colour in film making 5

8/2/2019 Colour in Film Making 5

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Designing Colour in Film

The control of colour as a collaborative process

By Pedro Moura


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Designing Colour in Film - The control of colour as a collaborative process

Contents

1.Intoduction

2.The Filmmaking Team

a.Production Design

b.Cinematographer

c.Director

d.Digital Post-Production

3.Film Colour Theory

a.Light

b.The Colour Systems

c.The Basic Components of Colour

d.Contrast And Affinity

e.Colour Schemes

4. Film Study

a.Hotel 66by Anthony Chen (2009)

b.Le Fabuleux destin dAmelie Poulin by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2001)

c. Trois couleurs: Bleu by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1993)

5. Conclusion

6. Bibliography

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1.Introduction

In this dissertation I will make an investigative study of own to design colour in the

filmmaking process. This study will revolve mainly around production design,

cinematography and digital post-production. I want to explore the process that dictates

the colour in the finished film.

Early concept ideas, paints used on the set, the chosen film stock and ultimately the

digital colour grade; I am interested in exploring all this and the process that goes

between the major creative players in the filmmaking team.

Ill start with a general description of which the key players are, their responsibilities

and resources.

After Ill state the principles of colour theory. Even though this will be a rather

technical part of this dissertation, it is paramount for the discussion and understanding

of the control of colour in film.

With this acquired knowledge, a review of different films will be made. These films

are all different in the way they manipulate colour. They shouldnt stand out by only

one technique and Ill try to demonstrate how the different areas (design,

cinematography and digital post) have collaborated on manipulating colours to create

the wanted film.

The first reviewed film is my own project at the NFTS; it was the first year film

called Hotel 66 (2008), and I believe it was an exceptional collaboration between

directing, cinematography and production design. Even tough for now we havent

colour graded, the final result was spot on what we wanted to achieve. I will try to

make a report on all the process and collaboration that we went trough to make this

film.

The second review is Le Fabuleux destin dAmelie Poulain by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

(2001). This was and exceptional film, especially by its control of colour in the digi

post. Ill do research on this subject and find out how and why they chose that

particular look.

The third and final review is one of the Three Colours Trilogy by Krzysztof

Kieslowski. The first film on this trilogyBlue, uses the symbolism of the colours that

compose the French flag to express different themes: liberty, equality and fraternity, in

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this case liberty. Even though the references to the French ideals are quite tenuous, I

want to understand why and how this masterpiece was created. How does the colour

symbolism pass through to the story and why these specific colours were chosen?

My goal is at the end of this dissertation is to have a better understanding on how to

control colour in the filmmaking process to achieve a specific purpose and look for a

film.

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2.The Filmmaking Team

a.Production Design

The term Production Design was defined in 1939 when, for respect to the amazing

work of William Cameron Menzies, on the film Gone with the Windby Victor Fleming

(1939), David O. Selznick(Producer) recognized that Menzies did much more that just

set design; through storyboards and blueprints he structured each scene, thought about

camera movements, framing and composition for each shot. Menzies expanded the

function of the art director beyond the creation of sets and scenery, to include the

responsibility for visualizing a motion picture.

Production Design is one of the key creative roles when creating an overall look of

a film, a Tv programme, music videos or adverts. The responsibilities of this job are to

select the setting and the style to visually communicate the story. To achieve the visual

feel and the aesthetics wanted, collaboration inside and outside the art department is

paramount.

In the art department the production designer guides concept artists, draughtsmen,

and model makers. Eventually he also leads painters, carpenters, plasterers and set

dressers. Also the costume designer, the key hair and make-up stylists, the special

effects director and the location manager report and take the production designers

vision to establish a unified visual appearance to the film.

Its main requirements are the ability to share ideas by sketches, have an

understanding of colour, line, form, composition and perspective, have some

knowledge of history and a sense of the appropriate.

Production designers use sketches, illustrations, photographs, models and

storyboards to plan every shot of the film. Imagination, technique, illusion and reality

are cornerstones of the job.

Even though its mostly considered to be only an artistic job, theres a lot of finance

and planning involved. Production Designers are responsible for the selection, creation,

and construction of the sets, locations and environments for a movie. They are fiscally

responsible to the producer for the design and construction of sets. They are artistically

responsible to the director.

In terms of the control of colour, the best and first way to do it is to control the

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colours of the set and the props in the shot. The production designer has to be aware of

the great impact the colours have on the mood of the audience. Keeping the colour

palette simple and limiting the colour choices will allow to give the film a more visual

meaning to the audience.

