Hollywood Darkness: Difference between revisions

In the past, nighttime scenes were filmed in full daylight, with a blue filter on the camera; this is known in the business as "shooting day for night" and is essentially a cost-cutting measure, since it's much easier to film a scene during the day. It often becomes a form of [[Special Effect Failure]], shadows don't match the flashlights, headlights or torches involved. In certain cinemaphile circles this was known as "broad daynight." Sometimes, even today it remains a necessity though, as some lenses and film isn't sensitive enough to shoot without enough light (such an example show up in the movie ''[[Deliverance]]'').

 

 

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 dark—sometimes it's a comment that prompts someone to turn the lights back on, and sometimes it's an entire conversation. And of course, video games often give you a torch for a reason. (If you don't have a free hand, or hands-free light, [[Doom|don't forget the duct tape.]])

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.

 

 

Compare [[Mood Lighting]] and [[By the Lights of Their Eyes]], in which the scene is quite a bit darker except for the eyes of the characters or the teeth of the monsters.

Inverse of [[Nuclear Candle]], which dictates that anything lit by a single tiny light will somehow illuminate the whole room evenly.

 

 

Contrast [[Nothing Is Scarier]]. See also [[Rule of Perception]] for one reason this trope exists. The common practice of using blue to represent "darkness" is directly related to [[Orange-Blue Contrast]] (specifically, the "turn up the shadows to the teal end" part).

* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' where Jet and Spike descend 28 stories below ground into a defunct museum (in search of a Beta player, of all things), using just Spike's lighter, and can see perfectly well around them.

* [[Haruhi Suzumiya]] couldn't distinguish the face of a {{spoiler|[[Time Travel|time-traveling]] Kyon}} when she was 13 because they met late in the night, however, in the episode both are clearly recognizable even from afar.

 

 

* ''[[28 Days Later|Twenty Eight Days Later]]'' has scenes of Jim walking through downtown London at night. The film makers shot these scenes using day-for-night effects so they didn't need to worry about trying to get all of the lights in the buildings and on the streets shut off.

* ''[[28 Weeks Later|Twenty Eight Weeks Later]]'' has the underground train station sequence. Tammy and Andy can't see a thing and are very vocal about this since they keep bumping into corpses and such. But when it cuts away from [[POV Cam]] the audience can see just fine.

* ''[[Pumpkinhead]]'' has fun with the blue filter.

* ''[[Ghostbusters|Ghostbusters 2]]'', when Janosz goes to check on Dana and Oscar during the power blackout.

* In ''[[Diamonds Are Forever]]'' James Bond finds himself in a closed coffin in one scene, and in an underground pipeline in another—the light is good enough for reading in both places.

* ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]]'' was one of the first horror movies to use the blue filter.

* ''[[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''—especially the scene of Angel and Tess having supper.

* Inverted behind the scenes in ''[[The Godfather]]''. Director commentary reveals that, due to time constraints, some of the broad-daylight wedding scenes (close shots of Michael at the table with Kay) had to be filmed at night. They blasted the area with sufficient light that it's not noticeable.

* The German ''[[Winnetou]]'' movies frequently darkened daylight shots to simulate night. While it mostly works well, it's very easy to spot when the sky is in the frame, which usually is a very uniform light blue.

* Used from time to time in ''[[Cast Away]]'', identifiable by the sharp shadows at night.

* ''[[The Descent Part 2]]'''s caverns are conspicuously well-lit, which is especially bothersome when the first film's use of darkness was one of its greatest strengths.

** Lampshaded in ''[[Discworld/Men At Arms|Men At Arms]]'', where the narration mentions an underground cave being faintly lit, but the people in it are a dwarf and a troll, both able to see in the dark. But all caves on the Discworld are illuminated by something in case a human hero falls in and needs to see.

** In ''[[Discworld/Moving Pictures|Moving Pictures]]'' the nascent movie industry is struggling with night scenes: the camera imps can't see to paint at night. Victor comes up with the idea of explaining the situation away in the dialogue card: "How bright the moon is tonight, bwana." This later turns out to be one of the [[Theory of Narrative Causality|Laws of Holy Wood]]: It is always bright enough to see the darkness.

 

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* There are many scenes in ''[[24]]'' that are meant to be set shortly before dawn, but are [[Special Effects Failure|obviously the middle of the day with a grey filter]].

