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Why Every Movie Looks Sort of Orange and Blue

256 points by vinnyglennon 12y ago

furyofantares 12y ago
An interesting persuasive technique here: When they linked to "some filmmakers" not using this scheme my guess before clicking was it would be to a scene in The Grand Budapest Hotel. I've never thought about color in film before so this didn't feel like it should be an easy guess unless the article is correct about how pervasive orange/blue is, so when it loaded and it was correct it added a lot of emotional force to the argument. Though I suspect it is actually a pretty easy guess: they didn't choose a random film, they chose an extreme, recent, popular counterexample to their argument. I'd bet my mind was already thinking about that movie in the background while trying to come up with counterexamples, and they successfully turned this into enforcing their argument rather than the opposite.
circlefavshape 12y ago
Funny to see Amelie there as a counter-example - it's pretty much my favourite movie, and one of the things I love about it is the autumnal quality of the light. Normally I wouldn't notice that kind of thing at all, perhaps it's the contrast with all the orange-and-blues (or maybe just the exceptional loveliness of the film itself)
- X-Istence 12y ago
  I absolutely love Amelie, and I hadn't realised that one of the reasons maybe because it is not just another orange/blue tinted movie. For me Amelie is a movie I watch when I feel like there is no hope for humanity, it is the one movie that restores it just a little bit.
- pkroll 12y ago
  On the director's commentary, at 21:50, he talks about pushing the digital grading and that "sometimes it's a little bit too much." (But obviously he didn't tone it back!)
  - lobster_johnson 12y ago
    He did, however, go completely overboard with A Very Long Engagement, which is drenched in yellow/orange: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYfo3nt-O_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYfo3nt-O_U It's a fine film, but the grading is rather extreme. It does the opposite for the war scenes, which are quite desaturated.
- masklinn 12y ago
  The teal-and-orange plague followed from DI[0]. Amélie predates the widespread use of DI, and DI's later compromission by the TaO plague. So it probably isn't the contrast, most of the movies from the time (and before it) would have similar non-TaO palettes (unless they were specifically going for it, as in Blade Runner) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate
  - KaiserPro 12y ago
    Amelie was DI'd. It was digitally graded by Didier le Fouest
    - masklinn 12y ago
      It was DI'd, but it was created at the beginnings of DI. What I tried to express is that the excesses of a new format/technique/… don't instantly follow its introduction, there's a lag until a herd decides that's something to do. Same as the loudness wars: the Red Book was published in 1982 but excessive compressions started in earnest in the early-to-mid 90s blossoming into low single-digit dBFS by the end of the 90s-early 00s.
      - KaiserPro 12y ago
        I think pleasentville kinda disproves that...
- DanBC 12y ago
  Amelie uses a lot of red and green. Jean-Pierre Jeunet made "City of Lost Children" which also has a strong red green palette. He also directed "Delicatessen" that used a chemical process to give the film a gold glow.
  - xxxyy 12y ago
    The trailer [1] confirms the increased usage of red/orange and green colors. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-uxeZaM-VM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-uxeZaM-VM
S_A_P 12y ago
One movie that seemed to play with color to a fantastic effect is Traffic - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181865/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181865/ I noticed when it came out that color played a subtle role in setting the mood of each scene and aspect. For instance, near the border towns and where where the "hot zone" of illegal drug traffic occurred, it was more yellow/orange tinted. Then when you head back to the suburbs and see privileged kids doing drugs in their large homes, the color was much more blue and lighting was much softer. I wish that more movies would employ tricks like this without using a "template"... edit: looked on IMDB and it looks like 3 different films stocks were used: To achieve a distinctive look for each different vignette in the story, Steven Soderbergh used three different film stocks (and post-production techniques), each with their own color treatment and grain for the print. The "Wakefield" story features a colder, bluer tone to match the sad, depressive emotion. The "Ayala" story is bright, shiny, and saturated in primary colors, especially red, to match the glitzy surface of Helena's life. The "Mexican" story appears grainy, rough, and hot to go with the rugged Mexican landscape and congested cities.
- mVChr 12y ago
  Side-note: Soderbergh's editing is absolutely fantastic and original too (see: The Limey, Out of Sight). Fine, fine film-maker, one of the few to be able to cross from pure art film to Hollywood blockbuster and back again through everything in between with ease. It will be interesting to see where his "retirement" takes him.
  - dingaling 12y ago
    Soderbergh recently did a recut of 2001 to make it less 'obvious'...
swalsh 12y ago
In The Matrix, you could tell which "world" you're in by the general grade of color. When in the Matrix, everything had a greenish overtone, and when in the "real world" it was more blue. I really liked that use of color to be a part of the story telling process.
- pkroll 12y ago
  Just as a note, the green grading was made stronger in releases after the original DVD.
  - athenry 12y ago
    Very True. I remember when I got the bluRay, and increased green in the first movie was very clear.
  - teh_klev 12y ago
    You can see a comparison here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtktg9hbC_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtktg9hbC_g I do think they over-egged the pudding in the Blu-ray release. In some scenes Neo's skin tones look awful.
    - pluma 12y ago
      Interesting. Being partially colour blind I would have thought that the original was much greener, while the re-release is a lot bluer and bumped up the brightness contrast. For example, most of the agent scenes in that comparison the left frame appears "greener" (but also more washed out in terms of brightness contrast) than the right.
      - pkroll 12y ago
        I'm in the same boat: it's weird seeing the comments describing the blu-ray as "green-ray" and that things are SO GREEN when I literally can't see it. For those of you with decent color sight, was the original... more orange?
chton 12y ago