Production Designers can manipulate the hue, brightness and saturation of an

objects colour from scene to scene or from sequence to sequence.

The designers have the ability to control colour to a great extent. Excellent

examples are The Red Desertby Michelangelo Antonioni (1964) where everything on a

street scene, including fruits and vegetables on a cart, was painted grey, or in Peggy

Sue Got Marriedby Francis Ford Coppola(1986) where the art department painted

grass with an unusually saturated green and also painted the sidewalks purple.

b.Cinematographer

To most, cinematographer and director of photography (DP) are interchangeable

terms. Usually in England the system of camera department hierarchy separates the

duties of the DP from the camera operator. The DP is consulted for lighting and

filtration, and the camera operator for framing and lens choices. In this case the DP is

often called lighting cameramen.

Nowadays, almost everywhere the most commonly used American system has been

adopted; all the rest of the camera department is subordinated to the DP, who, along

with the director has a final word on all decisions related to both lighting and framing.

The DP is responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the

image; he selects the film stock, lens, filters and lights to realize a scene in accordance

with the intensions of the director.

The domain of the cinematographer is the camera, composition, light, and

movement. The choices of lenses is abundant, and have a profound impact, they define

the frame and the perspective. The film stock and the laboratory processes have a great

impact on the colour and the visual texture.

In terms of filters, there are two ways of using them to control colour; The

cinematographer can use filters in front of the camera or in front of the light source.

Even though adding colour filters to the camera lens can be tricky, both methods are

an effective way to control colour, and there are a number of standard filters called gels

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that can be used and are a reliable way to change colours in specific ways.

What we see with our eyes is not what the film will capture, so the best way to

predict is to test gels, light and film stock.

The chosen film stock and the method it is exposed will also have a profound impact

on the colours; The stocks will differ hugely, mainly on their ASA( sensitivity to light)

and their manufacturer.

The stock can look warmer or cooler, more or less saturated, have better shadow

detail, or appear more contrasty.

For the control of colour in camera, the cinematographer can also use the time and

the location. The time of day and the whether condition will influence colour in a very

particular way, so sunrise will appear more lavender, noon is more blue, and sunset is

more red. There is also the called magic hour, when there is still light but the sun is

below the horizon, where the light is very unusual and it has no shadows.

When the weather is overcast, the light is more blue because the direct rays from the

sun (which are more red than the skylight) are held back by the clouds.

The chosen location will also have an impact on the outdoor light colour; when

shooting near a read brick wall, the overall colour of the light reflected will be more red

than the light coming directly from the sky; in a forest the reflective light will be more

green.

Taking all this is consideration, the cinematographer has a lot in his power to chance

the colour in a film; but because there are so many there variables, testing is paramount.

c.Director

A movie director is the central creative force. He decides on how the movie should

look, what tone it should have, and what an audience should gain from the cinematic

experience. He is responsible for telling a story visually with a point of view. He must

have a firm idea on how to translate the script cinematically. He makes decisions about

the story, motivation, technical and aesthetic issues. They must have a strong pre-

visualization ability, and work with all the departments to achieve this vision. At the

end of the day, directors make all the final decisions on design and photographic

matters.

Film directors are responsible for approving camera angles, lens effects, lighting,

and set design, and will often take part in hiring key crew members. They coordinate

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the actors' moves and also may be involved in the writing, financing, and editing of a

film.1

The director is one of the few key players who oversee the film from pre-production

to post, including the final colour grade.

d.Digital Post-Production

As defined by its name Digital Post Production (DPP) is only involved in the

postproduction stage of a film. DPP receive the film footage and try to enhance it

according to the directors vision. Their functions vary, but Im interested especially in

the colour grade. The colour grade is the enhancement, tone down or even changing

the colours of a film. With the advent of digital cameras, the process of colour grading

can be done almost automatically; if film is used it has to be telecined first. Telecine is

the process that converts film to digital, basically by projecting the film and recording it

digitally. In Hollywood the first film to be completely digitally colour graded was O

Brother, Where Art Thou?by Joel Coen (2000) - The film was first telecined, then

digitally colour graded for several weeks, and finally the digital master was output to

film again with a Kodak laser recorder to create a master internegative.

