# Soap opera lighting. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 19, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603 "2009-02-19T20:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/1 "2009-02-19T20:57:03Z")
What’s the deal with the lighting on soap operas. It seems “darker” or something, than any other shows. Even just casually flipping through the channels, you could pick out which shows were soaps, just by the look. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/2 "2009-02-19T21:14:20Z")
I believe it’s film vs. video. They have two very distinct looks. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/3 "2009-02-19T21:32:41Z")
I think regular shows adjust the lighting depending on which character is being shot, so that the lighting for the person facing left is different than the lighting for the person facing right. But soap operas don’t want to take the time to adjust the lighting, so everything is evenly lit. (And in my experience, these shows are more brightly lit, not darker.) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2009, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/4 "2009-02-19T21:37:27Z")
FYI, the Wikipedia [article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera) on soap operas says that the reason they look different is that soaps use something called [back lighting](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_lighting). ---
**Author:** ![RogueAOV](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecb155/32.png) [@RogueAOV](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RogueAOV)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/5 "2009-02-20T07:26:00Z")
IFIRC a Australian soap opera from the nineties called Neighbour’s was actually shot on a actual street and the actors et all took over the houses a few hours a day for the filming so the sets etc would not need to be build and stored etc so the lighting would be restricted by the actual construction of the house. Might this also apply, and explain some of the less than stellar performances? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/6 "2009-02-20T07:41:07Z")
Neighbours is an entirely different type of soap to Days of Our Lives and that sort of thing. To my eye the American soaps seem to use much softer lighting. Edit: The backlighting described above is what I’m seeing. Australian soaps use more natural lighting, and more mundane settings. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/7 "2009-02-21T19:38:50Z")
When I was a kid, I always assumed that Soap Operas sucked so much that they couldn’t afford to turn on any extra lights during production. I am still not not convinced this is not the case. I find the lighting completely unwatchable regardless if all the female cast member broke out into random orgies from time to time. I have always wondered that myself. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/8 "2009-02-21T20:27:54Z")
I’ve never noticed the lighting differences; but one thing I have noticed about the soaps is that the camera angles are different than regular TV shows. Soaps are almost all close-ups of the face;-- no large backgound sets, and no action. Nobody ever runs, nobody fights, no shots of cars driving off at high speed, etc. The background is rarely visible, either. (for example :On a sitcom like “Friends”, when they were sitting around the coffee shop, you saw the whole room,a dozen silent people in the background, and the main actors on the couch in the foreground. In a soap, you’ll only see the actors on the couch, not the whole room, and no unnecesary people in the background.) ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/soap-opera-lighting/486603/9 "2009-02-21T23:42:21Z")
There is a soap on CBS, maybe two, that now shoots on handhelds, outside. It looks very un-soap like.