One of the best ways to make a film’s opening really stick with the audience is to have a strong color scheme used in the scene. Color is an essential aspect of filmmaking in any medium, but especially in animation as you basically have a blank canvas to utilize any colors you want. But I feel that I need to learn more about color usage and especially composition before I can move forward. What shades should I use, and how much of each color? I have compiled most of the time I spent researching, looking at animated films in particular for examples.
A color scheme is a set of colors that a shot, movie, or any form of visual media uses in its design. Though the reason for the use of color to make things look more dynamic and appealing might be obvious, color also tells a story. Color is a huge part of mise-en-scene and everything we see in frame, and it can have an emotional, psychological impact without us even noticing. Color in film can build harmony or tension within a scene, or bring attention to a key theme. When telling a story, colors illicit a reaction, draw the focus to a specific detail, set the tone, represent character traits, or show changes in the story. And that is because of color theory. Color theory and psychology shape how we perceive and interpret what imagery. You can use color schemes to direct your audience’s emotions and desires. Directors, producers, and writers utilize a movie color palette / exploit color theory to get their film’s tone and heart across.
Designing a good color scheme is essential to evoking mood and setting tone in a film. Regardless of your intention when choosing a color, the way that the viewer actually interprets the use of that color may be drastically different. That is why color psychology is so important. It explores how different colors affect human emotions, behaviors, and perceptions. Different colors have different universal meanings and associations that are widely accepted, and therefore helps us to predict what reaction the audience will have from a specific color. When you’re creating a color scheme, you should consider the psychology of color and decide whether the color scheme you want to use is the best for evoking the right feelings and thoughts in your audience. To make sure that you’re always aware of how color psychology affects your work and that you’re using the right colors, keep in mind the following ways in which specific colors are perceived.
Warm colors like red and yellow evoke feelings of high energy, while on the opposite end of the spectrum, cool colors like blue and green tend to induce calmness and serenity.
Red always represents intense feelings, like anger and aggression, but also passion and love. It has the ability to accelerate heart rate and breathing and is so it is also associated with danger and urgency too.
Orange is a combination of red in yellow, and the responses it creates are very much a combination of the two as well. Orange can represent joy, creativity, and warmth and comfort. However, it can also evoke thoughts of passion and aggression. It is linked heavily to the autumn season.
Yellow can be seen as a cheerful, playful, and positive emotion, often associated with joy and excitement. It grabs the attention quickly, but it’s difficult for the eye to take in when there is too much yellow in a space, so it is sometimes used as a threatening or intimidating sign. It is also known for madness, obsession, idyllic, and naivety.
Green is most commonly used to represent nature, health, prosperity, and peace. However, it is also viewed as a color of envy and jealousy. In some contexts, green can relate to sickness, disgust, or be associated with villains.
Blue is one of the most popular colors there is. The sky and water both influence our understanding of the color blue. It often represents calmness or peace, and can even cause the body to produce calming chemicals. Blue is a symbol with positive meanings, and tends to represent goodness, loyalty, and productivity. Although it can also represent sadness, melancholy, and loneliness.
Purple is often referred to as a color of royalty, and that is how it came to be known, evoking ideas of wealth, power, beauty, luxury, sophistication, sincerity, and authority. It is also seen as a rare and artificial color because it does not appear in nature much, and also associated with fantasy, mysticism, magic, and even evil.
Pink often relates to femininity, and evokes ideas of romance and love. It is a soft color that is sometimes used to make the scene feel more pleasant. It brings to mind gentleness, happiness, playfulness, tranquility, innocence and youth.
Black has many meanings, both positive and negative. It signifies death, grief, mystery, and evil, but it also invokes thoughts of sophistication, formality, simplicity, and tradition. Black is also seen in religious settings and is a sign of submission.
White represents innocence, purity, sincerity and happiness, but also sterility, both because it is difficult to keep clean and because it is the absence of all color.
Brown brings to mind earth and dirt, which invokes ideas of ruggedness, solitude, hardness, and reliability. It can also be seen as a basic and bland color.
There are three main components to consider when choosing a color scheme:
- Hue refers to the pure color itself, distinguishing one color from another like the difference between red, blue, and green.
- Saturation measures the intensity or purity of a color, ranging from vivid or muted tones.
- Brightness indicates dark or light a color is, altered by adding black or white.
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