Colour grading is often done to ensure that the recorded colours match those of the

set design. In music videos however, the goal may instead be to establish a stylized

look. Traditionally, colour grading was done towards technical goals. Features like

secondary colour correction was originally used to establish colour continuity. The

trend today is increasingly moving towards creative goals- improving the aesthetics of

an image, establishing stylized looks, and setting the mood of a scene through colour.

Because of this trend, some colourists suggest the phrase "colour enhancement" over1Karl French. "Seeing the directors point of view", Financial Times, 2006-08-27

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"colour correction".2

Some examples of films who took this stylized digital colour grading approach are:

O Brother, Where Art Thou?by Joel Coen (2000),Le fabuleux destin d'Amlie Poulain

by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2001), 300 by Zack Snyder (2006), Sin City by Frank Miller and

Robert Rodriguez (2005) and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory by Tim Burton

(2005) amongst others

The Digital Post Production can change the hue, brightness and contrast of every

frame of a film, but all this incredible flexibility shouldnt be used as an excuse to

ignore colour control during production.

3.Film Colour Theory

a.Light

To understand colour, we must first understand light. Colours we see are mere light

reflecting on an object. If we take a glass prism and shine light trough it we obtain a

rainbow, or, in another words, the visible spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and

violet. This spectrum is conditioned by the type of light we shine trough it; a candle is2Color grading from Wkipedia. 2006 by Wkipedia

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different from a 60-watt bulb, from the lights used on film sets, from a sunset and from

daylight. In the graph below we can see that a candle produces a reddish light, a 60-

watt bulb an orangish light, and a daylight is very blue in comparison. 3

b.The Colour Systems

There are 2 different colour systems we use: the additive and the subtractive system.

The additive colour system is used in lighting. If you shine two different colour

lights into one common surface, youll get a third colour. Example: if you shine red

and a blue spotlight on a subject, it will appear magenta.

In the additive system colour wheel, the primary colours are red, green and blue.

Combining two primary colour will result in one secondary colour, so if we mix red and

blue, well get magenta, green and blue well get cyan, and red and green well get

yellow. If we mix all the primary colours well get white.

3Bruce Block. The Visual Story, Seeing The Structure of Film, Tv, and New Media. New York: Focal Press, 2001

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Colours that are opposite to another on the colour wheel are called complementary

colours; in the additive system these colours are, cyan and red, green and magenta, and

blue and yellow.

The subtractive system is the most commonly used, mainly used in paints and dyes.

The colour wheel looks similar to the additive wheel, but the primary colours are

different.

The primary colours on the subtractive

colour system are magenta, yellow, and cyan. Again, mixing the primary colours will

gives us secondary colours, thus, magenta and yellow makes red, yellow and cyan

makes green, and cyan and magenta makes blue. If we mix all the colours together we

get black.

As with paints, lighting gels also work with the subtractive system.

c.The Basic Components of Colour

Colours can be classified by three components: hue, brightness and saturation.

Hue very simply tells us the position of the colour in the colour wheel: red, orange,

yellow, green, cyan, blue, violet or magenta.

Brightness is the addition of white or black to the hue. Its basicly the position of

the colour on the grey scale.

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Saturation is a bit more difficult to explain; saturation refers to the degree of purity

of the hue. For example, a fully saturated red is a red that hasnt been contaminated by

any other hue. A desaturated colour is a colour that has been contaminated by its

complementary colour.

For example lets take the hue of red as it appears on the colour wheel. () This

red is the purest, most vivid, saturated colour possible. If we add a small amount of

cyan (reds complement) to the red hue, it begins to change. The saturated red becomes

less vivid. The saturated red begins to turn grey. This is called desaturation. The more

cyan we add, the greyer the red will become. When we mix equal amounts of red and

cyan together, well end up without a trace of either hue. We will be left with grey.

We can make any colour desaturated by adding its complementary colour. When a hue

is extremely pure or vivid we call it saturated.4

d.Contrast and Affinity

Contrast and affinity is the best way to play with the control of colour in film. We

can produce contrast or affinity by changing the hue, brightness and saturation of the

4Bruce Block. The Visual Story, Seeing The Structure of Film, Tv, and New Media. New York: Focal Press, 2001

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colour or colours. We can use contrast or affinity within the shot, from shot to shot and

from sequence to sequence.

With the hue, we can have contrast in a shot when we have, for example, a blue sky,

a green field and a red car. Well have affinity of hues when we have, for example, a

blue night sky, a blue car, and a actor wearing a blue top and dark blue pants. The hue

is the same, but the brightness and saturation can vary. Two film examples of hue

affinity are The Shinningby Stanley Kubrick (1980) and Cries and Whispers by Ingmar

Bergman (1972).