One of the most interesting exceptions I've seen on this convention was the 2011 movie Limitless(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/). They still used the orange-blue complement, but switched saturation between them, sometimes every scene. It was used as an indicator of how the protagonist views the world: bright and with an orange saturation for when he is on NZT, dull and blue when he isn't. I thought it was a great way of deconstructing this particular trope.
- HCIdivision17 12y ago
  To join in, I too loved the use of color in Limitless. I personally associate vibrant autumnal colors with clarity, not sharp blues, so when the characters go on NZT, it feels fuller, not just sharper. It looks like something a person would actually want, as opposed to losing one's humanity in a soul-crushing washed-out green or blue usually seen in sci-fi.
sosuke 12y ago
I enjoyed Dead Silence, but some of the blue they do was overkill. For example: http://static.yts.re/attachments/Dead_Silence_2007/Screenshot_006_large.png http://static.yts.re/attachments/Dead_Silence_2007/Screensho... I hope we get a more natural dynamic range of color in the future.
3minus1 12y ago
tl;dr human skin is orange edit: why the downvotes? it's actually in the article > Most skin tones fall somewhere between pale peach and dark, dark brown, leaving them squarely in the orange segment of any color wheel
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
joosters 12y ago
At least they had the good grace to link to http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-ho... before effectively rewriting his original blogpost (and copying some of the images directly from it!)
- klochner 12y ago
  He wasn't the first - slashfilm in 2009: http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/ http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-poster... based off a reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/comments/a8mqz http://www.reddit.com/comments/a8mqz Reddit seems to be the go-to source for 'original' blog content these days.
- cake 12y ago
  Those priceonomics guys really care for their SEO. They are one of the few websites that writes totally unrelated articles to sell a product. I kind of feel used when I see them pop up.
  - skizm 12y ago
    If the content is good, who cares?
    - TorKlingberg 12y ago
      The people who search for a product, and get get results ranked based on irrelevant blogging.
      - indrax 12y ago
        Using a web search engine is asking for rankings based on web structure, not rankings based on product quality. You might think it's bad to take advantage of that, but refraining from doing so doesn't likely yield a fair product quality ranking, just some different unfair rating. Our fitness function is broken.
  - 12y ago
jobu 12y ago
A few years ago there was a good article on Cracked (of all places) about the annoying trends for movies: http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-make-every-movie-look-same.html http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-... There is the orange and teal trend, but also color trends by genre, and of course lens flares...
- fivedogit 12y ago
  I was just about to post this link as well. Glad someone else had the same thought. Cracked, while an absurd humor site on the surface, is one of the most reliable resources of new-perspective intellectual stimulation on the web, IMO.
binarymax 12y ago
I remember this from a while ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1193657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1193657 After I read that post it took something away from a lot of films for me, since it was hard to not notice. In this context, ignorance is bliss I say! I wish I could go back to not noticing.
- ssully 12y ago
  I see it as just another way of understanding a tool in a filmmakers box better. You can gain a deeper appreciation for a film by understanding how and why an element, be it sound, color, framing, or anything else, was chosen by the director and film crew.
- moogleii 12y ago
  I'm not totally opposed to the idea since there's an artistic goal behind it. Kinda like Instagram filters, which I admittedly used to oppose, but for Instagram's purpose, which isn't vying for National Geographic awards, they work well.
dperfect 12y ago
> There's no specific colour decision-making process where we sit in a room and say, 'We're only going to use complementary colours to try and move the audience in a particular direction – and only use those combinations.' A lot of production designers would strongly disagree with this statement. The color palette of a film is very much a part of the decision-making process (pre-production as well as post-production), and it's used primarily to "move the audience" in one way or another, as per the film's theme and story elements. It may just be that the colors within a chosen palette are often classified as either "warm" or "cool" - orange and blue being the most obvious manifestations of those classifications - so we tend to see a lot of them. Without contrast (literal and figurative), a film simply doesn't say anything. Warm and cool colors go a long way in helping the audience feel positively or negatively about certain story elements.
- KaiserPro 12y ago
  Having worked in a grading suite, I can say that the quoted statement is indeed false. Colour usually is considered right at the start, as dperfet correctly points out.
  - ted5555 12y ago
    Right. There are also those color houses that standardize more or less the worlds palette for the next few years. It is not an accident that we all had avocado refrigerators and green minivans. It is a truly big brother industry.
- dperfect 12y ago
  Upon re-reading this quote and its source article, I believe he was probably referring to moviemaking at a more meta level; i.e., there's no decision-making process wherein all (or many) filmmakers discuss and agree upon a narrow choice of colors to use across all of their films. As the quote continues, "[e]very film has its own look." I inferred "we" as meaning a single production team. It makes much more sense if "we" refers to filmmakers as a whole.
deleted 12y ago
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Breakthrough 12y ago
Full Metal Jacket had it's moments of blue and orange, but I'd classify most scenes in the film as 'green'. Then again, Kubrick was known to be obsessive in regards to attention to detail, especially when it came to lighting and colour reproduction.
peter303 12y ago
1950s films looked washed out. Little green in outdoors Westerns or indoors movies.
- blt 12y ago
  Probably a limitation of the color film stock at the time. Technicolor used a beam splitter and three strips of black-and-white film. It made super-vivid colors but was expensive. Single-strip color film rose to the top in the 50s and 60s with worse colors, but much cheaper and easier to shoot.
  - pkroll 12y ago
    The Adventures of Robin Hood, the Errol Flynn movie from 1938, is an excellent example of three-strip Technicolor, and on blu-ray some scenes look like they were shot last week, not 80 years ago.
coin 12y ago
-1 for disabling zoom on mobile devices
hownottowrite 12y ago
