Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#101

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Jan 29, 2015, 10:58 PM UTC

scelerat wrote: post #39

swalsh wrote: 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.

Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000) made heavy use of this, too, to distinguish different locales and parts of the story. The Mexico/Benicio Del Toro partions were heavy on gold/orange, burnt, sepia, while the Washington/Michael Douglas parts were blue, cool.

Fringe is another good example of using colour casts to indicate [in this case] which universe the viewer is in.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/?ref_=nv_sr_1 - Fringe (2008)

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#102

Post by nosuchthing » Thu, Jan 29, 2015, 11:10 PM UTC

Here's a visualization summary of entire movies in a "barcode" timeline format from the start of the film to the end.

[0] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/movie-index

[1] 2001: A Space Odyssey http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432026155/2001-a-space-...

[2] Aladdin http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/5766889425/aladdin-1992-...

[3] Beyond the Black Rainbow http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/39051819960/beyond-the-b...

[4] Blade Runner http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4438993828/blade-runner-...

[5] Star Wars Episode IV http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/13255664875/star-wars-ep...

[6] The Wizard of Oz http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3512965847/the-wizard-of...

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#103

Post by matwood » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 1:26 AM UTC

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #10

swalsh wrote: 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.

This. Their use of color grading is one of the things that made The Matrix have a very unique feel. The sound design is also worth paying attention to.

Pitch Black also did this. The daytime had such a bright filter that it made the shift to darkness that much more jarring.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#104

Post by imjk » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 4:30 AM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #94

If you are interested in colour grading, this is a wonderful piece of software - http://3dlutcreator.com That and davinci and you'll be fine

Can you elaborate a little on how this is different from Photoshop or Lightroom?

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#105

Post by dperfect » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 5:13 AM UTC

dperfect wrote: post #17

> There's no specific colour decision-making process where we sit in a room and say, 'We're only going to use complementary colours to try and move the audience in a particular direction – and only use those combinations.' A lot of production designers would strongly disagree with this statement. The color palette of a film is very much a part of the decision-making process (pre-production as well as post-production)…

Upon re-reading this quote and its source article, I believe he was probably referring to moviemaking at a more meta level; i.e., there's no decision-making process wherein all (or many) filmmakers discuss and agree upon a narrow choice of colors to use across all of their films. As the quote continues, "[e]very film has its own look."

I inferred "we" as meaning a single production team. It makes much more sense if "we" refers to filmmakers as a whole.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#106

Post by ted5555 » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 5:26 AM UTC

Color theory is like a fractal. The closer you get the more detail there is. The Color Correction Handbook: Professional Techniques for Video and Cinema by Alexis Van Hurkman is a great book if you really want to geek out or are considering working in DI. Two particular topics come to mind. One is memory colors which describe the ideal colors people within a cultural group tend to think of when remembering common elements such as grass (greener) or brick (redder). The other is cultural preferences regarding saturation. Seems UK audiences like things a bit less saturated which I now understand is why all my British photography magazines "look washed out". In a the 90's there was a craze for bleach bypass and other alternative film processes. I'm pretty sure the 3 Kings dvd says not to adjust your tv.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#107

Post by ted5555 » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 5:34 AM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #32

dperfect wrote: post #17

> There's no specific colour decision-making process where we sit in a room and say, 'We're only going to use complementary colours to try and move the audience in a particular direction – and only use those combinations.' A lot of production designers would strongly disagree with this statement. The color palette of a film is very much a part of the decision-making process (pre-production as well as post-production)…

Having worked in a grading suite, I can say that the quoted statement is indeed false. Colour usually is considered right at the start, as dperfet correctly points out.

Right. There are also those color houses that standardize more or less the worlds palette for the next few years. It is not an accident that we all had avocado refrigerators and green minivans. It is a truly big brother industry.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#108

Post by csl » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 8:22 AM UTC

swalsh wrote: 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 remember that the book "The Neverending Story" also employed a similar scheme: Red and green ink was used to distinguish between the book's two worlds.

See, for example, https://greaterthanknowledge.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/an-ins...

The book was published in 1979. It would be fun to hear of similar techniques used even earlier.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#109

Post by tempestn » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 8:57 AM UTC

teh_klev wrote: post #54

pkroll wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ugh. I can see why they wanted to move more in the green/blue direction from the very red/monotone original, but it definitely looks like they went too far. Both sides of that comparison look pretty awful at times.

Re: Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

#110

Post by KaiserPro » Fri, Jan 30, 2015, 9:54 AM UTC

mason240 wrote: post #86

KaiserPro wrote: post #43

Ironically, teal and orange reached its peak with tranformers. With the rise of RED cameras (which have useless colour reproduction) we've gone the opposite way, low contrast, lots of grain. http://emertainmentmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/in... (warning, 5k image) http://applications.creativeengland.co.uk/assets/public/reda... note the softness on james corden's face, thats most likely someone painting out…

What movies are those from?

into the woods