Can anyone give me a few tips on how I could get that expressionistic lighting from the 40's that was the trademark of 'Film Noir'. Does it have to do with lighting only one side of the subject? Thanks

Citizen Kane has some awesome examples. Check out the initial scene in which the reporters are pondering the meaning of"rosebud." The lighting in that scene is just incredible.

french definition; film noir means literaly black cinema. but since you can't logically film your subjects in the dark. what this means filmilcly is that there is going to be lots of high contrast. real dark cast shadows, and the little light that is shown begans to become vety important, drawing the eye of the audience to that point.

ok enough film 101. to achieve this i believe you can use three point lighting. if you want it real dark, place the key light past 90 degrees from the camera at eye level, this will highlight the face. the fill light you can place 45 degrees on the oppisite side. this will need to be super soft almoast non existant. place some backlights behind the subject to seperate them from the background.

if lighting large areas, use ase many cross and vertical shadows, or beams of light as possible depending on form. there must be contrast. as if the light is simply a line, this is eisier to do with shadows that actual light.

Thanks for the help guys! Much appreciated.

Gregg Toland used a custom built camera and special lights to get the look in Citizen Kane, meaning that even current day Panavisions wouldn't be able to shoot that style, unless they were adjust properly. (Toland adjusted the camera to cut down on the refraction that occurs naturally inside the lens of a camera, and had special gates and aperatures put in as well)

But to get really deep blacks/high contrast, you need a very strong light and meter your f-stop to bright points on the subject. This will drastically underexpose the other areas and make them appear black.

Another thing is using "nagative fill". This term is the opposite of a fill light or the opposite effect that a bounce card has.

The idea is to cut down the fill light as much as possible, and so to do that, you cover the walls, floors, ceilings, as much as you can so that the ambient light doesn't bounce around. Because you need something non-reflective, a lot of people use things like suede,velveteen, dark blankets, things like that. And just hang them EVERYWHERE. You'd be surprised just how much light things bounce around the room once you start covering them up. Even your own t-shirt can create a pretty strong fill light if it's the only thing reflecting light in a room.

Also you can use black wrap or flags to put BEHIND the light, because light leaks out of the back of lights as well, and that will stop the ambient light from bouncing around too.

Video I guess you can adjust the contrast in post, in film you can just overexpose the negative a bit to burn the print and get blacker blacks.

I shot something in fim noir style and used no fill light at all, because the light off the key bounced enough off the wall my subjects were standing next to just enought to slightly fill it in, VERY SLIGHT.

(the walls they were standing near were the only walls not covered in a dark material, everything else was, even the floor)