Mood & Tone in Cinema

Mood & Tone

Summary

Setting, Color/Color Grading, Sound, Lighting, and Character Expression work together in various ways to create the overarching mood and tone within a film. Many times, the writer, director, or cinematographer will have a certain feel or message that they are trying to portray through the medium of film. Often, these ideas will come to life within the set decoration and design, use of props, sound design and more.

Setting

Narrative influences are expressed through set decoration, costuming, props, set design, and location choice. The setting is a major aspect of shaping the creative world within the film. It begins to set the mood for the actors to get into character and story. Visual storytelling may even be achievable just by setting alone. It is very clear that setting has a great impact on mood and tone in film. It is hard to mention the idea of setting in cinema without mentioning mise-en-scene, which is the way that the set is displayed and the way that the characters are organized within the set. Setting also includes elements of film such as lighting and different techniques when using artificial lighting sources. Often it is important for the filmmakers to simulate a realistic feel by utilizing lighting techniques. In this way, lighting plays a role in setting the scene, mood, and tone. A standard 3-point lighting set up is seen in many films, however many filmmakers break this rule and use other creative techniques to illuminate film sets and scenes such as Chiaroscuro.

Color

"Color is a ubiquitous perceptual experience, yet little scientific information about the influence of color on affect, cognition and behavior is available". (Elliot, 2007). Post-production practices such as color balancing and color grading can typically allow filmmakers to achieve looks otherwise impossible without the use of film processing technology. Many of these decisions are based on color psychology and how to express feelings and emotions through the film and enhance them for the audience via the use of colors and color theory. However, there are several cultural and regional relationships based on color, they still have an affect of the mood and overall vibe of the film, especially when combined with other post-production techniques like balancing luminance and contrast levels. This technique allows for the directors to continue their ideas for mood and tone into the post processes. "Colors are being digitally altered in order to emotionally emphasize a scene". (Bellantoni, 2005).

Sound

Another element of film that is typically implemented in the later stages of a film’s life, such as post-production, is sound. Sound can influence and enhance the mood and tone in cinema. Sound design may help auditorily shape the world that has already been created through the narrative visuals and expand the belief in the world by the audience. Sound effects often bring the film to life even more and excite the audience’s ears by bringing real dynamics to the audio of the film. Several sound effects have been used to play on human’s primal senses and evoke emotion. Foley and dialogue recording shape these films in ways that previously may have never been done before through unique, creative, and interpretive expressions of sound. Score and soundtracking are usually specifically designed for that film and for the exact moments within a film. Composers may spend several hours orchestrating scores that match the visual elements and provide another layer to the film whether diegetic or non-diegetic. Soundtracking usually involves writers that have distinct or specific guidelines relating to the style of the film. When applied together and mixed harmoniously filmmakers can create strong feelings of mood and tone.

Character Expression

The tone of voice that a character use can often guide the tone, mood or attitude of the film when accompanied by score, soundtrack, sound design, sound effects and more. These are the parts of the film that are heard and thus create the tone. Characters through accent, dialect and dialogue can express themselves to the audience and show their existing mood within the medium of the set or film. Costuming can help this character express themselves without speaking and can also give a sense of the mood that the character carries throughout the cinematic landscape. The colors of the costume, style and fit of the costume contribute to the character’s individual expressions as well as the way that they mesh with other visual and narrative elements. The way that the characters move through the frame, speak, and even walk all emit a sense of character that is an “affective character”. (Plantinga, 2017). "Most analyses of cinematic performance focus on three areas of an actor's performance style: his/her gestures, facial expressions, and vocal qualities". (Marcello, 2006).

Conclusions

The audience is left to unpack this character, all the other visual and auditory elements, and to suspend disbelief into the cinematic medium or universe. Once these elements are in sync and aligned the filmmakers can accurately display or inject the sense of mood and tone that they were attempting to achieve in the film. The audience perceives all these narrative and world building elements and pieces the film together. Filmmaking is often rooted around expressing emotions.

References

[1], Art Moods and Human Moods in Narrative Cinema

[2] Elliot, Andrew J., and Markus A. Maier. “Color and Psychological Functioning.” Current Directions in Psychological Science

[3] MARCELLO, STARR A. “Performance Design: An Analysis of Film Acting and Sound Design.” Journal of Film and Video

[4]

Yellow

Chiaroscuro