How do to color grading in Final Cut X https://vimeo.com/58051635 https://vimeo.com/58051635
Yhippa 12y ago
When I shoot portraits of people with a flash I will sometimes use an orange gel to give people's skin a more human look. White flash tends to take that out of the final picture but the orange gel makes skin look more natural.
KaiserPro 12y ago
Ironically, teal and orange reached its peak with tranformers. With the rise of RED cameras (which have useless colour reproduction) we've gone the opposite way, low contrast, lots of grain. http://emertainmentmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/intothewoods.jpg http://emertainmentmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/in... (warning, 5k image) http://applications.creativeengland.co.uk/assets/public/redactor_images/e10892d041ac4eaf76778da4c7730d8f.jpg http://applications.creativeengland.co.uk/assets/public/reda... note the softness on james corden's face, thats most likely someone painting out blemishes. Fun fact, virtually any special effects movie that you've seen since 2000, all the film grain you see, is faked. So the people who bemoan the loss of grain with the move to digital need to reassess what they are saying: http://conradolson.com/frame-by-frame-painting http://conradolson.com/frame-by-frame-painting
- sandofsky 12y ago
  I'm curious about what the makes the colour reproduction useless. Based on the low contrast comment, I'm guessing it has to do with the log color space?
  - Matsta 12y ago
    It's true to a point, the RED isn't the best camera at reproducing colours. But then again most of the time you're going to be filming in RAW so it doesn't really matter as much since you get a flat image in post that you can grade. An advantage the RED cameras have say over a Alexa is that they can film in 4k,5k,6k (Alexa only shoots in 2k). So that you can get a sharper image by editing in 6k, and then exporting in 4k or 1080p. If you look at video cams for projects that need to be finished quickly, of course your not going to choose a RED. Canon Cinema Cameras (c100, c300) have the best colour science out of everyone (Sony and Panasonic are known to have pretty average colour reproduction). The only downfall with Canon cameras is that they use crappy codes and compression so when you start pushing to extreme looks, you'll get alot of noise and loose sharpness in your footage. I use Blackmagic cameras, which aren't know for their colours either, but they own the industry standard grading software (DaVinci), so it is quite easy to get your footage balanced before you do a grade.
- 12y ago
blt 12y ago
I usually dislike any color grading over an entire movie. I recently re-watched Snatch and its heavy green cast felt so obnoxious and ugly.
- test1235 12y ago
  That's kinda weird, considering the vividly red cover.
mladenkovacevic 12y ago
While working at a tv distribution company about 8 years ago, I used to design these promotional one-pagers for various shows. After a while I noticed all of my designs were mostly blue and orange (or at least the main components of the design were). Then I started consciously trying to use other colour arrangements but orange-blue just always sort of looked best. I celebrated any time i managed to get a good looking poster/one-pager without relying on the orange-blue complementary contrast. I wonder if women might have an advantage here due to many men being red-green colour blind to some extent.
hockeybias 12y ago
Yawn... old news.
bshimmin 12y ago
Kubrick was always masterful with colour, and while he is probably best known for his fascination with red [1], it's actually the orange/blue contrast in "Eyes Wide Shut" that is most memorable for me. [1]: http://vimeo.com/112129153 http://vimeo.com/112129153
iLoch 12y ago
Drive has some great usage of this type of cinematography if I recall correctly. I think the author may have ruined watching movies for me now though. :/
nmeofthestate 12y ago
Recently when watching stuff on Netflix I found myself amazed at how ridiculously orange and teal movies were getting. Even the pilot episode of House was ridiculously Orange'n'Teal. Then I twigged it was because I was running F.Lux.
graedus 12y ago
Moviebarcode [0] provides some nice visualizations [1][2][3] of the color palette of movies and other things. [0] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/ http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/ [1] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/104685404787/transformers-age-of-extinction-2014 http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/104685404787/transformer... [2] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432016573/traffic-2000 http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432016573/traffic-2000 [3] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/8951346287/tron-legacy-2010-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/8951346287/tron-legacy-2...
jmstout 12y ago
A fun read, but I'm not convinced the reason for all the orange and blue is rooted in trendiness, as the article makes it seem. It suggests that this color combination "might not be naturalistic", but in my experience with light, color, and art, that statement couldn't be further from the truth. Look around, in light, orange and blue hues dominante our world. Sunlight, moonlight, street lights, sky, incandescents, the glow of lcds screens, etc - blue and orange everywhere. If you take notice, you will realize this is true. As the article points out, in art, when wanting to create vibrancy and visual interest, one of the best tools in our arsenal is the use of complementary colors. No other compliments are even close to occurring as frequently in the lighting of our natural world. This, I believe, is the true reason for its abundant use in cinema. Of all the compliments, orange and blue is just the most natural.
steve94103 12y ago
There's a really good video that illustrates & describes this effect. It's targeted towards users of the color grading tools, but it's an interesting watch nonetheless. The Summer Blockbuster Colour Grading Tutorial: https://vimeo.com/65617394 https://vimeo.com/65617394
Grazester 12y ago
My girlfriend and I noticed this in 2001 with the movies "Sword Fish" and "Traffic", We made fun of it and called it the cool movie filter. lol.
robbrown451 12y ago
One thing that isn't mentioned is that realism doesn't seem "cinematic." It's just like people not liking high frame rate because of the "soap opera effect," or even some people's preference for black and white. Visible grain, non-subtle bokeh effects and lens flare, etc are other things that aren't realistic per se, but for some reason they make it seem less "cheap" and bring more emotional weight than a more perfectly realistic image. I think these sorts of forced palettes do the same thing. Maybe a different color combination will become trendy at some point, but for now, orange/blue is a pretty safe bet that it will achieve the emotional effect, without it just looking weird.
trhway 12y ago
