The 3 elements to creating the right mood.

Have you ever heard that a great ambience, soft lighting and romantic music is the secret to a successful date on Valentine’s day? If you haven’t then we’d recommend you pop your head into any restaurant on that day and see it for yourself. The reason why these 3 elements combined work is because they’re all crafted and combined specifically to evoke the emotion of romanticism within you. These ideas work just as well, if not better, in films and videos as they do in real life.

Ambience is all about colour.

When we’re talking about ambience, we’re talking about everything in the frame that isn’t your main subject. This includes the props, the walls in the background, other people in the background etc. Without diving too deep into colour theory, you’ll need to make sure that the colours you choose for your ambience are warm and uplifting (yellows, oranges and hints of red can help build this type of warmth up).

Lighting can add subtle context.

When we think of lighting in the romantic sense, we often think low-light (it’s more flattering on the skin) as it creates intrigue and mysterious sense of seduction. However, that’s not the only way to light a romantic scene. Lighting your scene brightly can also create a stronger sense of warmth and love in your scene as you’re removing those shadows which can often represent some sort of struggle, shyness or intrigue. Either way, how you choose to adjust the lighting will add to the subliminal context of your film.

Music will move you.

The ambience and lighting are really important to your scene (or your date) but it still won’t feel quite right without the right music. The power of music is not something to take lightly... the wrong music for your scene (a horror track for example) can evoke the opposite emotions to what you’re looking for. As music is such a diverse tool, your context would generally determine the kind of soundtrack you’d go for. Anything from an upbeat jazz track set to the perfect scene of a couple in a jazz bar or hotel lounge gazing into each other’s eyes, to an acoustic soundtrack made up of strings and bells for a wedding film soundtrack could be the right fit for you. We’ve put together a small list of tracks here for you to check out from our Filmstro library (and you can even adapt them using our 3 slider technology!)

New Music & Free Downloads

Today, we've added a new Valentine's Collection to the Filmstro app - download the app for free and click Featured -> Valentine's to explore. For you freebie seekers, we've also got a brand new free mix for you to use (royalty-free) in the form of MAYA: a perfect wedding video track.

Download Maya For Free

Happy Valentine’s Day, folks!