Colour in Film

Colour

Different colours convey different emotions, and have various psychological effects on people - therefore, colour in film can be used to create mood in a scene. There are three main factors of determining colour in film, these being hue (the colour itself), saturation (the intensity of the colour), and brightness (how light or dark the colour is). 

Take The Matrix, for example. Throughout the movie the hue is almost entirely in different shades of green. This is because The Matrix is a sci-fi movie which takes place in a digital simulation - we associate the colour green with coding. The shades of green in The Matrix also tend to have a sort of sickly quality to them, reflecting the dreary feel of the story being told.

Some directors choose to heavily desaturate - this drains the colour out of each scene, setting a cold, dreary, and overall unpleasant mood for the film. This is also in some cases done to create reminiscence of the time period this movie takes place in. Desaturation can often be seen in war films such as Enemy at the Gates, Hacksaw Ridge, and Dunkirk.

The brightness in a film dictates the mood of a film, and can create contrast. Scenes containing entirely brighter colours were very common during the era in which colour was first introduced in film, and was for some a good enough reason to watch it alone. Scenes containing less bright colours create a darker and foreboding or gloomy atmosphere.