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Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

priceonomics.com

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Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#51

I remember this from a while ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1193657 After I read that post it took something away from a lot of films for me, since it was hard to not notice. In this context, ignorance is bliss I say! I wish I could go back to not noticing.

I'm not totally opposed to the idea since there's an artistic goal behind it. Kinda like Instagram filters, which I admittedly used to oppose, but for Instagram's purpose, which isn't vying for National Geographic awards, they work well.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#53
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also find that the lack of money forced the grittiness that was lacking in the second and third movies, and in a lot of high budget movies that attempt "edginess" like that.

In my opinion the pill scene [1] has everything that made The Matrix unique. The color, lightning, costumes, ambience (rain and thunder outside), surgical use of soundtrack and the dialogue itself. All the elements successfully contribute to give it that comicbook/cyberpunk feel. In contrast, the sequels don't have such simple but striking scenes like that. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te6qG4yn-Ps

The most intense glass of water in movies. A nice hommage to Total Recall too I guess.

ps: or not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#54
post #8
post #5

In The Matrix, you could tell which "world" you're in by the general grade of color. When in the Matrix, everything had a greenish overtone, and when in the "real world" it was more blue. I really liked that use of color to be a part of the story telling process.

Just as a note, the green grading was made stronger in releases after the original DVD.

You can see a comparison here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtktg9hbC_g

I do think they over-egged the pudding in the Blu-ray release. In some scenes Neo's skin tones look awful.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#55
post #28

At least they had the good grace to link to http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-ho... before effectively rewriting his original blogpost (and copying some of the images directly from it!)

Those priceonomics guys really care for their SEO. They are one of the few websites that writes totally unrelated articles to sell a product. I kind of feel used when I see them pop up.

I work at Priceonomics, so maybe I can shed light on our motivations.

We make the kind of content we love and we sell products so that we can afford to make more of that content. The two products we actually sell (data crawling for companies and books for people) aren't particularly well-suited toward SEO (though our original idea, a Price Guide which we killed years ago, was).

Anyhow, we're a content site that's trying to get by without using ads. I think most of our regular readers appreciate we're trying to pay the bills by selling things instead using ads. We'd like to avoid jamming our site with advertising if that's possible.

Happy to answer any questions you have.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the pill scene [1] has everything that made The Matrix unique. The color, lightning, costumes, ambience (rain and thunder outside), surgical use of soundtrack and the dialogue itself. All the elements successfully contribute to give it that comicbook/cyberpunk feel. In contrast, the sequels don't have such simple but striking scenes like that. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te6qG4yn-Ps

The most intense glass of water in movies. A nice hommage to Total Recall too I guess. ps: or not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

More intense than this glass of water? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFBrIVCasE4&t=16

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#58
post #5

In The Matrix, you could tell which "world" you're in by the general grade of color. When in the Matrix, everything had a greenish overtone, and when in the "real world" it was more blue. I really liked that use of color to be a part of the story telling process.

I've always wondered if part of the reason for the blue/green shift beyond storytelling was due to blue/green screens used heavily throughout the movie.

I would imagine it helps smooth some rough edges during the compositing phase when the overall grade matches the color key.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teal-and-orange plague followed from DI[0]. Amélie predates the widespread use of DI, and DI's later compromission by the TaO plague. So it probably isn't the contrast, most of the movies from the time (and before it) would have similar non-TaO palettes (unless they were specifically going for it, as in Blade Runner) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate

Amelie was DI'd. It was digitally graded by Didier le Fouest

It was DI'd, but it was created at the beginnings of DI. What I tried to express is that the excesses of a new format/technique/… don't instantly follow its introduction, there's a lag until a herd decides that's something to do. Same as the loudness wars: the Red Book was published in 1982 but excessive compressions started in earnest in the early-to-mid 90s blossoming into low single-digit dBFS by the end of the 90s-early 00s.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#60
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most intense glass of water in movies. A nice hommage to Total Recall too I guess. ps: or not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_pill_and_blue_pill

More intense than this glass of water? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFBrIVCasE4&t=16

Hehe nice one, but no drinking happened.
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