Movies in Color
April 20, 2013 7:13 AM Subscribe
This is neat! Also, the about page gives more information on the motivation behind the blog.
posted by Frobenius Twist at 7:34 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by Frobenius Twist at 7:34 AM on April 20, 2013
Gorgeous stuff from the days before everything started to be colour graded to the dreaded orange and teal
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:57 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:57 AM on April 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
Super helpful; choosing color palettes is a real challenge if you're just an amateur designer. I rely on Color Brewer for visualization stuff but it's deliberately boring, for readability. Kuler can be useful inspiration for aesthetics but it's also kind of dull. I like the idea of saying "this site looks like that one landscape in Skyfall".
posted by Nelson at 8:02 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by Nelson at 8:02 AM on April 20, 2013
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posted by Fizz at 8:20 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 8:20 AM on April 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
Looks like a good blog. Color correction between scenes is essential to have a consistency or the cuts jump out. That's one of the weaknesses of low budget films. You can use the colorwheel in any nonlinar edit tool like FCP or import the film to a DaVinci!
posted by sammyo at 8:46 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by sammyo at 8:46 AM on April 20, 2013
Ooh man, that shot from Family Plot is sweet.
posted by nathancaswell at 8:57 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by nathancaswell at 8:57 AM on April 20, 2013
I had this exact same idea a few years ago. Glad the author had more initiative than me and actually made it. Cool stuff.
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:12 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by Doleful Creature at 9:12 AM on April 20, 2013
Before anyone else starts bashing 'orange and teal', please for the love of god take any filmmaking class. There's a reason for it that has to do with light and accurate color reproduction. See all the orange and teal in these pallettes? Not a recent phenomenon.
posted by sexyrobot at 9:32 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by sexyrobot at 9:32 AM on April 20, 2013
But now I'm thinking of the extremes of "teal" tones, where it's practically a 2/C pallete only, usually used as a shortcut to symbolize "you're in a dismal/ oppressed" world. It's become a cliche.
posted by NorthernLite at 9:46 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by NorthernLite at 9:46 AM on April 20, 2013
Yes, let's speak about teal and orange: Now do every Michael Bay movie ever.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:48 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by blue_beetle at 9:48 AM on April 20, 2013
See all the orange and teal in these pallettes?
Not all of them can be explained away so easily, but at least for The Aviator, they tried to match the color palette of each scene to the color film technology available at the time the scene takes place. So, very early stuff in the movie is heavily pushed towards red and green, and then more depth becomes available as the movie progresses through time and film technology improves. By extension, older movies that exhibit the color palette shown in The Aviator are basically doing that because of the limitation of the technology, not for some conscious choice like what Michael Bay does.
posted by LionIndex at 9:59 AM on April 20, 2013
Not all of them can be explained away so easily, but at least for The Aviator, they tried to match the color palette of each scene to the color film technology available at the time the scene takes place. So, very early stuff in the movie is heavily pushed towards red and green, and then more depth becomes available as the movie progresses through time and film technology improves. By extension, older movies that exhibit the color palette shown in The Aviator are basically doing that because of the limitation of the technology, not for some conscious choice like what Michael Bay does.
posted by LionIndex at 9:59 AM on April 20, 2013
This is the most pointless thing I've ever seen on the internet.
posted by Balok at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by Balok at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2013
Balok, you obviously have not been exposed to the glory of zombo.com.
posted by Malor at 10:43 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Malor at 10:43 AM on April 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
Neat, now someone convert them all to vim colorschemes.
posted by Lorin at 10:55 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Lorin at 10:55 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
You want teal and orange? The Darjeeling Limited will give you teal and orange!
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:00 AM on April 20, 2013
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 11:00 AM on April 20, 2013
Very cool. Glad I subscribed to the "posted by NoMich" feed in 2005.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 4:07 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by DrJohnEvans at 4:07 PM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Color script from the Pixar movie "Up".
Don't know if a palette of over twenty colours taken from one still can say much about the design choices of an entire movie, especially those of directors like Kubrick, Hitchcock and Scorsese.
posted by TimTypeZed at 6:09 PM on April 20, 2013
Don't know if a palette of over twenty colours taken from one still can say much about the design choices of an entire movie, especially those of directors like Kubrick, Hitchcock and Scorsese.
posted by TimTypeZed at 6:09 PM on April 20, 2013
Look at it in terms of color in various period pieces. It gets really interesting that way.
posted by nathancaswell at 8:46 PM on April 20, 2013
posted by nathancaswell at 8:46 PM on April 20, 2013
I have zero evidence to back it up but I think we can all agree that Star Wars is some sort of tan, Empire is all blues, and Return is red. Right?
posted by sourwookie at 9:48 PM on April 20, 2013
posted by sourwookie at 9:48 PM on April 20, 2013
Well, Return has Endor and Empire has Cloud City ...
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:49 PM on April 20, 2013
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 9:49 PM on April 20, 2013
It's neat, I suppose, though I have some issues with how he is arriving at the palette. Take, for instance, the palette for this shot in Barry Lyndon. The white of the foreground shirts and the ribbing in the hats is completely missing from the palette, even though that wide white wall is the major visual player in the shot.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:57 AM on April 21, 2013
posted by Thorzdad at 8:57 AM on April 21, 2013
This is amazing. Certain color combinations evoke really strong emotions in me (don't even get me started on steel blue-gray + bright spring green) and seeing the swatches laid out against compositionally interesting stills from movies I love...I, I swoon.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:45 AM on April 21, 2013
posted by iamkimiam at 11:45 AM on April 21, 2013
The white of the foreground shirts and the ribbing in the hats is completely missing from the palette
2nd from left of "General Spectrum." If if appears darker to the eye it's probably just a variation in the luminosity of the individual pixel that was sampled. Happens a lot in Photoshop.
posted by nathancaswell at 12:19 PM on April 21, 2013
2nd from left of "General Spectrum." If if appears darker to the eye it's probably just a variation in the luminosity of the individual pixel that was sampled. Happens a lot in Photoshop.
posted by nathancaswell at 12:19 PM on April 21, 2013
I also think they are laid out in order of how much each color appears in each shot, left to right. Look at that Barry Lyndon frame. From left to right:
Darker sky color, foreground shirts/hat ribbing, lighter sky color, trees, light grass, dark grass, hair, straps, approaching uniforms, foreground uniform sleeves... seems about right to me.
posted by nathancaswell at 12:22 PM on April 21, 2013
Darker sky color, foreground shirts/hat ribbing, lighter sky color, trees, light grass, dark grass, hair, straps, approaching uniforms, foreground uniform sleeves... seems about right to me.
posted by nathancaswell at 12:22 PM on April 21, 2013
I have zero evidence to back it up but I think we can all agree that Star Wars is some sort of tan, Empire is all blues, and Return is red. Right?
Movie Bar Code: 'Wars, Empire, Jedi, (Phantom, Clones, Sith)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:49 PM on April 21, 2013
Movie Bar Code: 'Wars, Empire, Jedi, (Phantom, Clones, Sith)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:49 PM on April 21, 2013
I'm surprised how much black is in IV-VI as opposed to I-III.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:58 PM on April 21, 2013
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 1:58 PM on April 21, 2013
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posted by anotherpanacea at 7:34 AM on April 20, 2013 [1 favorite]