Extremely common in TV offices, and even operating rooms, are deep dark shadows that’re supposed to be dramatic, but often look pretty ridiculous. I came upon an office scene from Clarice, and it looked like the office was lighted by candle- only half a face would show at a time.
On the Enterprise of Star Trek the Original series, the lighting system is apparently designed to shine lights directly into the crews’ eyes, while leaving the rest of the ship in the dark
So, as it happens, it’s in the news today. The homicide detectives here are on a deal where they get a base-rate allowance instead of overtime. But it’s supposed to be up to a limit, with the allowance not covering things when they do things like going more than 36 hours in a 3 day period I DO NOT KNOW THE DETAILS. It’s been reported now, because employers and unions in general have been comparing their contracted and legislated behavior to their actually pay rates (this is a society-wide re-examination, not just the police).
Anyway: for detectives in general, and homicide detectives in particular, nobody was paying any attention. No one was interested in getting paid overtime and the bosses never were concerned about paying overtime. That’s exactly how it was in real life. 
Junior hospital doctors here, who have been on a similar deal (base rate allowance, no overtime payments, lots of extra work that nobody tracks), are now going for a similar re-examination.
That was the weirdest thing. I’ve never seen any other show, or movie, that used such a directed light onn the eyes. Who came up with that?
If it actually was commonly used, the other shows/movies must have had better gaffers, because I never noticed it.
Shatner had a lot to do with it. For example, he suggested light and shadow be used when Kirk reacted to Matt Decker’s death in the Planet Killer.
The cinematographer on the series was Jerry Finnerman. He oversaw the creative use of lighting on the show.
Here’s an article that mentions a few other examples https://ascmag.com/blog/shot-craft/eye-lights
Good article, but as for Star Trek:
A quick aside: An eye light should not be confused with a “slash” of light across an actor’s eyes, a dated technique that once upon a time was a popular means of accentuating a character’s heightened emotions.
Yeah, good one. The various incarnations of CSI were notorious for that-- the labs were always dimly lit by colored gel spot lighting-- the mood was more like a club than a lab.
This kind of reminds me of the “TV candle effect” where it gets lighter in a room every time somebody blows out a candle.
Or the bluish ambient light in a bedroom gets brighter when the bedside light is clicked off.
eta: Don’t know what it was in, an old TV show, but just remembered seeing the light go off and suddenly someone switches on the white grid pattern being projected across the bed (supposedly bright moonlight through mullions of a window).
It is almost universally the case that space suit helmets in movies and TV shows have interior lights that illuminate the astronaut’s face. Real space suits of course do not have such a feature, which would make it difficult for the astronaut to see.
I’d be willing to call that a “fair cheat” though, done to serve the needs of cinema. It’d be kind of creepy if all the astronauts faces were dark, and be bad moviemaking if we couldn’t see their facial expressions.
It’s sort of like when they show a spaceship moving relative to stars in the sky. Yes, you wouldn’t notice a ship changing positions relative to stars that are billions of miles away, and at any rate, you can’t be focused on the ship and the stars at the same time, without a special lens that warps everything; but you have to show the ship moving relative to something, or it becomes clear that the ship actually stays center shot the whole time. All the audience would perceive would be a ship in the middle of the screen, just hanging there, and it would be obvious you were seeing a model against a computer generated background.
Which reminds me of the ‘top gun’ pilot removing his oxygen mask so that the cameras could see his face. Real pilots don’t do that. At least, almost never: there was a death in the Australian airforce attributed to that behavior.
I’d argue that some kind of more subtle lighting could be arranged to illuminate the actor’s face without the suit having obviously unrealistic lights mounted inside the helmet.
They’re not “obviously” unrealistic to most moviegoers.
One thing that really irritates me in TV and movies is the driver of a car turning to face the passenger he’s talking to while driving. Don’t try this in your car…
I also hate that; I’m sitting there wondering when they’re going to rear-end another car.
Automatic weapons firing when dropped and shooting multiple bad guys.
That’s just the camera technique used to show you that the room is dark without making it realistically dark where you can’t see the actors.
Extremely common in TV or movies but almost never happens in real life…