** Interstellar space is generally pretty well-lit. Whenever the hero ship faces a power disruption, all the systems will go offline except for a few lights here and there and all you see is the ship vaguely silhouetted by its own running lights. In real life, such a ship would be lit as such ''all the time, at best.''

** Caves. Always so well-lit, even when there are no light sources anywhere. This was finally partially fixed in Enterprise, which used the blue filter.

* In the ''[[Haven]]'' episode "A Tale of Two Audreys", when the town experiences the biblical Ten Plagues, the plague of darkness is depicted with what seems to be the "full daylight, with a dark lens on the camera" trick or something similar.

* ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''

** ''Los Nuevos Extraterrestres'' shown as ''[[Pod People]]'' was atrocious in this regard. In several scenes, dialog indicates that it's supposed to be night, but it's obviously midday, and it isn't even [[Hollywood Night|blue filtered]]. Joel and the 'bots lampshade the mistake: "Night looks like day any time of day around here." To be charitable, this might just be an [[Mis Blamed|atrocious translation or editing error]] (presumably the scenes in question were shot day-for-night and the effect was never applied).

** Crow riffed on this in ''the first ever episode'':

{{quote|'''Crow:''' That's very well lit for the bottom of a crater of an abandoned volcano at the bottom of the sea.}}

* 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!

* Appears in ''[[Blood Ties]]'' when Vicki and Henry enter a barn at night and Vicki starts going on about how she can't see in the (well illuminated) set. There are two possible justifications: 1) Henry the vampire was facing off against a were-panther, both of whom had no problem seeing in the dark, so the audience was seeing it from their point of view, and 2) Vicki has retinitis pigmentosa, so it appeared darker to her than it actually was.

* There are numerous out-takes from sitcoms and the like where the switching over of the studio lights as a character flicks a switch is mis-timed making the changeover obvious.

* On ''[[WKRP in Cincinnati]]'' Venus likes to have the booth dark when he's on the air, which is usually represented by a red light. On more than one occasion Mr. Carlson comes in and switches the lights on full, which temporarily blinds Venus.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Mother 3]]'', when power is cut to a concert hall, causing everything to become blue. An NPC in the area comments that it's a "pitiful excuse for a blackout" and asks if you can still see his nose hair in the 'darkness'.

* In the original ''[[Mario Golf]]'', Overtime holes during match play took place at night with no visible light sources.

* In ''[[Silent Scope]]'''s nighttime level, the sniper scope's night vision is activated (which ironically makes it harder to see through the scope), but you can still see enemies clearly with the naked eye, if the brightness isn't too low.

* The visual effect provided by darkvision in ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]''.

* Dark areas in ''[[Winback]]'' are like this, and using your flashlight only gives away your position to the enemy.

* Most [[Visual Novel|visual novels]] will have this. Compare a background during the day to that same background at night; the shadows will be in exactly the same places.

** Also, although the game has night and day corresponding to the local server time, in most zones the night is hardly any darker than the day. Averted in a very few places: nighttime in [[Wild Wilderness|The Hinterlands]] is pretty damn dark, and the Tyrande/Emerald Dragonshrine encounter in [[Bad Future|End Time]] is literally too dark to see your hand in front of your face. Players must sprint for the brief splashes of moonlight to be able to fight off the shadowy attackers.

 

* Played with in one of the Secret Squirrel cartoons on ''[[Two Stupid Dogs]]'': When Secret and Morocco infiltrate the pitch black lair of Dr. O (who, being a bat, can see in the dark) and have their last light source destroyed, the screen goes completely black and we hear the narrator say "For the benefit of the audience, a special filter has been installed so you can accompany the action... in complete darkness." The following sequences then appear normally lit, giving the surreal ([[Rule of Funny|and funny]]) sight of Secret acting like he can't see while Morocco tries to tell him what is going on (since, being a mole, he can see in the dark as well) in what otherwise appears to be a completely normal situation.

* Featured in ''[[The Magic School Bus]]'' episode where the gang explores Arnold's digestive system. However, this is lampshaded in the closing [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]] segment where someone calls to ask where did all the light come from. The person answering merely snidely remarks they should have gone with "The Magic School Bus Radio Show."

