Color is used in film in many ways to convey meaning. Filmmakers carefully choose colors when designing the art of the film, the sets, the lighting, and the costumes. “Filmmakers have long considered color to be an important aspect of mise-en-scene, capable of furnishing motifs that will develop across the film. Believing that color evokes definite emotions, Rouben Momoulian claimed that the director must develop 'a complete chromatic plan for the film' . . . Carl Dreyer agreed, stressing the necessity for the director to plan the color scheme to flow smoothly, 'which creates the effect of persons and objects being in constant motion and causes the colors to glide from one place to another in changing rhythms, creating new and surprising effects when they collide with other colors or melt into them'” (Bordwell and Thompson 227).
Color is actually the reflection of white light on a object. A red object absorbs all the light rays except red, which is reflected back to our eyes. Black objects absorb all the light rays; white objects reflect all of them. As light changes, color changes. Additionally, the viewer’s vision, the setting of an object (inside or outdoors), and surrounding colors in the artwork can influence the color we see. This can be especially important as you consider colors for your film.
Color Wheel
A color wheel is a visual representation of the color spectrum. It includes three primary colors (red, yellow, and blue), three secondary colors (green, orange, and violet) and six tertiary colors (red-violet, yellow-orange, blue-green, blue-violet, yellow-green, and red-orange). The color arrangement illustrates the visual “temperature” of colors, from warm (red) to cool (blue). The arrangement also shows the “active” color range (reds) to the “passive” color range (blues). Active colors appear to advance when next to passive colors, and passive colors appear to recede when next to an active color. The human eye actually sees warm colors before it sees cool colors. Generally, active colors have more visual weight than passive colors. Warm, saturated, light colors are active and visually advance. Cool, low saturated, dark colors are passive and visually recede. There are some colors that remain visually neutral.
Color Meaning
Colors may have many non-verbal associations (color symbolism), which may vary both culturally and individually. Some of these meanings may be more spurious than others, however we can identify some general properties:
Cool Color (calming): Blue, Green, Turquoise, Silver
Cool colors tend to have a calming effect. At one end of the spectrum they are cold, impersonal, antispectic colors. At the other end the cool colors are comforting and nurturing. Blue, green, and the neutrals white, gray, and silver are examples of cool colors. In nature blue is water and green is plant life - a natural, life-sustaining duo. Combine blues and greens for natural, watery color palettes. Heat up a too cool color palette with a dash of warm colors such as red or orange. If you want warmth with just a blue palette, choose deeper blues with a touch of red but not quite purple or almost black deep navy blues. Cool colors appear smaller than warm colors and they visually recede so red can visually overpower and stand out over blue even if used in equal amounts.
Warm Color (exciting): Red, Pink, Yellow, Gold, Orange
Warm colors rev us up and get us going. The warmth of red, yellow, or orange can create excitement or even anger. Warm colors convey emotions from simple optimism to strong violence. The neutrals of black and brown also carry warm attributes. In nature, warm colors represent change as in the changing of the seasons or the eruption of a volcano. Tone down the strong emotions of a warm palette with some soothing cool or neutral colors or by using the lighter side of the warm palette such as pinks, pale yellows, and peach. Warm colors appear larger than cool colors so red can visually overpower blue even if used in equal amounts. Warm colors appear closer while their cool counterparts visually recede .
Mixed Cool/Warm Color: Purple, Lavender, Green, Turquoise
Colors with attributes from both the warm and cool colors can calm and excite. These are colors derived from a mix of a cool and warm color such as blue and red or blue and yellow. A cool blue and a warm red combine to create deep purples and pale lavendars. To a lesser extent, shades of green, especially turquoise and teal, also have both the warming and cooling effects born of warm yellow and cool blue. Some light neutrals such as cream, pale beige, and taupe evoke some of the same warm and cool feelings of purples and greens. The opposite or clashing color for purple is green and for green, purple.
