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Friday, March 02, 2018
Oscar-Nominated Costume Designers on Their Use of Color
Variety: People who need custom furniture in the future may be able to feed the design into a program and then have robot-assisted carpentry do the rest.
7 comments:
Rachel Kolb
said...
This concept of the power of color is enforced all around us in our every daily lives. I think out of all the films that were discussed in this article I noticed the use of color the most in “The Phantom Thread”. I wasn’t a fan of the movie itself, but the costume design was beautiful, not just in the female lead, but in all of the characters. The use of the color in Alma’s dresses really complimented her personality and her situation throughout the film and how that changed. Through the evolution of the costumes and the colors used you got to see the evolution of her character. Here in the CMU program I think this concept of the power of color is really stressed in out classes. I think this is making the students as designers more aware to the power of the elements of design that some people overlook. The study of the elements of design have really made me more aware of them and has allowed me to see deeper into film and television past just the basic story line. In film and television, the design itself almost becomes a character that tells you more about the story and you just have to look a little harder to see deeper. Since this study of the elements of design I haven’t been able to just sit down and watch something without analyzing it, and I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it does go to show that I’m listening in classes and the tuition money is doing something.
Having now studied semiotics with Susan in basic design, color has taken on completely new meanings for me. I had previously attached all sorts of emotions and memories with color, but entirely subconsciously-- and a large part of a costume designer’s job is to make the audience associate certain things about a character’s personality and desires with said character based on the clothes they choose to put on their body. Part of what makes costumes so exciting to me is the fact that clothes are a visual introduction of yourself to others without needing to say a single word. I think this concept is strongly present in this year’s Oscar-nominated films-- especially in Beauty and the Beast and The Shape of Water. The golden-yellow dress Belle wears in the ballroom scene is so strongly associated with her character that it’s difficult to think of the film without it. It was also particularly interesting to read how the costume designers of Darkest Hour made the color black, worn as a sort of uniform for those in mourning, read on camera. I hadn’t realized the need for layers of texture to really bring out an otherwise flat color and really immortalize the characters of the film in people's minds.
This is a concept that I fully believe in. Colors tell stories, they are a window, a portal through which we can observe others’ inner emotions and deep personality traits. Colors affects all of us, both consciously and subconsciously, so deciding what colors to dress a character in is a huge and important choice to make. The color of a character’s costume changes the audience’s perception of who the character is. The costume designer has to take into account the universal semiotics of colors in the cultural context of the audience of the movie, but also use those responses and those colors in a new, innovative, successful way. Blue can mean sad in certain cultural contexts, but you can bend the rules and make orange mean sad. I always love looking for colors and deciphering the semiotics of them in movies, and I find it really exciting when I see colors used in a fresh and effective way.
I think color is a really interesting element of design. It is so powerful and is able to transform a dress into a beautiful piece of art. I think that color is really hard to work with, especially when you are trying to convey some type of message because each color holds such different meanings to each individual depending on their culture and background. This is why I think the fact that all of these designers were able to extract such fundamental and universal meanings from color and incorporate it into their design is incredible. Its amazing to think about how a simple component such as color can evoke such intense emption within us all. It may not be explicitly clear to the audience and some would argue that it is a wasted effort. I, however, am of the belief that humans are symbolic creatures and we will always, even if subconsciously, pick up on subliminal meanings.
This is a concept that I fully believe in. Colors tell stories, they are a window, a portal through which we can observe others’ inner emotions and deep personality traits. Colors affects all of us, both consciously and subconsciously, so deciding what colors to dress a character in is a huge and important choice to make. The color of a character’s costume changes the audience’s perception of who the character is. The costume designer has to take into account the universal semiotics of colors in the cultural context of the audience of the movie, but also use those responses and those colors in a new, innovative, successful way. Blue can mean sad in certain cultural contexts, but you can bend the rules and make orange mean sad. I always love looking for colors and deciphering the semiotics of them in movies, and I find it really exciting when I see colors used in a fresh and effective way.
I think one use of color we, as a community, rarely think about, but that I am trying to think about more, is our different reactions to different colors. I remember one basic design class, we were talking about wedding dresses, and how the custom in the western world is to wear a white dress (for "purity", really to show that you have the money to buy a dress you will only wear once, but that is a different rant), and in eastern culture the custom is to wear a red dress. I western culture, to wear a red wedding dress would be scandalous. That two sides of the world have so very different reactions to the color of a dress is a really interesting topic of conversation. Coming back to color theory in film and television costumes, it would be interesting to take a poll of people around the world about the costumes in world-popular media. How does the semiotic meaning change when the color theory of your culture is different than that of your neighbors?
One of most easily identifiable aspects of costume design is color. In each situation, it is more than just the color itself, it is also the relationship between colors that makes one pop. This is done in all 5 of the films, where the character goes through a journey. Where I noticed this most easily was in Shape of Water, where the costume designer sets a series of rules and then deliberately breaks them. In that case it is the overarching effect of the costumes, not just an individual outfit. Another aspect that makes that design so successful is the fact that she stays within the time period, but also uses that language to define to character. To me a big part of costume design is using the rules of the world to show the characters relationship to others. Ultimately, that is what makes all of these designs work is their expression of the characters.
