My Method Of Working Pt. 10

Different aspects of colour and its use within film. 

Another aspect of colour to consider is the effect colour can have on using colours to associate with individual or collective characters. For example, when a scene introduces a collective amount of characters at once, the director needs to establish these characters with what they are wearing, they’re physical appearance but also the colour of their clothes. The easiest way to associate a character is by sight so rather than remembering names or personality traits, we as an audience can quickly associate colours with our characters.

Colour is able to highlight a dramatic development within a film and can control our psychological response to a scene. The use of colour can signal an important change in a character within the film or can symbolise a change of landscape and surroundings. For example, the wizard of oz has black and white at the beginning of the film to represent reality and the change into colour represents Dorothy’s fantasy world of Oz. Another example of Colour coding is that of Pan’s Labyrinth where the director outwardly states that colour was a key design element because it “tells a tale when you code it carefully”. A specific colour palette was chosen for Pan’s Labrynth for the sake of the plot continuum. The two worlds in Pan’s Labrynth sometimes reflect each other in terms of dinner tables etc. their only difference and separation being that of the colour and texture.

Colour can also be used a a symbol or clue in the inner plot of a film. For example films like The Sixth Sense utilise the colour red to symbolise the ‘tainting’ of a physical object in reality. For example the mother of the child wears a red coat throughout the film and roses tend to always be in the background of a scene. Another instance of red being a repetitive symbol is that in the film ‘American Beauty’ where red symbolises the desires of the main protagonist. If he desires something or wants something it will be surrounded by red i.e. red will be in the foreground and the background of a scene.

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