With the brightness of the colours, we can also create contrast or affinity; contrast

using very bright and very dark colours in a shot or sequence, and affinity by utilizing

colours that are close in contrast levels.

Again, with saturation, the control is the same; we use affinity using, for example,

just saturated colours, and thus giving the hole film a colour unity, or we can chose by

contrasting, and, for example, alternating between saturated and desaturated shot

sequences.

Colour contrast and affinity can also be achieved by using warm or cold colours.

We can have colour contrast in the same shot, where an actor is favoured with warm

colours, and the background cold , affinity where theres no distinction, or between

shoots or sequences; one shoot is warm, and the other is cold. You can also use colour

contrast and affinity to dramatise characters or locations; one group can be warm, and

the other cold.

Complementary colours are also a great way to achieve contrast. We cannot achieve

affinity because complementary really means opposite (in the colour wheel).

We can use contrasting complementary hues to define, for example night and day

scenes; the night is bluish, and the day is yellowish.

The last resource that contrast and affinity has to offer to the control of colour is

extension. This is probably the most difficult resource to use, and even tough its

scientific, most filmmakers use an empiric, rather than theoretical approach.

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Extension deals with the brightness and size of the area a colour occupies in

relations to other colours.

So, even tough colours have different hues and saturations, what matters here is the

brightness. A fully saturated yellow is brighter than a fully saturated blue, so, if in a

frame we put them together in similar sizes, the audience will be attracted firste to the

yellow, simply because its brightest. In this scenario we achieved contrast of

extension.

In order to achieve affinity, we would need to reduce the area of yellow, so the

larger area of blue could balance it.

The key to understanding extension is to examine the colours brightness in relation

to the size of the area that the colour occupies. The brighter the colour, the less area it

needs to attract the viewers attention or balance other dark colours.

Contrast of extension can be used to draw the viewers attention to a particular area

of the screen or to give a scene balance () By creating affinity of extension, a scene

will have low visual intensity.5

e.Colour Schemes

A colour scheme is a plan from all the colours and its variables, in this case, for the

production of a film. The colours can be saturated, desaturated, bright, dark, warm or

cold.

The first and easiest way to start defining a colour scheme is the hues; Having, or

not having specific hues in a film is a good way to control the mood, or the tell a story

in a dramatic way. Taking the colour wheel as a starting point we can have five

different ways of selecting hues.

The first option is to use just one hue in the entire production. Reds by Warren

Beatty(1981) and Cries and Whispers by Ingmar Bergman (1972) stand out for using

just one hue of red.

The second option is to have complementary hues. In the colour wheel

complementary colours are defined by being opposite to each other. Any

complementary pair can be used, in many different ways; you assign one colour (ex.

Red) for the all the foreground, and its complementary colour (ex. Cyan) for all the5Bruce Block. The Visual Story, Seeing The Structure of Film, Tv, and New Media. New York: Focal Press, 2001

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backgrounds. One group of characters or locations can be one colour, and the others its

complementary colour.

The third option is to split complementary hues. You take a pair of complementary

hues, and split one of them into another pair of almost complementary colours. This

will mean that youll have three hues to work with. An example would be cyan and a

split complementary of orange and red-magenta.

The forth way is called a three-way split. It means basically choosing three different

hues from the colour wheel, usually equidistant from each other. So you could have,

for example, green, blue and red. You can assign on hue to one group of characters,

another hue to the other group of characters, and the third hue to the locations. Or

maybe two hues to a location and the third from another location.

The fifth and last way to successfully make a colour scheme using the colour wheel,

is also probably also the most difficult to achieve. This option is to have a four way

spit, meaning choosing four different hues, all equidistant in the colour wheel. One of

the best examples of the four way split is the animation Sleeping Beauty by Clyde

Geronimi (1959) where magenta and green are assigned to the evil characthers, and

orange and blue-cyan to the good characters..

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After deciding the hues, the next step is the brightness and saturation. Because its

easier to discuss hues than brightness and saturation, it comes to a point where a

physical colour script is needed. This is like a storyboard, but instead of images, youll

have different colours.

Colour scripts can be specific to each act of the story.

They can also illustrate all the colours of the entire film.

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And they can even be more complex and illustrate each sequence of the film in a

colour panel. These allow studying complex changes in colour as a story unfolds.

