Color in Storytelling Pt. 1

What are three things that you've learned in this video essay?  How do these relate to what you've learned so far this week about color in filmmaking?

    Three things that I've learned in this video are that different colors cause different reactions, they can be used to symbolize internal parts of a character, and to create separations. Every color has different connotations and elicit different emotional responses in audiences. For instance, a color like blue can make a scene feel more serene and peaceful as opposed to a color like red, which can put audiences on edge. There are colors which can amplify different emotions and push the audience into feeling a certain way when viewing a scene. Another thing that I learned from this video is that colors can be used to symbolize an aspect of a character internally. The example used in the video was Greed (1924), which uses more and more yellow to represent the character's greed until eventually the film is fully tinted yellow by the end. The third thing that I learned about was that color can differentiate parts of the story, either to show the difference in location, time, etc. For example, Intolerance used it to differentiate location and time, whereas a film like The Matrix used it to separate reality from the matrix. These relate to what I've learned so far this week about color filmmaking as it reinforces a lot of what I learned in previous blog entries. Color is key for emotions, story telling through symbolism and metaphor, and showing a separation between two things.