* Occurs hilariously in one episode of the ''[[Spider-Man: The Animated Series]]''. One character enters a warehouse, and standing in the shadows is the Hobgoblin, coloured all in blue to fit this trope. So far, so normal, except that Hobgoblin then steps out of the shadows and gains his normal colouring, and the scene is directed and scored in an attempt to make this a dramatic reveal. Such a pity that the Hobgoblin is clearly visible, [[Mark Hamill]]'s voice is very distinctive, and the man he's talking to knew it was him to begin with, making the entire scene excellent [[Narm]].

* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', the even when the sun is totally eclipse, the outside have late-day levels of light.

* In the first ''[[Friday the 13th (film)|Friday the 13 th]]'', they filmed every scene that took place at night in complete natural darkness. It was realistic, but we couldn't see a damn thing so we had no idea what was going on.

* Notably averted in ''[[The 13th Warrior|The Thirteenth Warrior]]'', which used nothing but source lighting. This made the cave scenes ''extremely'' claustrophobic.

* The [[Fritz Lang]] movie ''Ministry of Fear'' has the final confrontation take place in a hotel stairwell lit only by muzzle flashes.

** An earlier Lang movie, ''[[Metropolis]]'', has a scene in a cave where one character chases another with a flashlight. The flashlight is the only illumination at all, and the rest of the frame is pitch black.

== 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...

** 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.

* ''[[Half-Life 2|Half-Life 2: Episode One]]'' has an entire chapter that is almost completely dark. The player has to use the [[Ten-Second Flashlight]] to spot targets for the NPC sidekick to shoot. In the finale of the section the player and Alyx have to survive an endless stream of zombies until an elevator arrives. The room is completely dark, but can be lit by the tiny flashlight beam, or explosions or the burning corpses left by explosions. If you survive said explosion.

** Plenty of very dark places throughout the series and expansions, notably the parts of Opposing Force that feature [[Night Vision Goggles]]. Gordon and Barney are masters of the [[No OSHA Compliance|non-OSHA compliant]] [[Ten-Second Flashlight|Ten Second Flash-lit]] [[Air Vent Passageway]] escape.

* In the ''[[Pokémon]]'' games, the HM "Flash" allows one to see in dark caves. [[Guide Dang It|Many people]] are unable to find the HM in Pokemon Red, and end up stumbling through one cave in the game in ''complete darkness''! The amount of darkness varies by version. In the first generation you get a faded view of the walls (Good enough), in the second you see absolutely nothing but the glowing entrance/exits and yourself, and in the third there's a small lit circle where you can see normally that expands to most (if not exactly all) of the screen with flash.

* Most of ''[[Doom|Doom 3]]'' is pitch black. The player is forced to use either his gun or his flashlight, but [[Fake Difficulty|not both at the same time]]. It was dubbed "The best flashlight simulator ever." and widely ridiculed for being so aggravating. One of the first modifications created for the game was the "duct tape" mod which removed the misfeature.

** The original Doom is noted as one of the first games to make use of varying light levels to scare and disorient the player. I.E.: pick up a critical key, the lights go out, [[Oh Crap|monsters appear]]. The only light sources in these situations were rare [[Night Vision Goggles|light amplification visors]] and (less rare) [[More Dakka|muzzle flash]].

* With the exception of the fourth installment, the entirety of the ''[[Silent Hill]]'' series.

** ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'', while mostly averting this trope, also plays it straight in some areas, such as the alternate hotel at the end of the game, where your flashlight no longer works.

* There are two temples in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' which avert this. In one area of the Lightning Temple, the player must wait for lightning to strike to see the pathways, lest they fall in the gaping abyss. Another is the Shadow temple, where the player is stopped at the entrance when it is realized it is too dark to see. The player then must fetch the blue candle as the only way to get through the temple. Although with the Lightning Temple you can still clearly see the pathway without waiting for the lightning. They corrected this in the [[PlayStation 2]] version.

* ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'' and ''[[Resident Evil 5|5]]'' avert this in different ways. In ''4'' Leon has a light clipped to his belt. It covers most of the screen and activates in dark areas. In ''5'' there's [[That One Level]] where you must navigate a pitch-black cave using a bulky electric lantern.

* ''[[Amnesia: The Dark Descent|Amnesia the Dark Descent]]'' uses the same method as Penumbra - which makes sense, since that's precisely how it works in [[Real Life]], given enough of a residual light-source.

* Averted in ''[[Minecraft]]''. Without torches, the only thing visible at night is the sky, and going more than a few steps into a cave without torches is liable to get you killed by whatever lives in it.