The Direction of Lighting

What do you notice about front lighting? Top lighting?  Side lighting? What does the angle of your light have to do with your character and story? How can you incorporate this in your film noir?

    I notice that front lighting causes little to no shadows to appear on the face, creating a flatter look. Bringing the light source higher still maintains a flatter look, with the introduction of a few shadows. This is usually known as "Beauty Lighting" as it highlights the cheekbones and the shadows hide the chin and define the jaw. For top lighting, it has dramatic shadows that cover almost the entire face. This creates an unsettling feeling primarily because the eyes are cast in darkness. Under lighting reverses the light in shadow and creates an unnatural look. When it comes to side lighting, the most commonly accepted angle is a 45° angle, which is still frontal, but casts shadows onto half the face. It also allows light to shine onto the cheekbone, which creates the "Rembrandt Lighting" effect. True side lighting fully casts half the face in shadow, which creates a split down the middle of the face. Going further, the light becomes an edge light, only illuminating the edge of the face, keeping most, if not all of the subject in shadow. The angle of your light can affect the character and story as the amount of shadow on the face and the shape of these shadows can create different impacts on the audience. I can incorporate this into my film noir by utilizing these different effects to deepen the storytelling, such as lighting only half of a character's face in order to show a split, or by changing the height of the light in order to make the face look unsettling and off.