Another powerful and yet somewhat simpler tool in the control of colour are

graphics; these give you an reference for the colours hue saturation and brightness

throughout the film. They can be simpler and just focussed on one of the elements, ore

more complex.

The one below is only focused on the contrast or affinity of tone during the film;

Instead of only being black or white, it will actually give a grey scale. This specific

graphic shows an affinity of middle greys until the climax, where the tonal structure

changes to contrast, and then changes back to affinity during the stories resolution.

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This next graph shows the hue, brightness and saturation in relation to the story;

According to this one, the colours change from warm to cool at the climax, it begins

with contrast of brightness that shifts to affinity for the climax and resolution, and all

the colours are desaturated throughout the film.

Colour graphics are a

great way to plan and control colour in a film, but they should be only utilized as a

general guide, giving more emphasis to the colour scripts, which, because you can

actually see the colours, are more specific.

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4. Film Study

a.Hotel 66by Anthony Chen (2009)

Hotel 66was a first year fiction short film made at the NFTS. Anthony Chen was

the writer/director, John Lee was the DP and I was the production designer.

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I chose to include this film in this dissertation to further realize what we

accomplished as a team, and to share what I believe was a very good exercise of control

of colour as a collaborative process.

This film was, from the start, understood as one of the toughest 1st year films at the

NFTS for a long time; most of it due to a very ambitious set build and to a very special

story.

As such, a big emphasis was put in the pre-production; we all had the same starting

point; the script. It was a story about two immigrant workers who met in a seedy hotel

in London. One is a male prostitute and the other is a security guard. They have a

voyage through this magical space where they find themselves. It is a very subtle story,

where everything happens under the surface of the characters.The hotel is almost their hiding place, where they mostly never leave, so its treated as a

character.

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After each of us had gone our separate ways and interpreted the script by ourselves,

we came together and discussed it. The next step was to storyboard it. I sat down with

Anthony and we went through every shot. At the end of it I had a clear idea on how to

build a set that would accommodate the shots and the story we wanted to achieve. Of

course we had a limited budget and compromises had to be made, so I made six or

seven design proposals; some more ambitious, some more compromise aware. After

making a rough budget, and with the different designs, we opted for one.

It was always clear that a seedy hotel in Soho would have to stand out more for its

colour and texture than for its architecture..

The three of us went through references Id putted together in a mood board, and

some films that Anthony had prepared for us. These films included: The Hand byWong Kar Wai (2004) (segment, original titleEros),Lust, Caution by Ang Lee (2008),

andIn The Mood For Love by Wong Kar Wai (2000). These films have all a particular

aesthetics; they stand out for their refrain but lush design. Its all about the colours and

magnificent wallpapers. Its a hard compromise; on the one hand they are deeply

designer movies, but on the other hand you dont want to distract the viewer. You

dont want the viewer to look at the wallpaper and the design instead of the action.

After careful consideration, I started to put together a couple of different colour

palettes. My intuition told me that dirty and toned down browns would be a good

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solution, but this was the time to experiment and to try different things. After putting

together these colour palettes I took them to the director and the DP. Anthony was a bit

confused with all the choices, but he agreed that toned down browns was a good option.

John was more wary; as he suggested that it was to close to the skin tone and that we

risked losing the actors in the background.

The colour scheme we were trying to achieve was mainly a contrast of warm and

cold hues, mainly reds/browns and green/blues, affinity of brightness and desaturated

colours.

In terms of the colour change in relation to the story we wanted to achieve an

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constant hue brightness and saturation throughout the entire film, trying to match as

close as possible the set build with the chosen exterior locations.

At this time Id already started to search prop houses for possible props. I found

one item that I said: this is it!. It had everything I wanted: It was old, very funky

in the terms that its definitely a designers item, and it fitted the colour scheme that

Id envisioned. I showed this to both the director and the DP and they both agreed that

it was a Hotel 66 prop..

Because

we had a

very well

planned

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and prepared pre-production so far, we had time to do something that we always

wanted to do: experiment.

I set up a couple of scenic flats on which we could experiment with different

wallpapers and colours. The set up was basically the following: a person in the

foreground, a flat with different wallpapers in the middle ground and a flat with

different colours in the background. We also experimented with different lights and

lampshades. John was changing his film stock, so we experimented with Fuji and

Kodak: 100T, 200T, 500T. Basically we tried to shoot every single different

combination of paint, wallpaper, light and film stock.

