Whether you are creating a scary atmosphere for a movie, theater play or haunted house, there are a few special lighting techniques that are helpful for building suspense. Horror movies and spooky attractions often utilize various flashing, pulsing or dim lighting methods to create deep shadows and disorientate the viewer.
Black Light
Black lights are special bulbs or lamps designed to emit ultra violet light that the human eye can barely see, according to the University of Illinois Department of Physics. While these lights don't add very much visible light to brighten a room, some ultra violet reactive materials or paints will glow white or a pale shade of green or yellow when exposed. Black lights are an easy way to create a ghostly apparition in a room by flooding the area with ultra violent light, then slowly moving a wispy UV reactive figure across the scene. The dim, violet color of the light a black light does emit can be disorientating or create strange looking shadows that add to the spooky atmosphere.
Strobe Lights
Bright, repetitive flashing is the most common mode of lighting offered by a strobe light. If no other lighting is used, the constant change between bright light and total darkness will confuse visitors of a haunted house or viewers of a horror movie say the experts at Animated Lighting. Taking advantage of their distracted state is easy and allows for a bigger reaction to a quick moving prop or sudden appearance of a startling character. The confusion of watching a scene or standing in a room with a strobe light flashing also allows for mimed violent acts to look more realistic.
Flickering Light Bulbs
Constant flickering of the light bulbs in a room creates the feeling of a ghost or an electrical disturbance, according to the Yard Haunters website. Lighting controllers are easily installed to vary the electricity run to lamps and light fixtures, creating a random pattern of flickering and dimming. Sound reactive devices can also be used to control the effect based on the wail of a ghost or the footsteps of visitors. Specialty light bulbs designed to flicker randomly can also be found, but they can blow in the middle of a movie scene or haunted house tour and usually have a very short service life.
Lightning Flashes
As the thunder of a spooky storm rolls in, lightning should also flash. But creating the right split-second flash of bright light can be trickier than you think, especially when you want to align it perfectly with a sound effect. Wolfstone's Haunted Halloween website says that there are a number of sound-reactive lightning lighting effect controllers available that trigger a short, bright flash when a specific sound is heard. Some models feature direct wiring to prevent laughter or other sounds from setting off the flash. Anyone who is comfortable with electrical wiring and working with circuit boards can also create their own lightning controller.