Mise-en-scene Lighting

Mise-en-scene

Lighting:

The most common lighting in horror films is usually bright and colourful when the action isn't happening and then as soon as it turns night and the action starts the lighting goes dark and makes it uneasy to look at, but there will still be a bit of light so that the audience can see what’s happening.

                                

This is a picture from the film ‘Paranormal activity 4’. The lighting here is dark in certain places of the room but still light up in others, this is scary as it appears that you can’t see what’s in the rest of the room. Also the colour of the lighting here has a blue tint to it which suggests that there is something up at it isn’t the colour of a normal light that you’d expect to see. Also the colour blue has connotations of coldness and could be associated with dead corpses.

                                           

Here, is a picture from the film ‘Insidious’, This lighting is particularly effective as you can only see part of the villains face because of the candle that they’re holding, which makes it look scary as the image is really black and makes them look dead and really old. This is a common lighting in horror films as it makes the audience feel as if they might see the same thing when they’re in the dark.