cowardliness
Why is the world losing color?
281–290 of 309 posts
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#282American video games used to be that, all brown, and Japanese games tended to be more saturated and colorful. To some extent this is still be true but I've noticed a willingness now to break out of the bleak color grading.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The drained-color thing is exclusive to a certain type of TV/movie drama It's not. There's even a term coined for it, "intangible sludge". https://www.vox.com/culture/22840526/colors-movies-tv-gray-d... > I don't like it much but you can also just not watch that stuff. It's now permeated everything, so it's hard to not watch stuff, as it's everywhere, with few exceptions.
Right. For a long time I wondered what's going on, and eventually started believing it's my fault - that maybe I'm just a rare HDR-poor person watching TV shows on SDR computer displays, maybe I've hit an unusual corner case in the video decoding path, or something. I kept believing that until Star Trek: Picard, Season 3, which made it clear it's not me, it's them . The whole show, like everything in the past decade…
I guess you can justify it by saying starship lightning design has changed over the years hehe. Look at all this bright light fixtures on the bridge of the older ship!
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
> color grades the shit out of color Color grading itself isn't the problem. It's just a creative tool that can be used well or poorly. The problem is the intentional stylistic choices being made with the tool. I don't have strong opinions about TFAs arguments re: color in general but as someone deep into cinema production technology, there's a troubling lack of visual diversity in modern cinema and it's not just col…
The video you link has turned into a classic. But I also disagree with its claim that black shadows everywhere are "cinematic" and desirable. They're a limitation of film at the time. When I watch those classic movies, I don't like the fact that all the shadows are crushed. I feel like half the frame is hiding texture that ought to be there. I like the dynamic range of modern cameras. We didn't "forget" how to "make…
It's hard to take that linked video seriously with the host sequence poorly lit and color graded in that awful blue / orange film cliche.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. For a long time I wondered what's going on, and eventually started believing it's my fault - that maybe I'm just a rare HDR-poor person watching TV shows on SDR computer displays, maybe I've hit an unusual corner case in the video decoding path, or something. I kept believing that until Star Trek: Picard, Season 3, which made it clear it's not me, it's them . The whole show, like everything in the past decade…
I guess you can justify it by saying starship lightning design has changed over the years hehe. Look at all this bright light fixtures on the bridge of the older ship!
That, and the carpets, yes :). But it still is a solid proof that dark scenes are just a choice - not a limitation of the medium or shooting technique.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#286I would argue that the main reason is because everything is about money, and the shorter marketability of everything. Colors are polarising, and affect the unsold inventory and perceived resale value. Why manufacture objects in 10 different colours if you know the green one is going to be a tough sell? Why buy a blue car if you think you’re going to sell it back after 2 years and struggle to do so? You don’t want thi…
Yup. I think it’s terrible the author brought up adolf loos, an architect from the early 1900s, showed a building I don’t think he made, and then blamed him for dull modern apartment buildings. If you look up his buildings, they’re actually pretty cool and weird; he was an artist responding to his time. Modern apartment buildings are developed by people with inordinate wealth who don’t care about the asthetic beauty surrounding those peons who pay them rent. The priority is beauty that impresses on the first viewing to trick renters. Every other incentive is to save money, and art is one of the first things to go when people start trying to be perfectly efficient. That’s the same sort of issue with music, desperation that precludes a focus on pure art.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#287It's not "losing" color. At periods when technology resulted in new color possibilities, people went overboard with color. Make all the things colorful!! Think of the technicolor sixties. And we can go back in history and see the same thing with new clothing pigments, new paint pigments. But when everything is colorful, nothing stands out. Everything being colorful is as monotonous as everything being, well, monotone…
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Re: Why is the world losing color?
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. For a long time I wondered what's going on, and eventually started believing it's my fault - that maybe I'm just a rare HDR-poor person watching TV shows on SDR computer displays, maybe I've hit an unusual corner case in the video decoding path, or something. I kept believing that until Star Trek: Picard, Season 3, which made it clear it's not me, it's them . The whole show, like everything in the past decade…
> that dark and washed out TV is just a choice everyone's making for... unclear reasons. It's just a question of aesthetics. TNG was lit almost more like a sitcom, with bright even lighting coming from all directions. In the 1990's, that made TNG look like a TV show, and look very different from dramatic movies. Then with the rise of TV as an art form rivaling movies, certain dramatic TV shows have been lit more like…
TNG was lit much like other action/adventure shows when it debuted in 1987, e.g. MacGyver, Magnum PI, Simon & Simon, The A-Team (which ended that spring) -- the Bridge and hallways were much brighter than even a sitcom, I'd bet as a specific aesthetic choice of The Future Is Bright.
When DS9 debuted a few years later, it was stepping into a cultural mindset that had embraced Dark And Gritty in broader entertainment. That series is still much brighter than many shows today, but that's because of a technological revolution (including costs) rather than a change of "TV as an art form rivaling movies".
Yes, there is a mindset within Hollywood circle(jerk)s that so-dark-I-cannot-see is "more sophisticated, serious, and artful", but viewers broadly think it is idiotic. (Also, 2-and-a-half or 3 hour movie runtimes.)
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another thing that might also play a role is this styling trend of vehicles looking "meaner" and more and more aggressive. This was discussed[1] a bit on HN a while ago. Bright colors don't really match the "My vehicle is going to punch you in the face" styling (for cars and especially trucks) that has become popular. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32425520
I'd say farm equipment has embraced the same "meaner" trend, but has also doubled down on bright, vibrant colours. Noticeably, though, the colours don't date the equipment. 20 years ago the colours were the same, and 20 years from now it is very likely that the brand new ones will still feature the same colours still. That hasn't been the case for passenger vehicles. They are famous for having a colour available this…
Farm and construction equipment the colors are dominated by brand. Team Green Equipment versus Team Red Equipment versus Team Yellow Equipment versus Team Orange Equipment, pick your side. Each side is effectively monochromatic within whatever their brand tolerance is for their brand's color. John Deere's green is a very specific single Pantone shade and has stuck to it consistently as long as color standards have allowed them to be that consistent.
From a buyer's perspective there's still a choice of color if you have no allegiance to brand, but the monochromatic tribalism of each brand (and their loyalists) is strangely fascinating.
Re: Why is the world losing color?
#290Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's fun watching Marvel's catalogue from start to current. They really went all-in early on, then the mode-du-jour changed and it's almost obvious how hard they avoid it (a lot of red and green lights for example). Interfaces, weaponry and engines are always egregious in that franchise. I remember Midsommar being another particularly bad example - the entire apartment set in the opening scenes is dressed in orange/t…
I enjoyed Midsommar's overuse of orange/teal because it really led to the feeling that the viewer was on a psychedelic trip (which usually comes with oversaturating of reds and orange.) Agree that Marvel is doing a lot of trend chasing in its color grading.
I think the Marvel example is interesting as much because it doesn't seem to just be trend chasing, but also one axis to view Marvel's internal struggles between homogeneity and experimentation/directorial control/capturing the joy of the art of the comics themselves. You can almost directly tell if it was a year that Marvel studio choices were more dominant or if the film's director and editor had more control that year based on the color grading alone.