Movie lighting vs Still photography lighting

快樂牛郎

In movies we often see scenes that are either dimly lit or backlit where the subjects are in the shadow or "underexposed" with a brighter background.  However, in still photography, usually at least part of the main subject would be fully exposed with a somewhat darker background. I wonder if there's a particular reason why the light treatments are so different in the two cases?

chobit

Here my pick.
In photography, we want to include the details that we want to include in a single frame.  While you don't necessary have to have everything lite up, we want to include all the micro details we as a photographer would like to include in it.
As for video, we simply don't stop the video and review them frame by frame.

For action movie, they may focus on the main subject
But then, if the video is to document a location (Travel), quite often, the exposure would be photography like.

Here is a photography example where the background is relatively dark, and the key subject is exposed normally.  They would probably do the same in movie if they would to do a close up to the person for a couple of seconds.

just my 2 cents.

快樂牛郎

Right, this is a good example of what I meant.

Another person said that because you have sound and motion in a movie, the detailed features of the person are not as important as the mood that's to be conveyed.

And another person said it's because there's a lot of heat and electricity issue if you have to light up a movie scene with the power of flash on still cameras.

MoiRhapsody

bad for still photo but ok for film

bad for still photo but good for film

good for both.

in motion picture you got more tools then the light to attract audience.
motion still takes a huge part of it.

快樂牛郎

ya, motion as well as context...but is there any chance that we are just accustomed to seeing dim lights in movies so it appears normal to us? And same for photos, but in an opposite way.