Light vs. Dark

Dark wins. Our brains fill in the dark areas with "details". I encourage visual effects lighters out there to consider this every time they approach their shots. Turn off all the lights in the scene. In every scene, there is something that our eye will tend to "catch". Humans have VERY narrow focusing apparatus builtin, meaning that we only really zero in on a tiny portion of what is in front of us. I have been noticing lately that important things in a shot are rarely discussed, AND are rarely what you would consider obvious.


For example, in a previous project there were a few scenes that were put in the edit to merely get us from one scene to the next.... and I added a couple little nuances - A splash in a puddle.. or a glint off the character. And that was a huge difference! Those connector shots were actually what the viewer remembered the most.. they were the keyframes that stuck in their head. And they were total afterthoughts. The point is that I could have turned off almost all the effects and the lights... added those two things.. and the scene would have worked.


The idea here is that we should not be able to "see" everything in the shot. Somethings do not matter at all... so do NOT spend time on them. Slowly add the most important light source, and keep things modestly lit.