This process took one entire afternoon, but the results were excellent. The next day

we sat in the cinema and watched as all the colours changed, mainly because of film

stock and lighting. We realized that there was no risk of loosing the actors in the toned

down light brown, and that wallpaper with big patterns worked much better than small

patterned ones. We also saw a great difference from Fuji to Kodak: the first one

seemed too saturated, especially in the reds and pinks, while Kodak seemed much more

smooth. We opted for the last one.

So we had chosen the film stock, roughly the lighting method, a colour pallet and

some wallpaper; the fight was long from being finished. Even though now we had all

the confidence in the world that we were going to achieve what we wanted, there are

always things that we were not able to foresee; the result was a very colour controlled

film that achieved exactly what was though in pre-production.

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b.Le Fabuleux destin dAmelie Poulin by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2001)

Amlie is a story about a girl who was a bit over protected while growing up. Her

father always told her she suffered from a weak heart. This is a film about a strange and

cute girl in a quest to do good and to find the meaning of life.

Growing up in the suburbs of Paris, Amelie was always a bit of an odd ball with a

lot of imagination. She grows up and moves to Paris where she works as a waitress in a

Monmartre caf staffed and frequented by dysfunctional individuals (a jealous man, a

writer who can't get published, a hypochondriac cigar stand matron, and an embittered

former circus performer).

When Amlie discovers a box of someones chieldhood keepsakes in her apartment,

her life takes a new direction. She decides to track down the now middle-aged man

whom the box of mementos belong, and seeing his joy at the return of his childhood,

Amlie discoveres her purpose in life and begins secretly conspiring to make the people

around her happy

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During her adventures as a self-appointed good samaritan, she comes across another

lonely soul, Nino, a young man who collects photographs of strangers discarded at

public photo booths and eventually their strange relationship blossoms into love.

In this film Jean-Pierre Jeunet, made an effort to do something different from his

previous works (Delicatessen by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1991) and The City of Lost

Children by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1995), all of them with somewhat of dark gothic

design, with muted colours and low contrast. In this film the aesthetics are cleaner and

brighter than reality (in the disc's commentary, Jeunet observers Paris is nothing like

what you see in the movie, that "there's dog shit in the streets").

The exuberant colour scheme is mainly a combination of two hues, red and green,

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witch are not complementary in the colour wheel. It terms of hues, brightness and

saturation, the film excels by having an unified affinity throughout the shoots. In this

colourful and carefully mastered film, one of the best achievements is the affinity of

extension, meaning that even tough it has very contrasting hues, the size they occupy on

the screen is very well balanced, making the brightest and lighter colours smaller in

relation to the heavier and darker colours.

The design is committed to this enhanced world with rich greens and reds with dark

pastel colours. It tries to give an exaggerated expression of reality by making

everything look busy but perfect. Its just spot on in the way that it makes you go in the

journey of the film without questioning its audacity or veracity.

The cinematography is also good, with mainly soft yellow highlights, and just

enough contrast.

The reason I decided to include this particular film in this dissertation is that, apart

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from the design, almost all of the control of colour is done in digital post production.

Jrme Arthuis was the grading coordinator and he had in his team, compositors,

matte painters and colourists. Didier le Fouest is both credited as colourist and digital

grader. The digital post production facility was the French Duboicolor.

Started in 2001 Duboicolor was one of the first companies in Europe to design its

own in-house digital grading system for motion pictures.

Their process, in this case, consisted of digitalizing the 35mm negative, colour

enhance & correction in the, back then, brand new, da Vinci Renaissance 888 also call

the GUI-Graphical User Interface, and finally the result tranfered back to a 35mm film.

With this process Jeunet used digital colour grading to achieve the rich visuals and

added a green bias to most scenes, and while at times the saturation threatens to

overwhelm, this simply adds to the feeling of make-believe propagated the movie.6

Amlie's colour scheme is vivid to say the least, glowing in saturated reds and

greens with accents of blue and yellow. It's beautifully executed and works hand-in-

hand with plot and tone, putting us in a warm world when appropriate, then shifting to a

cooler look as the emotional emphasis shifts. Jeunet and cinematographer Bruno

Delbonnel (The Cat's Meow by Peter Bogdanovich (2001)) used digital technology to

underpin the film's visceral and emotional impact. The film presents their work

beautifully in a 2.35:1 transfer that's been anamorphically enhanced, with little sign of

6DVD Review of Amelie by Michael Mackenzie, 10/17/05

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edge enhancement, digital artefacts, or source flaws.7

c. Trois couleurs: Bleu by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1993)

7 (DVD Review of Amelie by Dan Mancini, Dvd Verdict, 4/22/03

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Blue is the first film of the colours trilogy by Krzysztof Kieslowski. The colours of

the French flag inspire the films. Blue represents liberty, white, equality and red

fraternity. In this film we are confronted by Julie (Juliette Binoche), a woman who lost

her husband and daughter to a terrible car crash. The meaning of "liberty" takes on a

very different meaning for Julie in this film. She tries to gain liberty from her memories

and her emotions only to find that it is an impossible task.

