Why So Blue; Or, How Color Helps Film Tell Its Emotional Story
In order to make a film, many different creative minds must come together. One of the most underrated and important jobs done on any film set comes from the mind of the cinematographer—head of the camera and lighting crews that is responsible for the overall visual aesthetic. One job of the cinematographer is to decide a film or television show’s color grading, or color palette, which is enhanced in post-production. The colors that are chosen at this moment are not only important to the overall visual aesthetic, but also to the emotions they might add to enrich the narrative. Based on color theory, color psychology, and film theory, the specific color that is used in a film conveys a particular emotion that serves the story; furthermore, to fully explore the usage of colors, one must look at a select number of films with distinct color palettes to understand what they add to the emotional and thematic atmosphere. ...