How To Color: Film Edition

In the 21st century film industry, ‘color’ means more than just something that isn’t black and white. It refers to the tones of a film, meaning, does the film look warm, cool, or neutral?

The color of the film typically represents the overall tone of the film, such as lighthearted or moody. However, sometimes the color of the film is done deliberately, per the vision of the director/director of photography. Can you imagine The Dark Knight trilogy being in red, pink, and yellow tones rather than the cool blues and greys? Or Alice in Wonderland being muted, rather than having bright and vibrant hues?

There are lists upon lists that discuss what color is used for in filmmaking. For instance,

1. Color can simplify complex stories (having different color stories for heroes & villains, for example)

2. Color makes the audience feel (warm tones are happier, cool tones are moodier, grey tones are more mundane)

3. Color shows a character’s journey (from duller to extremely saturated)

4. Color can communicate a film’s ideas (take in Star Wars, The Force Awakens, where in a scene between Han Solo & Kylo Ren, it goes from light, to half light and dark when Ren is believed to be struggling, to washed in red to show his ultimate ‘dark side’ decision) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw-PFWJDObI

Think, for a second, the filmmaking of Wes Anderson. He is a director known for being deliberate and conscious of the coloring of his film. Each film has a distinct color palette, and he never strays from that color palette. Set dressings, costumes, and props reflect the color in real life, and then are just magnified and brightened in post production.

Another example of deliberate coloring would be Disney animated films, from the beginning. Take a look at these complete color palettes and see if you can guess which films they’re from.

There are a few key factors when considering color, and one big factor would be consistency. If you aren’t consistent in your color, the significance of the color won’t be apparent or transparent.

Another key part of being a colorist would be collaboration, because again, you are collaborating with the director and director of photography to achieve the vision they intended when conceptualizing the film.

Professionals provide warnings to directors and producers regarding the mindset of “fix it in post”, because that heavily relies on the skill of the post production specialists, including the colorist. If you aren’t giving the colorist good footage to start with, there is only so much that person can do to achieve the intended vision. They also advise for a colorist to learn all the scopes of color, and then unlearn them so they can intentionally follow or break them.

(Did you guess Aladdin and Lion King? You'd be right if so.)