As i'll be colour grading the footage, the wise thing for myself to be doing whilst the edit is nearing completion is to research deeper into colour correction and the significance it has on storytelling. So I've decided to look at films which have a unique colour palette and critically analyse them to find answers on why specific colours have been utilised, additionally what the colours convey and how they support & reinforce the narrative. This will ultimately give me a greater advantage of when I come to the colour grade as through my research, it will provide me with a better understanding of what colour palette will appropriately suit our project but also how it will reinforce and convey the themes of our narrative. I want everything to be in harmony, so the colour grade has to match the general tones of the narrative.
The complimentary colour palette -
You take one colour, and combined it with its opposite, and boom you have yourself a scheme that's automatically compelling. its the source of the ever popular, ever frustrating orange teal Hollywood blockbuster look, which look, we get it, it's fun to complain about and it can get stale if used to the exclusion of all else, but film makers use it for a reason, its the colour contrast that best emphasises the look of human skin.
(Vertigo)
VERTIGO -
There is hardly a film that uses technicolor so brilliantly as vertigo, there is perhaps no other film that evokes such a strong impression as a colour palette as does it red and green, red for caution and green for envy, red for Scotty and green for Madeline. and the colour scheme is felt even in scenes of its absence the lack of these powerful colours feels like a lack of these powerful emotions, its a colour scheme so memorable that we actually feel it when its gone. which makes
The evocative colour palette -
Selecting a limited range of colours from the colour wheel, and avoiding use of the rest. I.e Tim Burton in his later work, (Sweeney Todd) we notice which colours he loves to use because of how little he utilizes other colours in his work. Or it can create a gap, like in 500 Days of Summer, or American Beauty, or The Red Shoes, these films save certain colours for certain moments and characters are able to lend those certain colours far more power than they might have with less of a vacuum. A great example of this would be Do The Right Thing, which painted everything in these red and orange tones to try to contribute to the feeling of a heatwave within its narrative.
(O' BROTHER WHERE ART THOU)
O' BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? -
Roget deakins O brothers cinematographer set out to create a dusty vintage story book kind of look for the film. He spent nearly 3 weeks in the film lab mucking about with varies different chemical processes to no avail. See Deakins palette was met to specifically avoid green but they shot in Mississippi in mid summer and it looked as he described it as greener than Ireland. so they turned to digital colour grading a main stay in modern features but a never before used technology at the time and changed film colour history. the look is incredible, all the lush greens and blues of the mid summer south are transformed into yellows and oranges and borrows and burnt oakers, invoking a dusty autumn feel without just tinting everything sepia its a more controlled refined look that comes from singling out and effecting some colours while leaving the others alone.
Vivid technicolor kaleidoscope trip palette -
This colour palette really goes full balls to the wall crazy, talking about colour grades that're like a technicolor acid trip, in these hyper-colourful films that make the audience go 'wow'. A great example of this would be in -
(THE FALL)
THE FALL -
Tarsem Singh, the Falls mad man director, took 4 years to meticulously create this multi colour wonder land across 24 different countries to an effect that David Fincher described as what would of happened if Andrei Tarkovsky had made the wizard of OZ. and he employs colour in every possible way, from the space like orange dues of the location to the sky high blood red soaked funeral banner of his set design. to the primary colour wheel costuming of his main cast. but the most important part is that he does it for good narrative reason, as the window into the vivid imagination of the little girl, the excess is explainable and it is grounded and oh so beautiful.
The selective saturation palette -
limited to the extreme, everything is in black or white except for the focal object which gets the most vivid of colour, most earliest form of colour on film, back when colours were only achieved when stencilling on stock.
(SIN CITY)
SIN CITY -
This takes the colour grading process of O BROTHER WHERE ART THO and dials it up beyond 11, it uses colours so sparringly that they take on a massive emotional and narrative signifance, the decision to include any one colour is so clearly intentional that the audience has no choice but to snap to attention, inspired by the arts style of frank miller comic, sin city use of colour is more akin to graohic design than photogrpahy and it makes for one of the most extreme possible examples of a limited palette.
The monochrome palette -
Simple, you just get one colour, sure you might deviate in saturation and expousre but you select one colour on the wheel and stick with it.
(CRIES AND WHISPERS)
CRIES AND WHISPERS -
Good colour has been around long before the turn of the millennium, production designers and cinematographers controlled the colours the out fashioned way through meticulous design, films can follow just as strict a palette as carefully selected and coordinating costume and location choices set design and make up and lighting, criess and whipsers does just that, beyond a few relieving scenes of blue and yellow, everything in cry and whipsers takes place in a world that is blood red, birdman famously said all of my films can be thought of in black and white except Cries and whispers, and yoiu can see why, the overwhelming perseverance of crimson has such a moving effect like a sensory deprivation tank of colour that you cant help but be emotionally moved.
SUMMARY
To conclude on this research that i've found so insightful, i'll be now applying some of these palettes to the edit and see if any of them work. I have a feeling that the colour palette used for The Fall could be of great use to our project as these colours used are extremely trippy and surreal, which coincidentally are the themes of our narrative. So this colour palette would probably be the best suited for our project. I think it will be best to have a go and trying to emulate these palettes to truly gauge if it would be right for our story.
