BLOG QUESTION ADV: LIGHTING RATIO'S

In a detailed paragraph, please answer the following questions:
1. In your own words, explain what lighting ratios are.
2. What is high key lighting used for? What is low-key lighting used for?
3. How can you put this principle into effect with your film noir shoot?

Lighting ratio refers to the difference in the amount of light coming from your key light to your fill light. The higher the ratio (high key lighting), the higher the difference from the key and fill, the more dramatic and noir-like the image looks.  Low-key lighting is used to create flatter images, good for sitcoms. I can put this principle into effect for our film noir shoot, depending on the gravity and emotion of the scene that I want to convey. For more dramatic scenes, I'd use high-key lighting to enhance the contrast of the image. For scenes that have softer characters and that are more light-hearted, I can use low-key lighting.