Lecture: Colour Theory (OUAN401)

This lecture made me consider the way I use colour very carefully and brought to light the extent to which a choice of colour can enhance or ruin a scene.

For instance, I used to believe that complementary colours would look great in a shot as they would, well, complement each other, making both stand out more vividly. Turns out that sometimes the opposite is true and the combination can seem a little overbearing and gross.

To be fair, though, the examples of complementary colours given in this lecture were extreme cases, where the only things on screen were just BRIGHT red and green stripes. I would have liked to see some more subtle uses of complementary colours.

Complementary colours work really nicely here because the shade of red is darker so it doesn't clash so much with the green. Also, there is only a small splash of green in the shot so the two colours don't battle for attention, making efforts to each appear the most glaring and obnoxious. I don't care for how the two colours look side by side, but it draws the eye superbly and subtly.

The opposite of putting complementary colours together is to use a set of closely related colours. This involves using hues and shades of colour to create a less jarring contrast.

I suppose that this bottom right one would best sum up what I'm talking about.

"The Revenant" sticks to a blue/grey colour scheme throughout the whole movie. And that works as well.

Never before had I considered the way you can change how the viewer perceives a colour by placing another colour next to it or behind it. This can add a sense of depth or shading to the scene and it can draw the eye of the viewer to a section of darkness or brightness. I used to think in terms of "this thing is this colour, then add a layer marked 'shading' set at a low opacity to complete it" but I am becoming more aware of the potential of colour. I want to learn to be more playful with it.

I've learnt that no use of colour in film is inherently better than another use of colour, and that they can all do very different things for a film's atmosphere. Often, it's good to have the colour reflect the mood of the scene or the location where the scene is set. This is especially useful when shooting scenes where the weather is important, as the audience experiences another layer of empathy with the characters on screen if it's noticeably hot or cold or windy or wet. Temperature can be indicated through hues of colour.