gold and blue, due to the price of the paint components, were hallmark of an expensive art painting through the history until very recently. Thus using those colors allows to exploit that association and puts your movie at perceived level of the old masterpieces. That also correlates nicely with the fact that cheap or produced in other countries inferior color film (like in the USSR for example) didn't have good blue, was reddish-greenish instead, and thus this gold/blue of today also suggests associations with better quality.
- throwaway2048 12y ago
  Maybe somewhat ironically, this assumed association with quality without an associated real correlation with quality leads to crap trying to pass itself off as amazing stuff by using such techniques. This then leads to an association with crap rather than the quality they intended.... http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tawdry http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tawdry
- vacri 12y ago
  I wouldn't have thought that the demographic that enjoys Transformers would have much overlap with the demographic that's aware of more than one or two paintings of the old masters.
tlrobinson 12y ago
Final Cut Pro X literally has an effect called "Teal and Orange": https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdbub5jctmn4lqh/Screenshot%202015-01-29%2011.34.17.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdbub5jctmn4lqh/Screenshot%202015-... I applied it to one of my (totally amateur) drone videos (https://vimeo.com/95716566 https://vimeo.com/95716566) and thought it looked kind of "good", now I know why.
dsuth 12y ago
This is all a little bizarre, as these are my two favourite colours, especially in combination. As a teenager getting to paint my walls my own colours for the first time, I chose orange walls with blue trim. I had not idea it was so prevalent in movie-making!
dharma1 12y ago
If you are interested in colour grading, this is a wonderful piece of software - http://3dlutcreator.com http://3dlutcreator.com That and davinci and you'll be fine
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  Why does that site add inertia to my scrolling? :(
- imjk 12y ago
  Can you elaborate a little on how this is different from Photoshop or Lightroom?
parenthesis 12y ago
Overdone computer-enabled post-production colour manipulation is one of the (many) reasons I find it hard to watch a lot of film and television drama productions of this century. I much prefer the result when the manipulation of colour is achieved through lighting on the set or location. Two examples of films I think have fantastic use of colour in the lighting are Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Desperately Seeking Susan.
m-i-l 12y ago
Danny Boyle's Sunshine [0] also made good use of colour - the interior of the ship had no reference to red, orange or yellow to make the appearance of the sun more striking. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film)
- devonoel 12y ago
  Sunshine was a criminally under appreciated movie.
nosuchthing 12y ago
Here's a visualization summary of entire movies in a "barcode" timeline format from the start of the film to the end. [0] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/movie-index http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/movie-index [1] 2001: A Space Odyssey http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432026155/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432026155/2001-a-space-... [2] Aladdin http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/5766889425/aladdin-1992-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/5766889425/aladdin-1992-... [3] Beyond the Black Rainbow http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/39051819960/beyond-the-black-rainbow-2010-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/39051819960/beyond-the-b... [4] Blade Runner http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4438993828/blade-runner-1982-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4438993828/blade-runner-... [5] Star Wars Episode IV http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/13255664875/star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope-1977-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/13255664875/star-wars-ep... [6] The Wizard of Oz http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3512965847/the-wizard-of-oz-1939-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3512965847/the-wizard-of...
ted5555 12y ago
Color theory is like a fractal. The closer you get the more detail there is. The Color Correction Handbook: Professional Techniques for Video and Cinema by Alexis Van Hurkman is a great book if you really want to geek out or are considering working in DI. Two particular topics come to mind. One is memory colors which describe the ideal colors people within a cultural group tend to think of when remembering common elements such as grass (greener) or brick (redder). The other is cultural preferences regarding saturation. Seems UK audiences like things a bit less saturated which I now understand is why all my British photography magazines "look washed out". In a the 90's there was a craze for bleach bypass and other alternative film processes. I'm pretty sure the 3 Kings dvd says not to adjust your tv.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  UK light is very different to California light. Colours here really are washed out. A long time ago I was in Australia. My then gf bought a bedspread by an artist called Ken Done - lots of bright primary colours. It looked great in Sydney. In UK light - even in sunlight - most of the colour punch disappeared. It actually looked kind of grey and old. Disappointment... So if supersaturate movie colours, they look surreal here. But California really is teal and orange. The light is warm and intense, and LA gets a lot of clear blue sky. So I wonder if directors like TnO because it's a variation on natural Hollywood light.
jhanschoo 12y ago
One argument in favor of using orange-blue as opposed to other contrasting colors, is that humans associate blue with darkness and depth. Our eyes and mind, too, perceive blue at a lower resolution as other colors (We perceive green with the greatest fidelity). Colorizing the screen in orange and blue, then, imposes a hierarchy on the objects in the screen. Whereever the orange-blue scheme is used, the blue depicts the background and the orange depicts the action. This adds to the illusion of depth, which is extremely important especially for Hollywood action films, as they need to feel big and grand amid fast-paced movement and short takes. Where objects flash across the screen in split seconds, the orange-blue contrast can provide a natural vocabulary to re-orient the viewer as to what is happening in the 3D space depicted by the 2D screen. I would guess that the blue-green colorscheme is overrepresented in action films and especially in action sequences, and underrepresented in say, comedy and romance films.