Neutral Color (unifying): Brown, Beige, Ivory, Gray, Black, White
The neutral colors of black, white, silver, gray, and brown make good backgrounds, serve to unify diverse color palettes, and also often stand alone as the only or primary focus of a design. Neutral colors help to put the focus on other colors or serve to tone down colors that might otherwise be overpowering on their own. To some extent blacks, browns, tans, golds, and beige colors are considered warm. While white, ivory, silver, and gray are somewhat cooler colors. Yet these warm and cool attributes are flexible and more subtle than that of reds or blues.
Making a color scheme / palette
Here are some elementary color scheme design principles:
- Limit to a small number of colors, in dominant, subordinate, and accent groups.
- Don’t use too many vivid (high saturation) colors, mix up with tints.
- Begin with the basic color schemes and then expand and elaborate further.
One easy way to design a color scheme is to use black and white, plus a single "key color" or dominant color to highlight emphasized elements. A color key, or dominant color, can heighten psychological as well as composition impact.
Monochromatic hue schemes are derived from a single base color, and extended using its shades and tints. The monochromatic scheme is easy to manage, and always looks balanced and visually appealing.
Analogous colors are any three colors which are side by side on a 12 part color wheel, such as yellow-green, yellow, and yellow-orange. Usually one of the three colors predominates. One color is used as a dominant color while others are used to enrich the scheme. The analogous scheme is similar to the monochromatic one, but offers more nuances. They are less vivid, bright and saturated. They have less contrast and vibrational energy then complementary colors.
Complementary colors are opposite on the wheel. Complementary pairs contrast because they share no common colors. Complementary colors can appear very exciting and seem to vibrate when placed side by side. This scheme looks best when you put a warm color against a cool color, for example, red versus green-blue. The complementary scheme is intrinsically high-contrast. The complementary color scheme offers stronger contrast than any other color scheme, and draws maximum attention.
Double complementary (aka Tertiary) schemes use two complementary pairs. This scheme is hard to harmonize; if all four colors are used in equal amounts, the scheme may look unbalanced, so you should choose a color to be dominant or subdue the colors.
The split complementary scheme is a variation of the standard complementary scheme. It uses a color and the two colors adjacent to its complementary. This provides high contrast without the strong tension of the complementary scheme. The split complementary scheme offers more nuances than the complementary scheme while retaining strong visual contrast.
A chromatic gray is made from a mixture of color, rather than a simple blend of black and white. The result is both subtle and vibrant. Earth colors, including raw sienna and burnt sienna, raw and burnt umber and yellow ochre, are made literally from pigments found in the soil. Generally warm in temperature, when used together they create a type of analogous harmony.
Seeing and feeling color
Three factors contribute to color contrast: hue (the color), luminance (the lightness or darkness of a color), and saturation (the intensity of a color).
- The hue of a color is determined by its wavelength. The terms "red" and "blue" are primarily describing hue. Hue is the position of a color in the color wheel (it is thus cyclical).
- Saturation is the intensity of a particular color (an unsaturated color tends towards greyness).
- Luminance is the perception of brightness, tone, or (relative) amount of light.
High contrast (complementary) colors are a good choice when you want to make a strong visual statement. These colors balance each other out and command attention when used together. Low contrast (analagous) colors blend together and make your message hard to see and understand. By changing the hue, luminace, or saturation of your colors you can achieve the desired effect.
Tone and colour are the most abstract components that fill shapes and spaces; they are always present, but can be more or less complex in their distribution. When shooting a scene, there are three ways to control brightness:
A lack of contrast in tone can lead to a dull image, however this can be used creatively to carry meaning. Extreme contrast can be achieved photographically by shooting against the light (reverse-lit subject). The visual center of interest is where the lightest light meets the darkest dark.
Tools to generate color palettes:
http://kuler.adobe.com/?sdid=LZMS - Kuler is a free color-mixing tool provided by Adobe with some helpful tools for composing palettes (including many of the heuristics above), and a huge database of user-designed color palettes already available. You can grab these colors from the website using the color picker in Flash or by noting the RGB values for Flash/Jitter etc.
http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html - Another similar tool, with some slightly different default options including color-blindness adjustments!
http://colormatch5k.com - This utility will help you select a matching 6-color palette. Define a single color that you like. Matching colors will be calculated. Click a color in the palette to promote it to the primary color.
No comments:
Post a Comment