HOW ARE LIGHTS AND COLORS USED BY THE DIRECTOR?
Lighting and color have the power to change how we view a scene. A living room with a fire burning, radiating a soft orange glow gives a different image than a living room with a fire, radiating a bright neon green. Directors take great care to position light and actors to enhance the feelings that they are trying to portray.
Lighting
Light is an integral part of cinematography and is largely responsible for the look of the film. It can easily set the tone of a scene and make or break how "good" a movie looks. It can also be used artistically. Light can represent a feeling or a presence. Coloured lights can hold meaning or highlight the tone of a scene.
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the light is positioned behind the aliens for several effects. The silhouette that the light creates, combined with the foggy rays, keeps the aliens a mystery. The light is also directly facing the actors, keeping them blinded. The camera is likewise facing the light, keeping the audience blinded as well, making the audience feel what the characters are feeling.
In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the light is positioned behind the aliens for several effects. The silhouette that the light creates, combined with the foggy rays, keeps the aliens a mystery. The light is also directly facing the actors, keeping them blinded. The camera is likewise facing the light, keeping the audience blinded as well, making the audience feel what the characters are feeling.
In the movie There Will Be Blood, we can see the lighting used by the director. Despite the fact that Daniel Day Lewis is most likely lit just fine by just the sun through the clouds, the director has placed a key light (the bright light on his forehead) and a back light (the dim light on his right cheek) on Lewis. Not only does it make him pop, it creates more texture highlighting the sweat and oil on his face.
Color
There are three main contrasts: Blue and Orange, Red and Green, and Purple and Yellow. Red and green remind people of Christmas colors, purple and yellow are seen as feminine colors, so blue and orange are often used as the "safe" contrast colors.
High contrasts are not seen often in nature, so using sharp contrasts is a way to bring out the scene and emphasize the fantasy. The movie Skyfall is a James Bond movie, escapism in its purist, filled with non-stop action and excitement, a world filled with spies and secrets that lives in our imagination.
High contrasts are not seen often in nature, so using sharp contrasts is a way to bring out the scene and emphasize the fantasy. The movie Skyfall is a James Bond movie, escapism in its purist, filled with non-stop action and excitement, a world filled with spies and secrets that lives in our imagination.
In the scene above, James Bond infiltrates a skyscraper in Shanghai to stop an assassination. The bright neon teal right beside the dark shadows feeds into the Bond-esque atmosphere, that of a government spy hunting, doing top-secret work.
In the following scene, the neon teal is replaced with a dangerous orange glow inside the Chinese underground, complimented with it's own dark shadows. The orange hue likewise enhances the atmosphere of danger and corruption.
In the following scene, the neon teal is replaced with a dangerous orange glow inside the Chinese underground, complimented with it's own dark shadows. The orange hue likewise enhances the atmosphere of danger and corruption.
In the final scene, Bond drives to his old home to prepare to fight the villain after him. The dominating color is a soft white, the clouds like that that precede a storm. The director is conveying the "calm before the storm", inciting the audience to be calm and at ease before the final showdown.
These are just a few examples of how color can be used in the movie, but they are also used in the promotional posters/title screens.
These are just a few examples of how color can be used in the movie, but they are also used in the promotional posters/title screens.
In the modern Batman trilogy, the opening scenes convey the different periods of night. Batman Begins represents dusk with the dark orange. The dark blue in The Dark Knight goes with the dark blue hue of midnight, complete with a contrasting orange flame. The white bat symbol in The Dark Knight Rises is the stark white of dawn, a new beginning. The different stages of the night also correlate with the themes of each movie.
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