256 points by vinnyglennon 12y ago

An interesting persuasive technique here: When they linked to "some filmmakers" not using this scheme my guess before clicking was it would be to a scene in The Grand Budapest Hotel. I've never thought about color in film before so this didn't feel like it should be an easy guess unless the article is correct about how pervasive orange/blue is, so when it loaded and it was correct it added a lot of emotional force to the argument. Though I suspect it is actually a pretty easy guess: they didn't choose a random film, they chose an extreme, recent, popular counterexample to their argument. I'd bet my mind was already thinking about that movie in the background while trying to come up with counterexamples, and they successfully turned this into enforcing their argument rather than the opposite.

circlefavshape 12y ago

Funny to see Amelie there as a counter-example - it's pretty much my favourite movie, and one of the things I love about it is the autumnal quality of the light. Normally I wouldn't notice that kind of thing at all, perhaps it's the contrast with all the orange-and-blues (or maybe just the exceptional loveliness of the film itself)

X-Istence 12y ago
I absolutely love Amelie, and I hadn't realised that one of the reasons maybe because it is not just another orange/blue tinted movie. For me Amelie is a movie I watch when I feel like there is no hope for humanity, it is the one movie that restores it just a little bit.
pkroll 12y ago
On the director's commentary, at 21:50, he talks about pushing the digital grading and that "sometimes it's a little bit too much." (But obviously he didn't tone it back!)
- lobster_johnson 12y ago
  He did, however, go completely overboard with A Very Long Engagement, which is drenched in yellow/orange: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYfo3nt-O_U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYfo3nt-O_U It's a fine film, but the grading is rather extreme. It does the opposite for the war scenes, which are quite desaturated.
masklinn 12y ago
The teal-and-orange plague followed from DI[0]. Amélie predates the widespread use of DI, and DI's later compromission by the TaO plague. So it probably isn't the contrast, most of the movies from the time (and before it) would have similar non-TaO palettes (unless they were specifically going for it, as in Blade Runner) [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate
- KaiserPro 12y ago
  Amelie was DI'd. It was digitally graded by Didier le Fouest
  - masklinn 12y ago
    It was DI'd, but it was created at the beginnings of DI. What I tried to express is that the excesses of a new format/technique/… don't instantly follow its introduction, there's a lag until a herd decides that's something to do. Same as the loudness wars: the Red Book was published in 1982 but excessive compressions started in earnest in the early-to-mid 90s blossoming into low single-digit dBFS by the end of the 90s-early 00s.
    - KaiserPro 12y ago
      I think pleasentville kinda disproves that...
DanBC 12y ago
Amelie uses a lot of red and green. Jean-Pierre Jeunet made "City of Lost Children" which also has a strong red green palette. He also directed "Delicatessen" that used a chemical process to give the film a gold glow.
- xxxyy 12y ago
  The trailer [1] confirms the increased usage of red/orange and green colors. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-uxeZaM-VM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-uxeZaM-VM

S_A_P 12y ago

One movie that seemed to play with color to a fantastic effect is Traffic - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181865/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181865/ I noticed when it came out that color played a subtle role in setting the mood of each scene and aspect. For instance, near the border towns and where where the "hot zone" of illegal drug traffic occurred, it was more yellow/orange tinted. Then when you head back to the suburbs and see privileged kids doing drugs in their large homes, the color was much more blue and lighting was much softer. I wish that more movies would employ tricks like this without using a "template"... edit: looked on IMDB and it looks like 3 different films stocks were used: To achieve a distinctive look for each different vignette in the story, Steven Soderbergh used three different film stocks (and post-production techniques), each with their own color treatment and grain for the print. The "Wakefield" story features a colder, bluer tone to match the sad, depressive emotion. The "Ayala" story is bright, shiny, and saturated in primary colors, especially red, to match the glitzy surface of Helena's life. The "Mexican" story appears grainy, rough, and hot to go with the rugged Mexican landscape and congested cities.

mVChr 12y ago
Side-note: Soderbergh's editing is absolutely fantastic and original too (see: The Limey, Out of Sight). Fine, fine film-maker, one of the few to be able to cross from pure art film to Hollywood blockbuster and back again through everything in between with ease. It will be interesting to see where his "retirement" takes him.
- dingaling 12y ago
  Soderbergh recently did a recut of 2001 to make it less 'obvious'...

swalsh 12y ago

In The Matrix, you could tell which "world" you're in by the general grade of color. When in the Matrix, everything had a greenish overtone, and when in the "real world" it was more blue. I really liked that use of color to be a part of the story telling process.

pkroll 12y ago
Just as a note, the green grading was made stronger in releases after the original DVD.
- athenry 12y ago
  Very True. I remember when I got the bluRay, and increased green in the first movie was very clear.
- teh_klev 12y ago
  You can see a comparison here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtktg9hbC_g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtktg9hbC_g I do think they over-egged the pudding in the Blu-ray release. In some scenes Neo's skin tones look awful.
  - pluma 12y ago
    Interesting. Being partially colour blind I would have thought that the original was much greener, while the re-release is a lot bluer and bumped up the brightness contrast. For example, most of the agent scenes in that comparison the left frame appears "greener" (but also more washed out in terms of brightness contrast) than the right.
    - pkroll 12y ago
      I'm in the same boat: it's weird seeing the comments describing the blu-ray as "green-ray" and that things are SO GREEN when I literally can't see it. For those of you with decent color sight, was the original... more orange?

chton 12y ago

One of the most interesting exceptions I've seen on this convention was the 2011 movie Limitless(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219289/). They still used the orange-blue complement, but switched saturation between them, sometimes every scene. It was used as an indicator of how the protagonist views the world: bright and with an orange saturation for when he is on NZT, dull and blue when he isn't. I thought it was a great way of deconstructing this particular trope.

