Proportion

How much of a colour is present is as important as which colours are used. I noticed throughout the entirety of 'Shutter Island' directed by Martin Scorsese was full of wonderful composition with great thought towards the colour proportions. I chose this shot because it seems perfectly balanced. The looming green darkness on the left is broken only by two detectives in white suits who accent the darkness. They are trying to get to the lighthouse, which is made to seem even more distant by it being completely off of the island with its dark shape amongst the harsh white of the oceans reflection. The colours and values have been placed to show a sense of belonging and exclusion. The lighthouse and the detective's clothes are the same base colour as the lighthouse, and so it is always clear that this is their destination as it not only represents their goal, but they are tied together with the colour palette.

Wall-e utilizes similar principals here in the shot of Wall-e's love interest Eve exploring his belongings. The dreary tertiary darkness of wall-e's home is broken bypoints of warm yellow and purple light dappled in different areas. This movie has an ongoing theme of a light at the end of the tunnel, and gloomy places with friendly faces, so the use of colour is tailored to further emphasize these. With literal points of light, the room is softly lit, as Eve's back takes on the subtle mauve-blue from behind, whilst here digital aqua blue eyes clash with the softer subtler surrounding colours. This emphasizes the fact that she does not call this lace home and she does not fit in with either the analogue gadgets on the shelves, or the colour palette.

The work of concept artist Alex Mandra is always carefully considered, and composed to best sense of dynamism possible. This image is from a collection of his personal work, and is very sweet on the eyes. The threatening red beam from the soldiers gun, is also mimicked in the darkness on the back of the robot facing him, perhaps defending the figure below. This leads the audience to believe that amongst the mossy green ruins around them, these two elements have clashing points of light that indicate they are of a threat to the individuals below. There is actually very little red to compliment the green, and it is seemingly used to highlight only threatening elements: The blood bursting from the figure on the left, the red beam coming from the elevated soldiers gun, and the red warning light on the back of the robot one can only assume was created to doll out some form of beating or swift execution.

Saturation

This is a screen shot from the game 'Journey' for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Its an experimental indie game in which the art style was intended to look like moving concept art. The result is something very refreshing. You play as a red hooded figure simply exploring a desert. On the way you come across glowing, ancient, blue ruins, carpets that drift through the sky, and eventually you gain the ability to fly. Each new area has a colour palette that sits very well with me. From this in game screen shot, it is evident that the game demonstrates a cpnfident art style and a very emersive atmosphere. This is thanks to the colour palette in which the red characters are complimented via the less saturated green sky. There are also some broken less saturated shades evident in the sandy hills, and particularly in the scarf squid floating in the air. The use of the deep saturated red for the characters, really makes a dynamic change from the less saturated background and creates a striking contrast. Also The horizon fades almost completely to white, and this creates a brilliant sense of infinity; this desert never ends.

Summer Wars is a 2009 animé movie exploring how a digital life can come to affect everybody's reality. The movie focuses on swapping between a digital world called 'Oz', and the real world the characters occupy. To ensure the audience will always be able to define the two instances, a more garish and computer generated set of colours is used when viewing 'Oz'. Straight off you can see the hues are very unnatural, with screen being arranged in a rainbow fashion around the central pillar. The colours are very saturated and lend to the digitized feel. I am quite a fan of the 'colour or nothing' approach to the design of this digital world. There are very few subtle colours here. Colour seems to exist in a pure form, or not at all. The monitors, interfaces, and eyes of the figure all glow with a candy-coloured light, which makes a very unnatural contrast with the completely white background, enforcing in the viewers mind that this is not reality, and so the distinction between the game world and reality is made.

I was impressed here not only by the tasteful colour palette and general composition, but also how colour (or the lack of) has been used to actually give an indication of where the characters are. Present is this usual blorange combo, with the Karl, Russel, and their companions coming out of a cold blue forest into a warm orange sunset, however it's the less saturated cliff face that puts things into perspective. The fact that the colours are desaturated near the bottom of the cliff give a great indication that the characters are up somewhere very high, to the extent that they are above the mornign fog, or perhaps the clouds themselves. This scene is thick with atmosphere, and I would hope to go about my own work with such colour confidence.

Value

“Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole” created by Animal Logic is perhaps my favourite movie. Despite being biased to animation and anything with talking animals, this movie really hit the nail on the head for me. Story aside, the shots themselves are beautiful. As opposed to the previous post, the colour schemes used in this film are more subdued and passive, but they go a long way to contributing to the story. The image below is from a moment in the film where the owl on the right has escaped from a horrible place, and has just found an owl he doesn't know (on the left), who lives in the area. Straight away the colour reinforces the notion of being in an alien world. The owl on the left 'Digger' takes on the colours of the environment much more than Soren, the right-hand owl. The blues and broken hues of the background seem evident more in Digger's Colour than in Soren's. There surroundings are lighter and less saturated because of the fog, whereas the characters themselves have a darker more saturated palette, making them stand out and look unwelcome in the frosty scenery. Although blue and orange are complimentary, in this case that goes towards distancing Soren from the environment, which is exactly the idea as he stands out as though he doesn't belong. This is a part eerie moment in the film, and the less saturated broken colours add to the uncertainty and alien feel of the situation.

