Viewing: Use of Colour

Finally for this section of viewing I looked at the use of colour in film, and how this was used to portray change of atmosphere and emotion. I saw a short film shot on a Canon 7D on the internet called USB Dream. It is actually in french, which was interesting, because due to the language barrier, I was really in touch with the aspects other than the language to help me understand the story, including the use of colour. Link to the film is here USB Dream

This first image is right at the start of the film. It is a very neutral colour scheme, bright, and effectively a blank canvas. This partly portrays the feeling the film is set in the future some time ahead, with a very contemporary feel, but there is also something not quite right about everything being so stark white.

We then move to an outdoor scene, which the colour temperature is much warmer, perhaps used to portray the time of day. However there is something a bit off about the colour, it's not quite evening colour, and again it just creates a bit of an uneasy feeling, which helps to portray the mood again that something is not quite right.

Later in the film, when things are more clear, and there is something sinister going on we are presented with this dark screen, with green highlights. The lack of light, and the green colour together work well to create a very intimidating feel to the scene.

So here it is quite clear that the colour of the film can change throughout to really help emphasize the mood of each scene. Even though the general same feeling is portrayed throughout, the colour changes to gradually strengthen the feeling as the film progresses and we learn more.

Finally this is an image for a series of films called Underworld. It is about Vampires and Werewolves and the battle between them. This series is generally coloured with this very cold blue feel to the entire film/series of films to really give the films a very stylized feel as well as portray the dark, vampire nature of the film. It is obviously a clear choice to present the whole film with this colour scheme as it really emphasizes the mood of the film as a whole