Film Noir

Film Noir was created in the early 1940's to the late 1950's, where films where based on stylish Hollywood crime dramas especially attitudes and sexual motivation, which associated with low key black and white.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) Trailer 

Film noir are films that associate with low key lighting mostly as you are unable to see the actor’s full face clearly, there are shadows to give away that it is a low key lighting shot. Furthermore a high key lighting is when you are able to see an actor’s full face with full focus on lighting on them, where you cannot see any shadows on them. This trailer mostly emphases a mixture of low and high key lighting however I can see mostly low key lighting being used. At the start of the trailer it is an establishing shot of people walking in and out of a building then slowly zooms into a paper boys face where they use high key lighting to show the boy’s face, it then skips to a different scene where a women runs into a man, I think low key lighting has been used here as I cannot see the both off the characters face properly and there are lots of dark shadows in the background.

At 0:26 of the trailer it shows a group off high class people which strongly advises they are rich, high key lighting has been used to emphasis they are important as a camera flash appears while the women shakes another women's hand and I can also tell by the costumes they are wearing. At 0:30 strong low key lighting has been used because the scene is totally dark and you are unable to identify the characters, furthermore this suggests the characters are up to something. At 0:38 and 0:41 high lighting has been used to show who the characters are there are no shadows to be seen therefore it is a high key lighting. At 1:15 to 1:32 of the trailer it shows three characters in car travelling this whole clip low key lighting has been used as the scene is very dark and shadows are produced, you are also unable to see the characters full face properly. 

The still image above shows a man with a cigarette and a women standing with a gun, the scene obviously suggests it is to do with crime a film, also low key lighting is used to show something is going to happen a sense of darkness within the characters. The man is standing as the main focus of the image where you can't see his face properly as there are shadows around him covering half of his face, his body expressions shows that he is thinking about something. The women in the back also looks mysterious as she is standing with a gun, her body and facial expression also show she is up to something, hence the gun connotes a blood, death, a bad impression on the character. There is enigma code used in this image as it would make the audience think what is going to happen as the women has a gun and the man is standing calmly. The low key lighting is very effective in this still image as it tries not expose the characters especially the women in the back with the gun, moreover you are unable to recognize the gun which makes the audience think the women character is very mischievous and up to something.