WhiteStone Motion Picture- Lighting

In Whitestone Motion Pictures, lighting is very important in representing the fantasy nature of their short films. Two which I find this applies most to are “The Watchmaker’s Son” and “That’s Magic”.

The overall effect that this lighting creates in “The Watchmaker’s Son” is that of warmth and comfort and gives it an almost magical feel. Furthermore, it could be perceived that by using such/said lightening it gives the ambiance of fantasy and the fact that it is not meant to be realistic and based upon real life events. Even more so, it could be used as an indication to the audience that the story is not meant to be taken literally as a story of a man trying to make the best watch for his farther, but instead about the concept of trying to spend more time with the people you love. It is then that the lighting and the emotion it creates is used as a visual representation of the real meaning of the story (which I have previously stated).

If this is so, then, it coincides with conventions of short films where they are designed to make the audience think. 

This notion might be important as symbolism is very common within short films, so in my own film I could use this as a method of indicating to the audience that the story is not real, but is instead a fantasy. 

Another instance where the lighting creates an impressionable effect and emotion on the audience is the 2008 short film “That’s magic”. Once again directed by Brandon McCormick and composed by Nicholas Kirk, this short film uses warm lighting as visual representation of what magic is. For instance, the lighting is a symbolic reference to the magic within the theatre, and how the light goes out when magic ‘believed’ leaves with the audience.

To then reinforce the concept that the faith in magic has gone and the fact that the magician himself has lost his belief, is done by having his face largely kept in the shadow. 

 This is until a mysterious woman enters and when she reveals that she believes in magic she becomes ‘enlightened’ and throughout the short film shows the magician that magic is real, but not as he had originally conceived. She demonstrates to the magician that magic is not just trickery on stage, but instead, that it the simplest things in life which are magic.

When the magician comes to realise what she is saying is the truth, to visually represent this, the magician is flooded with what is intended to be a natural light. This is in order to reflect the natural process of realisation and the purity of it. 

 

  

Overall, in the short film, “That’s Magic”, the lighting has been used as a visual representation and as an example of anthropomorphism, showing that the character of the magician has come to realise and understand magic, and is showered in the sunlight of his epiphany.