Tag: colors

Posted on

Blending Reality

I think that color does as much for a movie as the story, acting, and direction. For example the vibrant use of neons in Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon. Both of these films are hypnotic. Everything about both of those movies pops off the screen.

Michael Mann's LA films have an aesthetic, both Heat and Collateral are some of my favorites. Drive replicates it to an extent too. Yet for me Miami Vice contains some of Mann’s best cinematography. It is a film that is usually overlooked.

The whole production did some amazing things on the digital side, as well as seamlessly mixing occasional 35mm footage throughout. The original series was filmed in 35mm, it was an extreme expense at the time for most series, and used similar colors. The production values helped set it above others.

The film Miami Vice drew a lot from the original series not just the aesthetics but the whole ambiance which was skillfully crafted together.

Mann is one of the greats.

Posted on

Too Many Colors But I Love Them All

I love color but it is deeper than say, an artist's eye, it is a celebration. I blame my mum for this.

Yup, I said mum. My mother was born and raised in England she met my dad and have lived in sunny California ever since. I don't think that my dad as a favorite, but for my mum, it is yellow. I think in England you get something like 50 years of cloudy in every century. When we visit family there it is always so overcast. That is why yellow is her favorite, no matter how many rainy days she had growing up, she could always have some sunshine in the color yellow.

When I was a kid growing up she had a flower garden where she grew yellow peonies and lemon trees. It was truly a beautiful sight.

I love them all.

For me colors are an expression of emotion, experience, and individuality.

Though that last statement may not be true. I read somewhere that around 50% of the world claim blue as their favorite color. And yet to say blue is wrong. What we consider blue is a huge range. Deep blue, and the bright cyan blue are really different, but both are considered the same color because, English.

But I like cyan blue a whole lot more than indigo blue. I have always found it strange when people consider cyan to just be a shade of blue. Cyan is in between blue and green. Just like orange is between red and yellow, yet we don't consider orange to just be a shade of red.

Under scientific color theory, there are the subtractive primary colors, which would be magenta, cyan and yellow, and then there are the additive primary colors, which are red, blue and green. The idea that the primary colors are red, yellow and blue has been considered wrong for a long time, but it still gets taught today, being taught as the RYB model in art classes, this does not mean that it is scientific.

Scientifically cyan is actually a primary color.