Colors in movies and TV: What happened to them?
Vox: If you watch a lot of movies and TV shows, you might have noticed that over the last few decades everything has gotten a lot more ... gray. No matter the kind of story being told, a sheen of cool blue or gray would wash over everything, muting the colors and providing an overall veneer of serious business.
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70369059/Screen_Shot_2020_08_22_at_6.34.20_PM.0.png)
6 comments:
This was a really interesting article to read because it was not a topic that I knew anything about. In fact I didn’t even know that this was a thing, but now that I think about it it definitely makes sense and I have definitely seen it in many TV shows and movies. However I will say that a lot of these movies are very western oriented, and maybe because my perspective as an Asian American is different because the media I consume is largely Asian media, that I haven’t really seen this kind of dull color palettes In Asian media as much as I’ve seen it in the west. In fact I feel like oftentimes a lot of the media that I watch tend to saturate their videos more would which leads me to choose the answer number three, which basically says that digital technology makes brighter colors to easy to achieve and so it’s a counter reaction to that, which I feel like is very western to do something as a declaration of going against the grain and that becoming the standard.
This article was very interesting to me. I haven’t noticed this trend in my own experiences watching movies, but now that it’s been pointed out, it’s hard to miss. One thing it makes me wonder about is the conformity of the film industry as a whole. No matter the reason, technology is good enough that most filmmakers have immense control over what their movie looks like. Why, then, would not a more varied spectrum of creative decisions be made? Instead, this article says that the film industry has melded together in terms of color timing. I thought the recurring point about marvel movies was especially interesting, most likely because they are some of the few movies mentioned in this article that I have seen. Marvel movies certainly use a lot of special effects, but they also have such a large budget and such a long dedication to realistic effects that you would think a low saturation color scheme wouldn’t be needed to cover effect mishaps.
This is something that I’ve definitely noticed but didn’t fully recognize or understand. The theory about avoiding intense colors to make the film/show feel more serious and artistic seem very plausible, although I have seen some non-dramas use this washed-out look. The apocalypse theory seems like it’s reaching but I understand the writer’s logic. I had never considered the tactic of using a desaturated filter to mask computer-generated effects, and for fantasy films it makes a lot of sense, as noticeably fake effects can take the audience out of their immersion. These desaturated colors are especially annoying for me in TV shows, as they often make the scenes very dark, and if the TV is in a sunny room it can be very difficult to see what’s happening. I don’t think it’s necessary to use dull colors to communicate a dark tone or uneasiness; the film Spring Breakers, for example, has many scenes that are intended to be scary or uncomfortable but use bright neon colors and pastels in combination with very dark tones to make it visually exciting and fit with the Florida setting.
This was very eye-opening to me as someone who is not in film and cinema. Often I feel that I overlook many elements of design in my life until something points it out to more, or an exaggeration is shoved into my face. Whether that be a vibrant sweater, that makes me question why I always wear black, or something like this equally as extreme change from everyday reality. I would like to think I didn’t notice the gradual desaturation in the media, but frankly I think trends in cinematography fall far below the radar of the public eye. However, the subtle power of this should not be understated. Colors naturally suggest things about the story to our minds. We associate memories, experiences, and feelings with certain aspects of design, which is why media is so powerful. They discuss this in the article and I couldn't agree more, it is about subtly guiding this reader through their world.
This is one of the conversations that I find myself on the wrong guess of. There are times I’ll think someone is doing something on accident or subconsciously and it’ll be intentional or vice versa. My guess here would be that it is in some way intentional though, design is enough of a conscious effort when you do that they must be able to look and realize what they are putting onto the screen. A further question that wasn’t answered for me in the article was where the pressure to put these types of colors on the movies comes from as they are being made, is it usually a choice by the designer(s) or do the producers tend to want to emulate larger movies, I imagine both are possible and both to some extent count as a conscious choice. I’m personally not super familiar with the editin process for movies, and how, especially on larger projects with lots of special effects, that workload and stylistic differences between the editors works out.
I find this article interesting because it discusses a phenomenon I never noticed or paid attention to. While explaining possible answers for the question of why this shift in color is occurring, the author also tells us how this is happening in the first place. This article reminded me how sometimes the technical aspects of the film industry can be artificial. For example, this article discusses how they altered colors of film after the fact. This concept is very unfamiliar to me as all my training has been primarily theatre and opens a whole new world of possibilities I never began to think of when watching a movie or tv show. As mentioned, a possible answer to this pattern is because digital televisions had so much color dimension and pop that filmmakers wanted to counter that so it would still feel like you were watching film as historically, film was never so saturated. I find that intriguing as well because I never thought of the avenue in which someone was going to watch one of these films. I relate that in a way to the fact that many Broadway show recordings are being released for people to now watch through a screen and wonder what adjustments had to be made as well.
Post a Comment