Filled with amazing subtleties, like the two occasions in which we see someone free

falling on a tv (symbolizing our heroines journey), I want to concentrate purely on the

use of colour. The look of this film and its colour is done almost all in camera.

The exceptional cinematography work by Slawomir Idziak, made use of filters to

enhance and to light the sets, mainly blue. All shoot on locarion, the production

designer Claude Lenoir also used props and sets to create a bluish mood.

As the title indicates, the colour blue is used extensively during the film, there is a

trace of it in practically every shot of the film, everything from people's clothes, the

colour of ink, the paint on walls and arches, the tint of the street and the water, etc.

In relation to the story, the brightness and saturation stay the same during the entire

film, and even though the powerful blue hue is always present, towards the climax, we

see more hues being used, for example, when Julie goes to the strip club to help her

friend, or when she confronts her dead husbands former mistress in the toilet.

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An affinity of blue hue is used throughout the film, and in some small specific shots,

a contrast of complementary hues is also used, in this case, blue, and its

complementary, yellow.

In the first scene we see a child playing with a blue candy wrapper in a car. The

scene is of dubious meaning, but it all has a blue tone to it.

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When Julie comes back to the house after the accident we discover that her

daughters room was all painted blue.

In the room theres a prop used extensively throughout the film and in the last shot

before the final montage: a pendant made with blue spheres. She decides to sell the

house and get rid of all her possessions; the only thing she keeps is this pendant. As

later in the film a deadbeat flute player tells her: we all have to hang on to something.

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The scenes with this blue pendant are exceptionally beautiful. As a prop, its shape is

exquisite and elegant, filling the screen in a very satisfying way. But more, the blue

spheres are semi transparent, which provides the DP amazing shots where we see blue

light coming from the spheres and softly hitting Julies delicate face.

The scenes in the pool are some of most powerful moments in the film; the location

is all blue, including the tiles and the door off the pool. This is, off course, even more

accentuated by the blue lighting.

The blue represents the emotion of sadness and also melancholy. The colour blue

resonates for its associations with depression and coldness that are well demonstrated in

the film.8

8B446-DES379 DVD Review Of Blue Copyright by Dan Schneider, 10/28/06

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I believe this film was well thought through by Kieslowski in the sense that he knew

what he wanted in terms of colour. The DP and the PD used their respective fields to

bring the directors vision to life. Even though it is somewhat a stylized film in the

sense that the colours presented are not realistic, and that the light is not completely

explained, this I consider to be an invalid point since all films are art; films are a form

of storytelling that has no limits or boundaries, the colours are just a resource that the

film-makers have to tell a story.

This is a masterpiece from a director in full grasp of his powers and from his team

that coped with the challenge of collaborating in order to achieve a meaningful and

truly colour oriented film.

There are at least two references of the other two films of the trilogy: the first is Julie

carrying a box which, as a close-up shows, has prominently written across it the word

"blanco", Spanish for white; in the next shot we are looking at her from behind, and she

pauses in the street as a man in blue passes her on her left and a woman in red passes

her on her right. The other reference is in the pool scene where children in red and

white swim suits run out and jump in the water.

The other two films on the trilogy, White by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1994) and Red

by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1994), arent so colour orientated; theres no specific colour

associated to them, and, apart from cast and some plot, theres no apparent connection

between them. Even though they are great films, in my view, its a shame that these

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which were Kieslowskis last films didnt maintain the colour connection between the

film and its title, and between the films as a trilogy.

5. Conclusion

After all the different film reviews, and after careful examination on how the process

of control of colour in modern filmmaking evolves, I can conclude that it is, in fact, a

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process, and that all the players involved have their own tools, that combined, give the

creative and technical control needed for the director.

Also, all the elements of control, respectively production design, cinematography

and digital post production have their own specific tools, but cannot exist without each

other; its all a creative process where, to achieve a common goal, they all have to work

with each other.