7 comments:
This concept of the power of color is enforced all around us in our every daily lives. I think out of all the films that were discussed in this article I noticed the use of color the most in “The Phantom Thread”. I wasn’t a fan of the movie itself, but the costume design was beautiful, not just in the female lead, but in all of the characters. The use of the color in Alma’s dresses really complimented her personality and her situation throughout the film and how that changed. Through the evolution of the costumes and the colors used you got to see the evolution of her character. Here in the CMU program I think this concept of the power of color is really stressed in out classes. I think this is making the students as designers more aware to the power of the elements of design that some people overlook. The study of the elements of design have really made me more aware of them and has allowed me to see deeper into film and television past just the basic story line. In film and television, the design itself almost becomes a character that tells you more about the story and you just have to look a little harder to see deeper. Since this study of the elements of design I haven’t been able to just sit down and watch something without analyzing it, and I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it does go to show that I’m listening in classes and the tuition money is doing something.
Having now studied semiotics with Susan in basic design, color has taken on completely new meanings for me. I had previously attached all sorts of emotions and memories with color, but entirely subconsciously-- and a large part of a costume designer’s job is to make the audience associate certain things about a character’s personality and desires with said character based on the clothes they choose to put on their body. Part of what makes costumes so exciting to me is the fact that clothes are a visual introduction of yourself to others without needing to say a single word. I think this concept is strongly present in this year’s Oscar-nominated films-- especially in Beauty and the Beast and The Shape of Water. The golden-yellow dress Belle wears in the ballroom scene is so strongly associated with her character that it’s difficult to think of the film without it. It was also particularly interesting to read how the costume designers of Darkest Hour made the color black, worn as a sort of uniform for those in mourning, read on camera. I hadn’t realized the need for layers of texture to really bring out an otherwise flat color and really immortalize the characters of the film in people's minds.
This is a concept that I fully believe in. Colors tell stories, they are a window, a portal through which we can observe others’ inner emotions and deep personality traits. Colors affects all of us, both consciously and subconsciously, so deciding what colors to dress a character in is a huge and important choice to make. The color of a character’s costume changes the audience’s perception of who the character is. The costume designer has to take into account the universal semiotics of colors in the cultural context of the audience of the movie, but also use those responses and those colors in a new, innovative, successful way. Blue can mean sad in certain cultural contexts, but you can bend the rules and make orange mean sad. I always love looking for colors and deciphering the semiotics of them in movies, and I find it really exciting when I see colors used in a fresh and effective way.
I think color is a really interesting element of design. It is so powerful and is able to transform a dress into a beautiful piece of art. I think that color is really hard to work with, especially when you are trying to convey some type of message because each color holds such different meanings to each individual depending on their culture and background. This is why I think the fact that all of these designers were able to extract such fundamental and universal meanings from color and incorporate it into their design is incredible. Its amazing to think about how a simple component such as color can evoke such intense emption within us all. It may not be explicitly clear to the audience and some would argue that it is a wasted effort. I, however, am of the belief that humans are symbolic creatures and we will always, even if subconsciously, pick up on subliminal meanings.
This is a concept that I fully believe in. Colors tell stories, they are a window, a portal through which we can observe others’ inner emotions and deep personality traits. Colors affects all of us, both consciously and subconsciously, so deciding what colors to dress a character in is a huge and important choice to make. The color of a character’s costume changes the audience’s perception of who the character is. The costume designer has to take into account the universal semiotics of colors in the cultural context of the audience of the movie, but also use those responses and those colors in a new, innovative, successful way. Blue can mean sad in certain cultural contexts, but you can bend the rules and make orange mean sad. I always love looking for colors and deciphering the semiotics of them in movies, and I find it really exciting when I see colors used in a fresh and effective way.
I think one use of color we, as a community, rarely think about, but that I am trying to think about more, is our different reactions to different colors. I remember one basic design class, we were talking about wedding dresses, and how the custom in the western world is to wear a white dress (for "purity", really to show that you have the money to buy a dress you will only wear once, but that is a different rant), and in eastern culture the custom is to wear a red dress. I western culture, to wear a red wedding dress would be scandalous. That two sides of the world have so very different reactions to the color of a dress is a really interesting topic of conversation. Coming back to color theory in film and television costumes, it would be interesting to take a poll of people around the world about the costumes in world-popular media. How does the semiotic meaning change when the color theory of your culture is different than that of your neighbors?
One of most easily identifiable aspects of costume design is color. In each situation, it is more than just the color itself, it is also the relationship between colors that makes one pop. This is done in all 5 of the films, where the character goes through a journey. Where I noticed this most easily was in Shape of Water, where the costume designer sets a series of rules and then deliberately breaks them. In that case it is the overarching effect of the costumes, not just an individual outfit. Another aspect that makes that design so successful is the fact that she stays within the time period, but also uses that language to define to character. To me a big part of costume design is using the rules of the world to show the characters relationship to others. Ultimately, that is what makes all of these designs work is their expression of the characters.
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