VISUAL INTEREST: LENS FLARES PART 9

For this lens flare study, I wanted to return to my favorite Struzan piece, The Phantom Menace, to see what effect his lens flares are achieving. So I did what usually helps me learn what something contributes: I removed them. So I removed the lens flares from The Phantom Menace and step by step, added them back:

Through this exercise, I noticed that the lens flare outer rings connect the characters through directional lines. Having directional lines run through character’s heads to draw attention reminded me of a recent Bob Peak study HERE.

So, I went looking for more lens flares in Struzan’s work to see how lens flares are uses as connective directional lines - Anakin and Padmae are linked through a lens flare. The tension of an intersection and the connective line strengthens the eye draw to them.

Below, Struzan adds a lens flare circle intersecting with both Toothless and HIccup’s heads to add visual tension and draw the eye:

In the Struzan poster below for Glider, we see Struzan uses the connective line for more than lens flares - lights of a space ship connect the hero and the villain. And the sweeping lines also intersect and draw the eye to the woman.

The same effect drawing the eye to the woman above is used below for Harrison Ford in Blade Runner using a Bob Peak head intersection: