Chiaroscuro Lighting...

...as taught to us by The Avengers.






















In my Critical Film Studies class a few weeks ago, we had just watched Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (a film I have watched in pretty much all of my film classes so far) and our professor was relating it back to some readings we had done. He likes to go off on tangents sometimes and he brought up chiaroscuro lighting, which is used a lot in Citizen Kane. Pretty much if you want to see a lot of great cinematic techniques, watch that movie- there is a reason film professors show it to all of their classes. Anyway, my professor decided to also sort of explain chiaroscuro lighting just in case some of us had forgotten but the sentence he said to explain it really just proved how much I always have The Avengers on my mind.

Here is how I heard my professor explain chiaroscuro lighting:
"Chiaroscuro lighting is lighting where there is a contrast between light and dark."


And as I realize this, the G +E guys on The Avengers should have noticed this too and totally done this entire scene in chiaroscuro lighting:



































With the glow stick of destiny being the light source that caused the shadows depicted in this lighting style! But no, Tony Stark had to have a wall of windows and the Battle on New York had to take place during the day. And it also wouldn't fit into the movie at all, it would be more like a scene from Sin City than The Avengers.

And now you know a little more about what goes in my mind and what exactly chiaroscuro lighting is.

And here is what my professor actually said without my mind warping it:

"Chiaroscuro lighting is low key lighting where there is a stark contrast between light and dark."

-Charlotte