The moment of greatest tension in a story. This often is the most exciting event. It is the event that the rising action builds up to and that the falling action follows.

Falling action: Events happen as a result of the climax and we know that the story will soon end.

Resolution: The character solved the main problem/conflict or someone solves it for them.

Denouement: (a French term) The ending. At this point, any remaining secrets, questions or mysteries which remain after the resolution are solved by the characters. (You can think of the denouement as the opposite of the exposition)