An Introduction to Film

the lighting shapes the way the movie looks and
helps tell the story. As a key component of compo-
sition, lighting creates our sense of cinematic space
by illuminating people and things, creating high-
lights and shadows, and defining shapes and tex-
tures. Among its properties are its source, quality,
direction, and style.

Source There are two sources of light: natural
and artificial. Daylight is the most convenient and
economical source, and in fact the movie industry
made Hollywood the center of American movie
production in part because of its almost constant
sunshine. Even when movies are shot outdoors on
clear, sunny days, however, filmmakers use reflec-
tors and artificial lights because they cannot count
on nature’s cooperation. And even if nature does
provide the right amount of natural light at the
right time, that light may need to be controlled in
various ways, as the accompanying photograph of
reflector boards being used in the filming of John
Ford’s My Darling Clementine(1946) shows.
Artificial lights are called instrumentsto distin-
guish them from the light they produce. Among the
many kinds of these instruments, the two most
basic are focusable spotlightsand floodlights,
which produce, respectively, hard (mirrorlike) and
soft (diffuse) light. A focusable spotlight can pro-

duce either a hard, direct spotlight beam or a more

indirect beam. When it is equipped with black

metal doors (known as barn doors), it can be used to

cut and shape the light in a variety of ways. In

either case, it produces distinct shadows. Flood-

lights produce diffuse, indirect light with very few

to no shadows. The most effective floodlight for

DVDThis tutorial discusses the key properties

of lighting.

Reflector boardsMany scenes of John Ford’s My Darling

Clementine(1946; cinematographer: Joe MacDonald) were

shot in the sunny desert terrain of Monument Valley in

Arizona and Utah. But as this photo shows, a large bank of

reflector boards was used when the sunshine was insufficient

or when the director wanted to control the lighting.

Suggestive use of lighting In Billy Wilder’s comedy

Some Like It Hot(1959; cinematographer: Charles Lang, Jr.),

the beam from a spotlight suggestively doubles as a virtual

neckline for Marilyn Monroe during her famous performance

of “I Wanna Be Loved by You.” As he often did during his long

career as a screenwriter and director, Wilder was playfully

testing the boundaries of Hollywood moviemaking——seeing

what he could get away with.

CINEMATOGRAPHIC PROPERTIES OF THE SHOT 237