HCIdivision17 12y ago
To join in, I too loved the use of color in Limitless. I personally associate vibrant autumnal colors with clarity, not sharp blues, so when the characters go on NZT, it feels fuller, not just sharper. It looks like something a person would actually want, as opposed to losing one's humanity in a soul-crushing washed-out green or blue usually seen in sci-fi.

sosuke 12y ago

I enjoyed Dead Silence, but some of the blue they do was overkill. For example: http://static.yts.re/attachments/Dead_Silence_2007/Screenshot_006_large.png http://static.yts.re/attachments/Dead_Silence_2007/Screensho... I hope we get a more natural dynamic range of color in the future.

3minus1 12y ago

tl;dr human skin is orange edit: why the downvotes? it's actually in the article > Most skin tones fall somewhere between pale peach and dark, dark brown, leaving them squarely in the orange segment of any color wheel

deleted 12y ago
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joosters 12y ago

At least they had the good grace to link to http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-ho... before effectively rewriting his original blogpost (and copying some of the images directly from it!)

klochner 12y ago
He wasn't the first - slashfilm in 2009: http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/ http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-poster... based off a reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/comments/a8mqz http://www.reddit.com/comments/a8mqz Reddit seems to be the go-to source for 'original' blog content these days.
cake 12y ago
Those priceonomics guys really care for their SEO. They are one of the few websites that writes totally unrelated articles to sell a product. I kind of feel used when I see them pop up.
- skizm 12y ago
  If the content is good, who cares?
  - TorKlingberg 12y ago
    The people who search for a product, and get get results ranked based on irrelevant blogging.
    - indrax 12y ago
      Using a web search engine is asking for rankings based on web structure, not rankings based on product quality. You might think it's bad to take advantage of that, but refraining from doing so doesn't likely yield a fair product quality ranking, just some different unfair rating. Our fitness function is broken.
- 12y ago

jobu 12y ago

A few years ago there was a good article on Cracked (of all places) about the annoying trends for movies: http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-make-every-movie-look-same.html http://www.cracked.com/article_18664_5-annoying-trends-that-... There is the orange and teal trend, but also color trends by genre, and of course lens flares...

fivedogit 12y ago
I was just about to post this link as well. Glad someone else had the same thought. Cracked, while an absurd humor site on the surface, is one of the most reliable resources of new-perspective intellectual stimulation on the web, IMO.

binarymax 12y ago

I remember this from a while ago - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1193657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1193657 After I read that post it took something away from a lot of films for me, since it was hard to not notice. In this context, ignorance is bliss I say! I wish I could go back to not noticing.

ssully 12y ago
I see it as just another way of understanding a tool in a filmmakers box better. You can gain a deeper appreciation for a film by understanding how and why an element, be it sound, color, framing, or anything else, was chosen by the director and film crew.
moogleii 12y ago
I'm not totally opposed to the idea since there's an artistic goal behind it. Kinda like Instagram filters, which I admittedly used to oppose, but for Instagram's purpose, which isn't vying for National Geographic awards, they work well.

dperfect 12y ago

> There's no specific colour decision-making process where we sit in a room and say, 'We're only going to use complementary colours to try and move the audience in a particular direction – and only use those combinations.' A lot of production designers would strongly disagree with this statement. The color palette of a film is very much a part of the decision-making process (pre-production as well as post-production), and it's used primarily to "move the audience" in one way or another, as per the film's theme and story elements. It may just be that the colors within a chosen palette are often classified as either "warm" or "cool" - orange and blue being the most obvious manifestations of those classifications - so we tend to see a lot of them. Without contrast (literal and figurative), a film simply doesn't say anything. Warm and cool colors go a long way in helping the audience feel positively or negatively about certain story elements.

KaiserPro 12y ago
Having worked in a grading suite, I can say that the quoted statement is indeed false. Colour usually is considered right at the start, as dperfet correctly points out.
- ted5555 12y ago
  Right. There are also those color houses that standardize more or less the worlds palette for the next few years. It is not an accident that we all had avocado refrigerators and green minivans. It is a truly big brother industry.
dperfect 12y ago
Upon re-reading this quote and its source article, I believe he was probably referring to moviemaking at a more meta level; i.e., there's no decision-making process wherein all (or many) filmmakers discuss and agree upon a narrow choice of colors to use across all of their films. As the quote continues, "[e]very film has its own look." I inferred "we" as meaning a single production team. It makes much more sense if "we" refers to filmmakers as a whole.

deleted 12y ago

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Breakthrough 12y ago

Full Metal Jacket had it's moments of blue and orange, but I'd classify most scenes in the film as 'green'. Then again, Kubrick was known to be obsessive in regards to attention to detail, especially when it came to lighting and colour reproduction.

peter303 12y ago

1950s films looked washed out. Little green in outdoors Westerns or indoors movies.

blt 12y ago
Probably a limitation of the color film stock at the time. Technicolor used a beam splitter and three strips of black-and-white film. It made super-vivid colors but was expensive. Single-strip color film rose to the top in the 50s and 60s with worse colors, but much cheaper and easier to shoot.
- pkroll 12y ago
  The Adventures of Robin Hood, the Errol Flynn movie from 1938, is an excellent example of three-strip Technicolor, and on blu-ray some scenes look like they were shot last week, not 80 years ago.

coin 12y ago

-1 for disabling zoom on mobile devices

hownottowrite 12y ago

How do to color grading in Final Cut X https://vimeo.com/58051635 https://vimeo.com/58051635

Yhippa 12y ago

When I shoot portraits of people with a flash I will sometimes use an orange gel to give people's skin a more human look. White flash tends to take that out of the final picture but the orange gel makes skin look more natural.

