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Curiouser & Curiouser

Remember the man curling up in dark corner in the loft? That's the scene when Peg first met Edward in Edward's house in the movie Edward Scissorhands. The scene was shot from Peg's view, which would also be the viewer's view that when she saw The back lighting used on Edward gave Edward a feeling of mysterious and gave Peg a sense of uncertainty. Because Peg was in a total unfamiliar environment and so are the audience. The audience doesn't know what will happen in the film, and that's exactly what the effect of the technique of back lighting gives to the viewers. Another Lighting technique that Burton used in Edward Scissorhands is that he used a total different high key lighting in the scene when elder Kim was telling story to her granddaughter at the end of the movie. The using of the high key lighting here gives the audience a feeling of warm and honest atmosphere between the two generations. Because Kim knew Edward when she was younger, so it also gives the viewer that she was opening herself to her granddaughter even though she didn't really say who the girl was in the story.

In Burton's other film, Corpse Bride, Burton again used a lot of high key and low key in different scenes in the movie. For example, when Emily found out that Victor was lying to her, she crawl up to Victoria's balcony and when they saw her, there was a strong light shining on her face to light her up. In this case, the front lighting is a feeling of excitement and surprise indicating that Victor and Victoria didn't know that Emily would find out Victor's lie so when she appeared to be in Victoria's house, they were both in shock. The purpose of using the strong high key lighting here is giving the audience a "oh my god!" feeling for Emily's presence, and also pointed out that the truth is out; an exposure of Victor's lie. Burton of course used low key lighting in Corpse Bride as well. He used the technique on the lord when the lord was overhearing about Victoria's fiance, Victor's situation and he wanted to take the advantage of it by marrying Victoria. The low key lighting creates a lot of shadow and the character, the lord, tend to be seen as dark and suspicious, which in the scene, with his scheme, he was suspicious. On the viewer's perspective, the lighting technique used on the character gave the audience a sense of uncertainty and doubt; viewers could tell that the lord was plotting on his scheme by the lighting, because it's dark and wicked.