For this week’s task, we began to look at how Colour is used in film. Firstly, we looked at what colour actually is and why it is used. Colour is a form of multiple lights that can be seen in different ways. Objects that absorb different wavelengths allow us to view different colours through our eyes. We then began to look at how the uses of colour were first discovered, and the Colour Theory was a key part of this. First developed by Isaac Newton in 1666, the colour theory is made up of the three primary colours, blue, red and yellow. These colours are then presented in their different shades once being mixed with the secondary colours, orange, green, and purple, creating tertiary colours, making shades of pink, cyan and magenta. The outer circle of the colour theory is known as a colour wheel and helps creators and designers to understand what colours complement each other and how they can portray emotion and meaning. Complementary colours are often formed through two opposing colours on the colour wheel and can offer strong contrasts. Whereas, on the other hand, Analogous Colours are placed close to each other on the colour wheel. For example, different shades of pink and purples would be considered analogous colours.
There are several other colour relationships that colourists and designers refer to when deciding what colours will best complement the scene. One of these relationships is Monochromatic, meaning that most visible objects in the scene are a tint or hue of the same colour. For example, if the scene had a purple monochrome, darker objects would be a darker shade of purple, whereas lighter objects would be a lighter shade. Another relationship is the Split-Complementary Relationship which uses a colour, and two other colours that are equally spaced opposite that colour, meaning that the two similar colours are the most dominant. In addition to this, there are also Double Complementary Colour Relationships that give two opposite colours, meaning the colours could be a shade of green and a shade of cyan, whilst on the opposite side, the colours would be shades of yellow or orange. The final relationship that is used in colour design is the Triad Relationship. This includes three colours that are all equally spaced apart on the colour wheel, allowing for the scene to have three dominant colours.
After learning about the different colour relationships, we started to look at why colours are used and what they can convey. We looked at what emotions each colour could reveal, with blue giving a calm and tranquil effect, and yellow giving a sunny and happy emotion. Colour is a clever tool to use in film to portray meaning through set, costumes and props, without actually speaking any dialogue. Colours can also help to set the tone and mood. For example, if an intense scene was taking place, the colourist may choose to use a bright red light to amplify the tone of the situation. Colour can reveal information about the mood, tone, characters, and the narrative as a whole. Some films follow a similar colour pattern throughout the whole of the film so that the theme of the plot remains consecutive.
For the task this week, we were challenged to find a familiar film or television scene that we could replicate to show how we could use colour in our own work. After forming groups and researching several film clips, we decided that we would recreate the chess scene from the film, The Seventh Seal. We felt that with this film being a black and white film, this would give us an opportunity to experiment with colour in our own interpretation. The original scene had a tense atmosphere and tone and so we wanted to ensure that we portrayed this in our scene, so we firstly decided that we would need to use colours that would imply this. After some discussion, we chose the colour red to represent the intensity and mystery of the scene, with the colour orange also mixed in with the red. The colour relationship that we were going to use was an Analogous Relationship. After completing our storyboard of how we would like the scene to look, we gathered our props, camera and lighting equipment, and began to set up our scene in the Television Studio. As props, we kept things simple by using a table, two chairs, a chess board and chess pieces. After setting our scene up, we constructed our lights and chose a red and orange gel to place over them. This would make the colour emitted from the lights a shade of red and orange. Due to the opposing and competitive nature of the scene, we used two lights as we thought this would represent the competition happening on screen. After filming each of our shots using a master long shot, over the shoulder shots and a close up shot of the chess board, we began to edit our video together in Avid. I decided to adjust the colours gently to ensure that our light gels had achieved the effect we wanted them to.
Even though we were able to use colour in our piece, upon reflection, there were several changes that I would have made to the scene. One of the main aspects being spending more time on story development. When editing the scene together, it became apparent that our scene did not really reference the original scene and had no strong plot, making the scene uninteresting to watch. Furthermore, I also would have chosen a scene that would have allowed us to experiment in more depth with colour, and that had more of a meaning and theme behind it. That being said, I was pleased with how we did incorporate colour into our scene and how it reflected the mood of the scene. I will continue to reflect on the changes that I would have made to this task when creating future projects that focus on colour.
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