KaiserPro 12y ago

Ironically, teal and orange reached its peak with tranformers. With the rise of RED cameras (which have useless colour reproduction) we've gone the opposite way, low contrast, lots of grain. http://emertainmentmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/intothewoods.jpg http://emertainmentmonthly.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/in... (warning, 5k image) http://applications.creativeengland.co.uk/assets/public/redactor_images/e10892d041ac4eaf76778da4c7730d8f.jpg http://applications.creativeengland.co.uk/assets/public/reda... note the softness on james corden's face, thats most likely someone painting out blemishes. Fun fact, virtually any special effects movie that you've seen since 2000, all the film grain you see, is faked. So the people who bemoan the loss of grain with the move to digital need to reassess what they are saying: http://conradolson.com/frame-by-frame-painting http://conradolson.com/frame-by-frame-painting

sandofsky 12y ago
I'm curious about what the makes the colour reproduction useless. Based on the low contrast comment, I'm guessing it has to do with the log color space?
- Matsta 12y ago
  It's true to a point, the RED isn't the best camera at reproducing colours. But then again most of the time you're going to be filming in RAW so it doesn't really matter as much since you get a flat image in post that you can grade. An advantage the RED cameras have say over a Alexa is that they can film in 4k,5k,6k (Alexa only shoots in 2k). So that you can get a sharper image by editing in 6k, and then exporting in 4k or 1080p. If you look at video cams for projects that need to be finished quickly, of course your not going to choose a RED. Canon Cinema Cameras (c100, c300) have the best colour science out of everyone (Sony and Panasonic are known to have pretty average colour reproduction). The only downfall with Canon cameras is that they use crappy codes and compression so when you start pushing to extreme looks, you'll get alot of noise and loose sharpness in your footage. I use Blackmagic cameras, which aren't know for their colours either, but they own the industry standard grading software (DaVinci), so it is quite easy to get your footage balanced before you do a grade.
12y ago

blt 12y ago

I usually dislike any color grading over an entire movie. I recently re-watched Snatch and its heavy green cast felt so obnoxious and ugly.

test1235 12y ago
That's kinda weird, considering the vividly red cover.

mladenkovacevic 12y ago

While working at a tv distribution company about 8 years ago, I used to design these promotional one-pagers for various shows. After a while I noticed all of my designs were mostly blue and orange (or at least the main components of the design were). Then I started consciously trying to use other colour arrangements but orange-blue just always sort of looked best. I celebrated any time i managed to get a good looking poster/one-pager without relying on the orange-blue complementary contrast. I wonder if women might have an advantage here due to many men being red-green colour blind to some extent.

hockeybias 12y ago

Yawn... old news.

bshimmin 12y ago

Kubrick was always masterful with colour, and while he is probably best known for his fascination with red [1], it's actually the orange/blue contrast in "Eyes Wide Shut" that is most memorable for me. [1]: http://vimeo.com/112129153 http://vimeo.com/112129153

iLoch 12y ago

Drive has some great usage of this type of cinematography if I recall correctly. I think the author may have ruined watching movies for me now though. :/

nmeofthestate 12y ago

Recently when watching stuff on Netflix I found myself amazed at how ridiculously orange and teal movies were getting. Even the pilot episode of House was ridiculously Orange'n'Teal. Then I twigged it was because I was running F.Lux.

graedus 12y ago

Moviebarcode [0] provides some nice visualizations [1][2][3] of the color palette of movies and other things. [0] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/ http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/ [1] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/104685404787/transformers-age-of-extinction-2014 http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/104685404787/transformer... [2] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432016573/traffic-2000 http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432016573/traffic-2000 [3] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/8951346287/tron-legacy-2010-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/8951346287/tron-legacy-2...

jmstout 12y ago

A fun read, but I'm not convinced the reason for all the orange and blue is rooted in trendiness, as the article makes it seem. It suggests that this color combination "might not be naturalistic", but in my experience with light, color, and art, that statement couldn't be further from the truth. Look around, in light, orange and blue hues dominante our world. Sunlight, moonlight, street lights, sky, incandescents, the glow of lcds screens, etc - blue and orange everywhere. If you take notice, you will realize this is true. As the article points out, in art, when wanting to create vibrancy and visual interest, one of the best tools in our arsenal is the use of complementary colors. No other compliments are even close to occurring as frequently in the lighting of our natural world. This, I believe, is the true reason for its abundant use in cinema. Of all the compliments, orange and blue is just the most natural.

steve94103 12y ago

There's a really good video that illustrates & describes this effect. It's targeted towards users of the color grading tools, but it's an interesting watch nonetheless. The Summer Blockbuster Colour Grading Tutorial: https://vimeo.com/65617394 https://vimeo.com/65617394

Grazester 12y ago

My girlfriend and I noticed this in 2001 with the movies "Sword Fish" and "Traffic", We made fun of it and called it the cool movie filter. lol.

