It all started when…
I enjoyed both 300 and Immortals for their embrace of style, however, I had trouble differentiating them in memory. So, it seemed like a fun opportunity to open my eyes to what makes their looks feel unique by comparing them.
To explain this concept, I of course went back to one of my favorite books, John Alton’s Painting with Light:
“The key of the picture (not to be confused with keylight) depends upon the category of the screenplay. From the point of view of illumination there are three main categories: comedy (further subdivided into musical comedy and slapstick comedy), drama, and mystery. The illumination of each of these types of screenplay requires a different approach. Once the key of the picture is decided upon, the script is broken down into its constituents; the sequences and scenes and the mood of the lighting of each one are worked out separately.”“One of the really difficult tasks in motion picture creation is to make people laugh. Photography, like music, has its psychological effect upon people. If we wanted to make someone laugh, we would hardly think of playing him a sad 'cello solo. In comedy photography, any lighting which might keep the audience from laughing must be avoided. A low-key scene might be upsetting and spoil the comedy effect. The lighting of a slapstick comedy scene should be gay—absolutely light- hearted”
The key of the picture is the genre convention for lighting. Genre is essentially expectation. For example, the TurboTax ad below follows the conventions of the horror genre (slated lighting, high contrast ratios, tense music, shadow implying a threat) all to intentionally subvert our expectations for humor.
To fully illustrate Alton’s point that the key depends on the screenplay, let’s examine two Emily Clarke films: Me Before You and Terminator Genysis.
I’ve found this kind of exercise is very helpful to see: genre conventions for lighting, lighting conventions for genders in classic films, and common lighting recipes used by the DP. And at the end of this exercise, we see the difference is that Me Before You is generally high key and Terminator Genysis generally low key, fitting in their genres.
I was originally planning to write an entirely separate post about the Key of the Picture concept, but this 300/Immortals style study seemed like a opportunity to explore two separate approaches within the same, very specific genre or “Key”: action -> ancient time period -> hyper-stylized.
However, we need to widen our vocab first to specifically explain the difference between the two looks beyond “generally high or generally low key”. And the concept I think best explains the difference between the two film styles within “Key” is with Value Structures.
I first came across Value Structures in Ty Carter’s lecture on CG Masters. This video only explains high key, high key dark accent, low key, and low key light accent, but mid range and full range are also classification terms.