The production design have to bear in mind the film stock and lights and gels the

cinematographer is going to use, and vice versa, the cinematographer has to take into

account the vision and the colours used by the designer on set.

One of the great questions that I was posed is if, nowadays with all the control given

by digital post production, the cinematographer was tempted to do less work in camera,

shooting everything flatter, with all the exposure values as broad as possible, to give

more opportunities in post.

The answer is not as straightforward as it seams; the fact is that before the digital

post production as we know it, the cinematographer had to do almost all the work of

control of colour in camera, utilizing the telecine just to minimally correct the

colours, and make sure all the shots transitions where smooth. Nowadays, he knows he

can get away with a lot more, and that if exposed correctly, the options in post are

immense. So yes, there is a big temptation to do less work in camera, leaving a lot to

post. But a good cinematographer, working with a good team, knows what it is

expected, so, he will try to get as much of work in camera as possible, not limiting his

options on post. There are, of course exceptions to this; films like 300by Zack Snyder

(2006) orSin City by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (2005) are created, having

from the start the knowledge that the digital post production is going to be immense. As

Rodriguez's recalled during production of Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams:

"This is the future! You don't wait six hours for a scene to be lighted. You want a light

over here, you grab a light and put it over here. You want a nuclear submarine, you

make one out of thin air and put your characters into it."9.

This opinion is, of course, debatable, but in nevertheless, both the production designer

and the cinematographer have to be prepared for this kind of shooting procedure, where

more emphasis is directed for post, and less for in camera work.

The conclusion is that no mater what the film is, there must be a clear vision on what

is wanted to be achieved from the start, and all the key players must submit to that9IMDB.com entry for Sin City, Trivia notes

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ideal, and use their tools accordingly.

Filmmaking in general, and the control of colours in particular, is a process of

collaboration between different departments with different competences, that if

carefully mastered, and if properly directed to achieve a common goal, allow us to put

into reality our all our wildest dreams, as colourful as they may be..

6. Bibliography

Books

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Luigina De Grandis. Theory and Use of Colour. Dorset: Blandford Press, 1986.

Ward Preston. What an Art Director Does: An Introduction to Motion Picture

Production Design. Los Angeles:Silman-James Press, 1994

Vincent LoBrutto. The Filmmaker's Guide to Production Design. New York:

Allworth Press, 2002.

Johannes Itten. The Art of Color: The Subjective Experience and Objective

Rationale of Color. Hoboken: Wiley, 1997.

Bruce Block. The Visual Story, Seeing The Structure of Film, Tv, and New Media.

New York: Focal Press, 2001.

Articles From Magazines

Holben, Jay May. "From Film to Tape" American Cinematographer Magazine,

1999.

Karl French. "Seeing the directors point of view", Financial Times, 2006-08-27.

Web Pages

B446-DES379DVD Review Of Blue Copyright by Dan Schneider, 10/28/06

http://www.cosmoetica.com/B446-DES379.htm

DVD Review of Amelie by Dan Mancini, Dvd Verdict, 4/22/03

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/amelie.php

DVD Review of Amelie by Michael Mackenzie, 10/17/05

http://10kbullets.com/reviews/amelie/

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http://www.cosmoetica.com/B446-DES379.htmhttp://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/amelie.phphttp://10kbullets.com/reviews/amelie/http://www.cosmoetica.com/B446-DES379.htmhttp://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/amelie.phphttp://10kbullets.com/reviews/amelie/


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Color gradingfrom Wkipedia. 2006 by Wkipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_grading

Color motion picture film. 2009 by Wkipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_motion_picture_film

Sin City 2009 by Wkipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_City

IMDB.com entry forSin City, Trivia notes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/trivia

Filmography

300 by Zack Snyder (2006)

Cries and Whispers by Ingmar Bergman (1972)

Charlie and The Chocolate Factory by Tim Burton (2005)

Delicatessen by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1991)

Hotel 66by Anthony Chen (2009)

Le Fabuleux destin dAmelie Poulin by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (2001)

O Brother, Where Art Thou?by Joel Coen (2000)

Sin City by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (2005)

Trois couleurs: Bleu by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1993)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_gradinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_motion_picture_filmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_Cityhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/triviahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_gradinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_motion_picture_filmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_Cityhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/trivia


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Trois couleurs: Bialy by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1994)

Trois couleurs: Rouge by Krzysztof Kieslowski (1994)

The City of Lost Children by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1995)

The Shinningby Stanley Kubrick (1980)

colour in film making 5

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