robbrown451 12y ago

One thing that isn't mentioned is that realism doesn't seem "cinematic." It's just like people not liking high frame rate because of the "soap opera effect," or even some people's preference for black and white. Visible grain, non-subtle bokeh effects and lens flare, etc are other things that aren't realistic per se, but for some reason they make it seem less "cheap" and bring more emotional weight than a more perfectly realistic image. I think these sorts of forced palettes do the same thing. Maybe a different color combination will become trendy at some point, but for now, orange/blue is a pretty safe bet that it will achieve the emotional effect, without it just looking weird.

trhway 12y ago

gold and blue, due to the price of the paint components, were hallmark of an expensive art painting through the history until very recently. Thus using those colors allows to exploit that association and puts your movie at perceived level of the old masterpieces. That also correlates nicely with the fact that cheap or produced in other countries inferior color film (like in the USSR for example) didn't have good blue, was reddish-greenish instead, and thus this gold/blue of today also suggests associations with better quality.

throwaway2048 12y ago
Maybe somewhat ironically, this assumed association with quality without an associated real correlation with quality leads to crap trying to pass itself off as amazing stuff by using such techniques. This then leads to an association with crap rather than the quality they intended.... http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tawdry http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tawdry
vacri 12y ago
I wouldn't have thought that the demographic that enjoys Transformers would have much overlap with the demographic that's aware of more than one or two paintings of the old masters.

tlrobinson 12y ago

Final Cut Pro X literally has an effect called "Teal and Orange": https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdbub5jctmn4lqh/Screenshot%202015-01-29%2011.34.17.png?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdbub5jctmn4lqh/Screenshot%202015-... I applied it to one of my (totally amateur) drone videos (https://vimeo.com/95716566 https://vimeo.com/95716566) and thought it looked kind of "good", now I know why.

dsuth 12y ago

This is all a little bizarre, as these are my two favourite colours, especially in combination. As a teenager getting to paint my walls my own colours for the first time, I chose orange walls with blue trim. I had not idea it was so prevalent in movie-making!

dharma1 12y ago

If you are interested in colour grading, this is a wonderful piece of software - http://3dlutcreator.com http://3dlutcreator.com That and davinci and you'll be fine

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Why does that site add inertia to my scrolling? :(
imjk 12y ago
Can you elaborate a little on how this is different from Photoshop or Lightroom?

parenthesis 12y ago

Overdone computer-enabled post-production colour manipulation is one of the (many) reasons I find it hard to watch a lot of film and television drama productions of this century. I much prefer the result when the manipulation of colour is achieved through lighting on the set or location. Two examples of films I think have fantastic use of colour in the lighting are Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Desperately Seeking Susan.

m-i-l 12y ago

Danny Boyle's Sunshine [0] also made good use of colour - the interior of the ship had no reference to red, orange or yellow to make the appearance of the sun more striking. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film)

devonoel 12y ago
Sunshine was a criminally under appreciated movie.

nosuchthing 12y ago

Here's a visualization summary of entire movies in a "barcode" timeline format from the start of the film to the end. [0] http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/movie-index http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/movie-index [1] 2001: A Space Odyssey http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432026155/2001-a-space-odyssey-1968-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3432026155/2001-a-space-... [2] Aladdin http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/5766889425/aladdin-1992-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/5766889425/aladdin-1992-... [3] Beyond the Black Rainbow http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/39051819960/beyond-the-black-rainbow-2010-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/39051819960/beyond-the-b... [4] Blade Runner http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4438993828/blade-runner-1982-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/4438993828/blade-runner-... [5] Star Wars Episode IV http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/13255664875/star-wars-episode-iv-a-new-hope-1977-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/13255664875/star-wars-ep... [6] The Wizard of Oz http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3512965847/the-wizard-of-oz-1939-prints http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/post/3512965847/the-wizard-of...

ted5555 12y ago

Color theory is like a fractal. The closer you get the more detail there is. The Color Correction Handbook: Professional Techniques for Video and Cinema by Alexis Van Hurkman is a great book if you really want to geek out or are considering working in DI. Two particular topics come to mind. One is memory colors which describe the ideal colors people within a cultural group tend to think of when remembering common elements such as grass (greener) or brick (redder). The other is cultural preferences regarding saturation. Seems UK audiences like things a bit less saturated which I now understand is why all my British photography magazines "look washed out". In a the 90's there was a craze for bleach bypass and other alternative film processes. I'm pretty sure the 3 Kings dvd says not to adjust your tv.

TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
UK light is very different to California light. Colours here really are washed out. A long time ago I was in Australia. My then gf bought a bedspread by an artist called Ken Done - lots of bright primary colours. It looked great in Sydney. In UK light - even in sunlight - most of the colour punch disappeared. It actually looked kind of grey and old. Disappointment... So if supersaturate movie colours, they look surreal here. But California really is teal and orange. The light is warm and intense, and LA gets a lot of clear blue sky. So I wonder if directors like TnO because it's a variation on natural Hollywood light.

jhanschoo 12y ago

One argument in favor of using orange-blue as opposed to other contrasting colors, is that humans associate blue with darkness and depth. Our eyes and mind, too, perceive blue at a lower resolution as other colors (We perceive green with the greatest fidelity). Colorizing the screen in orange and blue, then, imposes a hierarchy on the objects in the screen. Whereever the orange-blue scheme is used, the blue depicts the background and the orange depicts the action. This adds to the illusion of depth, which is extremely important especially for Hollywood action films, as they need to feel big and grand amid fast-paced movement and short takes. Where objects flash across the screen in split seconds, the orange-blue contrast can provide a natural vocabulary to re-orient the viewer as to what is happening in the 3D space depicted by the 2D screen. I would guess that the blue-green colorscheme is overrepresented in action films and especially in action sequences, and underrepresented in say, comedy and romance films.