Winnie the Pooh is known for it's charming watercolour imagery both in the books and in the scenery of the cartoon version. This piece of concept work for the location “Pooh Sticks Bridge” shows the same qualities in it's colour scheme. Although it can be said that trees are brown, leaves are green, etc, this piece packs every element full of colour. The shaded areas are soften not only by the nature of the medium, but also in the colours found within. For instance, the shaded areas of the tree trunks, take on the blue from the sky, as do a lot of other elements in the piece such as the bridge and even the leaves in places. This colour combination not only gives way to an appropriate stone for darker areas, but creates a wonderful atmospheric haze in setting that lends to that fuzzy summer's day feeling. The piece overall is very light and desaturated, with the more darker areas such as the roots of the tree of the left serving as slight tints to contrast with the surrounding elements. The piece lacks any true darkness because of the light and happy mood it is portraying.  

Flaunting an atmospheric sepia pallet, Juanjo Gaurnido's 'BLACKSAD' comics provide an excellent example of how to lead the eye to points of interest using opposing values and contrasting lighting set-ups. The comic's pages are very detailed and painstakingly produced, so to direct the readers attention to the vital parts of each scenario, value is heavily relied on to give focus amongst the clutter.. In this instance, the elements closer to the light of the window have a more solid colour, whereas areas such as the corner of the room sport darker shades of red and green. Some aspects such as the notice board on the far right, make used of a very subtle mix of colours that distinguish from each other by a very small margin, making the reader deem them as something of little interest. However, John Blacksad's black fur is a strong dark tint amongst the much lighter values surrounding it, this establishes him as the main point of focus, and so the reader's attention will rest mostly on the feline figure.

Hue

Having been taught the basics of hue and rudimentary colour use, a few examples came to mind that I think show particularly good use of hue. “Le Royaume” is an animation short by Gobelins studio that makes striking use of appropriate colour at all times throughout the animation. Even without the charming characters and design, the animation could stand up on colour alone. The image below is a screenshot of the moment when the king asks for a beavers help to build a castle from wood. Whilst a lot of the surrounding colours are quite subdued, the red of the cape stands out more than other elements. This highlights his importance in the forest, the colours of his clothes are actually more saturated versions of the surrounding blues and reds and oranges in the forest. So whilst he looks out of place this helps to make him seem more secure in the environment, and also to seem literally richer in colour and wealth than anything in the forest.

The work of Lou Romano has been a big interest to me for a while, more notably his work on the colour script for Disney's “The Incredibles”. With a very minimalistic approach to the design of on screen elements, the colour is put forward as the most important element of each image, which it is and should be in this case. The colours are placed definitely and confidently; gradients are rarely used, and everything has a hard clean edge. This seems off putting at a glance, but it actually puts more pressure on the palette to work well, as that is where a lot of the focus will end up. It's almost stripping it down to the absolute necessities, like getting some colour swatches and saying 'these colours work' and then arranging them in a pleasing way in frame. I could not distinguish what some of the frames depicted, but it doesn't matter because it's all about composition and colour. The colour of the Incredible's costumes is an orange/red, and this is complimented in almost every scene with a hues of blue in the scenery. In more dramatic instances when they are fighting, the scenery switches to warmer reds and oranges, to reflect how the characters are in their element, when using their powers to save the world. This method of colour study isn't so subtle, but I subtlety is where I have difficulties with my own work, so this style sits very well with me in my comfort zone. A confident style for a confident super-family.

In an attempt to make monsters hiding in the dark more friendly, the concept artists of Disney's “Monsters' Inc.” and “Monsters' University” do a wonderful job of coating the environment and monsters in bright candy colours that are similar to the toys and bright coloured motifs that children are familiar with. In the scene below especially, the colours are numerous and bright, but without being over-bearing. Elements in this scene bounce off each other in a very pleasing way: Sully's blue hand passes in front of an orange autumn try, while Mike's red book compliments his green skin. Everything is made prominent not by slap dashing colours at random, the scene is composed so complimentary colours are positioned amongst each other seamlessly. The colours used also speak of the characters habits. Mike seems very content outdoors and looks especially at home on the grass which is the same colour as his skin. Perhaps he spends more time outdoors than studying. Whilst sully carries a back pack and has similar colours to the roof of the university building, implying he is more at home in the sanctity of the library/classroom/etc studying. I find this image very nice to look at. Nothing sticks out so much that it takes priority over other elements.