Hollywood Darkness: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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Not the same as [[Unnaturally Blue Lighting]], which turns up even when it's supposed to be just a cloudy day or literal bad blue lights.
There is a trend for dramatic series to prefer real darkness. Similarly, it's common in [[Sitcom|Sit Coms]] these days for a "good night" moment with husband and wife in bed to cut to black when the lights are turned out. Someone then says something in the
In black and white films, particularly older ones, there may be no difference between day and night in terms of lighting. Watch ''[[Nosferatu]],'' ''[[The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari]]'', or ''[[M]]'' and try guessing what time something happens. This comes from technological limitations imposed by the cameras available in those days. By which we mean that filming in darkness would have produced absolutely nothing.
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** [[Averted Trope]] in the first film, as the Fellowship has no light source aside from Gandalf's staff for most of their journey through Moria.
* ''[[Scary Movie|Scary Movie 2]]'' uses a blue filter to represent darkness in scene where Cindy is in the secret study. Given that this movie is a parody of other movies, it was probably intentional.
* In ''[[Wait Until Dark]],'' the blind Susy Hendrix tries to even the odds with the sighted Harry Roat by smashing every light bulb in her house; of course, the house never goes entirely dark to the audience.
* In ''[[Rear Window]]'', [[Alfred Hitchcock]] used a blue filter for exterior night scenes, but filmed in darkness for interiors.
* In ''[[Batman: Mask of the Phantasm]]'', the second gangster falling into a grave is a case of either this or [[Behind the Black]].
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** Perhaps justified as Janosz produces light beams from his eyes?
* ''[[Harry Potter (film)|Harry Potter]]'': the graveyard scene in ''Goblet of Fire'', and the cornfield scene in ''Half-Blood Prince''. The corn is vibrant yellow but the fire is burning hundreds of yards away.
* In ''[[Diamonds Are Forever]]'' James Bond finds himself in a closed coffin in one scene, and in an underground pipeline in
* ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'' was one of the first horror movies to use the blue filter.
* A lot of [[Hammer Horror]] films didn't even bother with the blue filters, especially during outdoor scenes. This occasionally leads to Dracula apparently wandering around in broad daylight. Even a lot of the interior shots just use a night-time matte painting. This is common to many British movies of the same period: it pops up in everything from ''The Black Narcissus'' to ''Witchfinder General''.
* ''[[Zathura]]''. So they cut off every light and heat source in the house, which happened to be floating in space at the time, apparently far away from any star. Ignoring the thousands of other implausibilities in that situation, the characters shouldn't even be able to see the backs of their own eyelids.
* Too many historical films and TV series to list film their indoor scenes with so much light that the candles appear to be just decoration, even if they should be the only light source in the room. For example, the BBC adaptation of ''Tess Of The D'Urbervilles''
* ''[[eXistenZ]]'' does it deliberately, as a reference to an earlier era of low-tech special effects.
* The characters in ''The Cave'' might be trapped underground, but lucky for them the titular cave is apparently entirely self-lit.
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* In the opening multi-part episode of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' season three, the team is searching through a cave. Billy advises the group to look for any sources of light filtering through. Naturally, the fact that the cave is not even slightly dark and has plenty of light sources unintentionally makes this line freakin' ''hilarious''.
* Downright jarring in ''Kindred: The Embraced'', where vampires, walking around outside at what appeared to be 3 o'clock on a sunny afternoon, would urge each other to get to cover quickly, ''before the sun comes up.''
* The caves of ''[[Fraggle Rock]]'' are awfully brightly lit for an underground world. But this is explained in a season 2 episode in which the Fraggles discover the existence of the Ditsies, tiny bioluminescent creatures who feed on
* A sketch from ''[[The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer|Bang Bang It's Reeves and Mortimer]]'' involving them being stuck in a car overnight at a gas station features an obviously fake blue filter to signify that it's night. Considering that it's Reeves and Mortimer that we're talking about here, it's hard to tell if this is an actual case of this trope or a conscious subversion/parody of it.
* Night scenes in ''[[Robin of Sherwood]]'' were the worst of both worlds: it didn't look like night-time, but the filter made it too dark to see anything!
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* ''X-Files'' predecessor ''[[Kolchak the Night Stalker]]''. Dark scenes in the show actually ''are'' dark, so much so that all one can see are highlights, reflections, and the occasional flashlight blotting out the entire screen.
* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' riffed on this. A scene in ''[[Clonus|Parts: The Clonus Horror]]'' had an almost completely dark room with nothing visible but a lamp. These pitch black scenes frequently cause Mike and the Bots to make comments such as "Filmed inside a deacon's hat!" or "This scene must have been lit by an Indiglo watch," and at one point caused the trio to call and whistle for the movie as though it were an inattentive pet.
* The entire Halloween episode of ''[[Freaks and Geeks]]'' takes place in broad daylight, with the ''teenage troublemakers home well before sunset'', because the directors were unwilling to use
* In the two ''[[Doctor Who]]'' stories involving the Weeping Angels as the main villains, the Angels are able to move only if they are unobserved.... or completely unlit. When the Angels start disabling nearby light sources in a creepiest possible fashion, the screen goes completely black when they do so, during which time the Angels move. Since the camera usually counts as an "observer" in-universe (i.e. Angels can't move when they are on camera, either) [[Rule of Scary|except when it doesn't]], averting this trope is pretty much required.
* ''[[Huge]]'' has this problem, which makes the many night scenes a bit distracting.
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== Videogames ==
* Several of ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' games feature caves and dark dungeons which only become clearly visible using a lamp in-game. Only a partial aversion, though, since there are other unlit areas that are perfectly visible without using a lamp...
* Some caves in ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion]]'' have lit areas without any sunlight, lamp or torch, but most of the time a hole is dented through the ceiling to bleed in sunlight. In general lighting is more realistic than usual. One of the challenges of the game is that you can't use a shield a torch and a weapon at the same
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind]]'' caves that didn't have humans living in them (and thus no torches) were very hard to see in. Morrowind had Night-Eye and Light enchantments that could help with this greatly.
** YMMV on the previous two examples, as many PC players were able to adjust to and play in the darkness, without gamma correction, on CRT and LCD screens, even with sunlight lighting the room around the monitor.
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[[Category:Hollywood Style]]
[[Category:Hollywood Darkness]]
[[Category:Lighting Tropes]]
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