Color in Film

After our conversation about the importance of color in film, I was interested in researching more about it. Color and the art direction of a film needs to be carefully chosen to make sense with the script. The color palette can convey meaning, evoke emotion, and add symbolism to a film. Basically, color can make or break a film.

I've found that specific movie genres have specific color palettes. Horror movies heavily use the color blue. Apocalyptic movies are gray and faded. Disturbing movies use green a lot.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the meanings of different colors, and this is what I found:

1. RED – anger, passion, rage, desire, excitement, energy, speed, strength, power, heat, love, aggression, danger, fire, blood, war, violence

2. PINK – love, innocence, healthy, happy, content, romantic, charming, playfulness, soft, delicate, feminine

3. YELLOW – wisdom, knowledge, relaxation, joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard

4. ORANGE – humor, energy, balance, warmth, enthusiasm, vibrant, expansive, flamboyant

5. GREEN – healing, soothing, perseverance, tenacity, self-awareness, proud, unchanging nature, environment, healthy, good luck, renewal, youth, vigour, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy

6. BLUE – faith, spirituality, contentment, loyalty, fulfillment peace, tranquility, calm, stability, harmony, unity, trust, truth, confidence, conservatism, security, cleanliness, order, sky, water, cold, technology, depression

7. PURPLE/VIOLET – erotic, royalty, nobility, spirituality, ceremony, mysterious, transformation, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, mourning, power, sensitive, intimacy

8. BROWN – materialistic, sensation, earth, home, outdoors, reliability, comfort, endurance, stability, simplicity

9. BLACK – No, power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, anonymity, unhappiness, depth, style, evil, sadness, remorse, anger

10. WHITE – Yes, protection, love, reverence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, birth, winter, snow, good, sterility, marriage (Western cultures), death (Eastern cultures), cold, clinical, sterile

11. SILVER – riches, glamorous, distinguished, earthy, natural, sleek, elegant, high-tech

12. GOLD – precious, riches, extravagance. warm, wealth, prosperity, grandeur

It's important to know that different cultures have conflicting meanings for colors. For instance, black symbolizes death and mourning in Western cultures, but in Eastern cultures that's what white symbolizes.

With this newfound information, I looked up some films that I know use color in stunning and smart ways.

Some films that portray a good use of color are Oz the Great and Powerful, Memento, (500) Days of Summer, and The Matrix.

Oz the Great and Powerful uses color to tell part of the story. The first portion of the movie is in black and white (just like The Wizard of Oz). Once Oz travels to the magical land also called Oz, it slowly turns into color. And not just color, but an extremely vivid, blows-your-mind color. Just like in The Wizard of Oz, the black and white symbolizes the boring reality in which the characters live, while the bright colors symbolize the thrilling fantasy of the beautiful Oz.

The Production Designer, Robert Stromberg, talks about the use of color and says, "This was a tribute from black-and-white to Technicolor. In 1939, Wizard of Oz used this amazing three-strip Technicolor. People's eyes were blown out because they'd never seen color like it, so we played with that concept of going (from black-and-white) to really vivid color to jar the senses."

In Memento, some scenes are black and white while others are in color. The black and white scenes go chronologically and the color scenes start at the end and go backwards. Differentiating the scenes using color makes it easier to understand - especially the second time around, once you really understand what is happening. It sounds confusing, but you should really watch it if you haven't.

(500) Days of Summer goes against the norm and uses blue to symbolize love and happiness. The protagonist's love interest, Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel, was either always wearing blue or surrounded by the color blue. In the dance sequence after he spends the night with Summer, the color blue is used so much that it's almost obnoxious - but obnoxious in the best way possible. Zooey Deschanel talks about her character and the color blue:

"They wanted me to stand out in the movie. To have a colour that was only used once. It was used in the dance sequence, because everyone reminds him of Summer. But no- one else was allowed to wear blue. If I wasn't wearing a lot of blue, there would be a big blue thing, like I'd be right next to tons of blue wallpaper or a big blue poster. There would be something giant and blue somewhere in the shot! It was a cool cinematic thing. It was Marc's idea."

The Matrix uses greens and blues. A green tint saturates the picture when in the Matrix, and in the real world, a blue tint is used. The green color palette is used to represent the green text code of the Matrix code. The green color also gives it a slightly uneasy feeling. Differing colors not only symbolically show the opposing worlds, but also make the movie clearer to the audience.

In the Matrix

In the real world

I could go on and on with more examples of movies that have a great use of color. If you want to read more about it, here's a pretty cool article: http://www.fullsailblog.com/5-innovative-uses-of-color-in-film/

The Spectacular Now... Not So Spectacular

I went to Cinemapolis recently to see The Spectacular Now, directed by James Ponsoldt. The screenplay was written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the writers of (500) Days of Summer, which is one of my all time favorite movies. With this in mind, I had very high expectations for this movie.

To start off my critique, I will first say that the acting by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley (The Descendants) was great. Miles Teller played Sutter, a confused alcoholic high school senior who meets Aimee, played by Shailene Woodley. Aimee is a "not-so-typical nice girl," who influences Sutter and changes his philosophy on life. It all sounds like a great movie, but the way it was portrayed did not do it for me.

Sutter was not a likable character at all in the beginning, so I was hoping for a drastic change by the end. But there was barely a change. The slight change that did occur wasn't until the last five minutes of the movie. This caused the ending to feel abrupt and incomplete. Aimee was very sweet and an interesting girl, but some of her actions were not very realistic.

The dialogue was good, but the movie as a whole did not flow. It seemed to jump around from scene to scene and made me slightly confused. Just one example of this was when Sutter was trying to get into a bar without an I.D. and the bouncer kept rejecting him. Cut to: Sutter is in the bar having drinks with a group of girls. So... how did he get in? I understand that movies can't show everything and have to cut things out, but a lot of it seemed very disconnected.

Another aspect I was not very fond of was the overall plot. A lot of things were left open ended, which works sometimes, but I did not feel any resolution for anything. Sutter has a little speech at the end (as a voiceover) in which he talks about how he's changed. But the movie never really shows that he changed. I also felt throughout the whole movie, Sutter did not sincerely like Aimee. He was just "doing her a favor." There was just not enough of a turnaround for his character in the end.

I wanted to like this movie so badly, but I just didn't. I would watch the movie again to see if it grows on me at all. I mean, look how good the trailer is:

8 1/2

I was really confused after watching 8 1/2, but after reading the lecture I came to appreciate Fellini's work. I gained another perspective about movies like these which change the world of film making. The way the movie is formatted made me feel like I was in a dream. It was hard to tell the difference between reality and dreams. Fellini succeeds in creating a world in which the inner conflicts of the main character crash with his real life by the use of flashbacks and dream sequences. This takes more in depth with the essence of this character. It think was really interesting to see the way Fellini portrayed the inner conscience of a character. Putting it in context with film history, the use of stream of consciousness in this movie is really innovative. It revolutionized the way stories were told in a movie, from just watching the action, to actually get into the character's through symbolism camera movements, and editing techniques. One of the examples I would like to use to show the way Fellini's technique can bring the audience inside the character's head is in the movie "American Beauty":



We see that by breaking the continuity of the movie, the desires of this character are revealed to us. This other example from the movie "500 Days of Summer" shows us the state of emotion of Joseph Gordon Levitt's character by including a dance sequence in what in real life would be this character only walking to work.



I think it is really cool that films can make people accept these conventionalities. It is also pretty cool that we can break some of the rules in film to innovate the storytelling of a story.