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What colors were popular in the 1990’s?
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What colors were popular in the 2010’s?
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What colors are the new colors?
In the last week I’ve been looking at each of the colors I chose. And I didn’t have to spend hours or days researching the history of colors in cinema because I was able to have a lot of fun finding the new colors. There’s some very interesting colors here, some with a distinct hue like orange, blue, red and black. In these photos, I’m using colors taken from the movie The Color Purple from the 1986 film The Princess Bride by director Ramon Rivas, which starred Gene Hackman.
The Color Purple was not actually shot with oranges and reds. The color purple was used primarily to make the characters seem blue-purple, making it a very subtle color change, as shown against blue sky.
I also have some fun with using colors like purple with a little bit of green.
I also have some fun playing with different shades of white like navy blue or white with grey. I think one of the fun things of using color for film is that it lends itself to more complicated shots than when you use just blues and greens. I like to take the look of the actors and make the characters more distinct and make the audience think about the costumes, the lighting and the way the actors are dressed. So if you have one actor who is dressed in a black suit, blue jumpsuit, dark sunglasses and black hat and another actor in black suit, a white jumpsuit, black shorts and white hat, the audience knows it’s a guy dressed in black.
How do I add these new colors?
You have to adjust your image as I explain above. You’re looking for color in the frame as opposed to the screen or your screen itself. So this is what I do to bring these colors to life on film. It’s not as black and white as you might be used to seeing with film. You are left with just the black in the background and the whites and blacks in the frame.
You’ll notice in the above photos that I use a very flat, clean photo