Since my genre focuses so deeply on the main character, I established in my last post that they need to make a strong impression of who they are in the opening. One of the ways I decided to present this through color.
Color Research
For my story it is essential for me to juxtapose order and calm with passion and disorder in order to represent my character. I want her to be someone who desires to have this tranquil and peaceful image but underneath is a bit all over the place. Since I want to show this right off the bat in the opening I need subtle ways to display her mental state/emotions. I decided a perfect way to subtly but firmly unveil this characteristic is through the use of color.
According to “The Psychology of Color in Film” by No Film School, one of the best ways to get an emotion to resonate with your audience is to pick and present a color that associates with that color. This technique is used as a key plot element in many movies and is especially popular in director Wes Anderson’s productions.
If you want to read more from the article:
https://nofilmschool.com/2016/06/watch-psychology-color-film
I watched this video on how Wes Anderson uses color in his productions here is the link (I recommend skipping to 4:40, everything before that is mostly summary):
Here are some more specific examples from the video that represent what I aim to do with color:
Sam in Moonrise Kingdom shown in Yellow to display the anxiety, insecurity, and naiveness associated with his character.
Chas Tenenbaum from The Royal Tenenbaums shown in red to display his erratic and intense nature.
Now that I have an understanding of how to utilize color, I have selected which colors I think I will utilize to convey the persona of my own character.
For the facade of tranquility, I will utilize the colors of light blue and light green. From my research on color (the video and article), I have found that these colors can be used to represent calmness, peace, and health. These characteristics are what my character wants to project. I will incorporate these colors into what the character is wearing and heavily into her room’s decorations/colors. However, I want to show the antithesis of these characteristics as the opening progresses to represent the sort of ‘unveiling’ of her true self.
This ‘true self’ will be represented by the colors of red and yellow. Red will represent her passionate and intense nature and yellow will represent her obsessiveness and give a slight aura of madness. I will begin to introduce these colors slowly through the character’s appearance and the props she begins to interact with (hairclip, shirt color underneath jacket, scissors, string, pens).
Sources:
Fusco, Jon. “The Psychology of Color in Film (with Examples).” No Film School, No Film School, 27 Mar. 2019, https://nofilmschool.com/2016/06/watch-psychology-color-film.
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