It's interesting that the vast majority of us would have seen all those films and never noticed... I get the feeling that now every time I watch a recent movie I'm going to be thinking of this post.
As a photographer, this post is way full of crap - look at famous photographs, and you will see the exact same thing even before the days of Photoshop.
These colors are used because they work, and they project a certain effect on your images. Blaming this on the advent of computers is disingenuous - photographers have been shooting at Golden Hour for generations to capture the contrasty orangeness since God knows when.
This is hardly a new digital phenomenon, it's done because it works. The digital editors are emulating what's been done using colored light for 90 years.
Right, but I fail to see how a valid artistic theme in photography suddenly becomes lazy me-too-ism when applied to film.
Art goes through phases - maybe there was that guy back during the Renaissance complaining about how all the sculptures looked the same, etc etc. This is simply the way art goes.
Sometimes technology makes it easier to do something, and then people do that thing more than they did before, to the point where they're doing it too much.
It's like AutoTune in music: people have always tried to sing in tune, but now they can sing even more in tune, and so current pop music has almost lost the naturalism and emotional effects produced by subtle variance in pitch.
Isn't that simply a matter of aesthetics though? I don't much like autotune either, but I'm willing to admit the possibility that it's simply because I grew up listening to a different aesthetic.
We've certainly lost a lot of aesthetics as art styles changed over time - when's the last time you saw a good tapestry? I don't see this as particularly bad, though, it's simply "the way it is" in art. Periodically we will exchange one thing for another, and life goes on.
I don't mean the T-Pain style 'AutoTune-as-an-effect' -- I mean the subtler use of AutoTune to correct minor fluctuations in a natural-sounding performance.
Yes, but instead of manipulating them separately, they apply one same filter to all the film, even frames with now face in it. Which means some frames have no contrast in them (screenshot Wolfman #2), others make irrelevant objects stand out (Hot Tub #2). Great article.
Exactly. If you light the actors with warm light, the background would become blueish. These days you just set the right color balance, before they used corrective filters (slightly blueish in this case). The result is the same.
Great find! I know that there is one other scream that I hear constantly in movies but I have no idea if it has a name... I'll have to make sure to keep an ear out for it!
There is a really annoying one that used to haunt me when being forced to enjoy watching football (soccer) with my dad: ALL video replays had the exact same audio on it. It really used to grate on me as it was really obvious once you had got used to it, but my dad could never hear it.
Just a little anecdotal evidence of my experience on this fascinating subject. Perception, attention and information are very interesting facets of psychology!
I noticed, and disliked it, and it turned me into an anti-color-grading fanatic. However I assumed it was due to trying to make movies on blu-ray look more movie-like by limiting their colors to the colors they are used to seeing on dvd as opposed to the realistic colors people see on modern HD camcorders, that might make movies look home-made or amateur.
Comments
It's interesting that the vast majority of us would have seen all those films and never noticed... I get the feeling that now every time I watch a recent movie I'm going to be thinking of this post.
As a photographer, this post is way full of crap - look at famous photographs, and you will see the exact same thing even before the days of Photoshop.
These colors are used because they work, and they project a certain effect on your images. Blaming this on the advent of computers is disingenuous - photographers have been shooting at Golden Hour for generations to capture the contrasty orangeness since God knows when.
In stage lighting, actors typically are lit from two sides one "hot" (orange) and one "cool" (teal):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCandless_Method#McCandless_Me...
This is hardly a new digital phenomenon, it's done because it works. The digital editors are emulating what's been done using colored light for 90 years.
I think the critique is less the use of the technique and more the ubiquity of it. Digital lighting can easy appear curious and unreal.
He said that computers have caused this in movies, because now every frame can be manipulated separately.
Right, but I fail to see how a valid artistic theme in photography suddenly becomes lazy me-too-ism when applied to film.
Art goes through phases - maybe there was that guy back during the Renaissance complaining about how all the sculptures looked the same, etc etc. This is simply the way art goes.
Sometimes technology makes it easier to do something, and then people do that thing more than they did before, to the point where they're doing it too much.
It's like AutoTune in music: people have always tried to sing in tune, but now they can sing even more in tune, and so current pop music has almost lost the naturalism and emotional effects produced by subtle variance in pitch.
Isn't that simply a matter of aesthetics though? I don't much like autotune either, but I'm willing to admit the possibility that it's simply because I grew up listening to a different aesthetic.
We've certainly lost a lot of aesthetics as art styles changed over time - when's the last time you saw a good tapestry? I don't see this as particularly bad, though, it's simply "the way it is" in art. Periodically we will exchange one thing for another, and life goes on.
No, it's not an opinion, autotune is evil :)
... which, of course, creates another emotional effect, and thus is actually working!
I agree it can become a bit silly when lots of different singers start sounding alike, but when done well it can really work and have definite effect.
I don't mean the T-Pain style 'AutoTune-as-an-effect' -- I mean the subtler use of AutoTune to correct minor fluctuations in a natural-sounding performance.
Yes, but instead of manipulating them separately, they apply one same filter to all the film, even frames with now face in it. Which means some frames have no contrast in them (screenshot Wolfman #2), others make irrelevant objects stand out (Hot Tub #2). Great article.
I actually like the effect.
Exactly. If you light the actors with warm light, the background would become blueish. These days you just set the right color balance, before they used corrective filters (slightly blueish in this case). The result is the same.
Yeah, it's even worse than the Wilhelm Scream: http://revision3.com/filmriot/btsdslr#seek=286 (text description if you can't see the video: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_scream)
Thanks for that! Do you have any idea what scream this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3WimCPUkQY
It's from the Terran Academy in StarCraft, and I've heard it in other places but don't know the name of it.
It appears to be called the "Youraagh" scream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf6_hok4-lo
There's also that child laughing sound clip that's used everywhere, is there a name for it?
Great find! I know that there is one other scream that I hear constantly in movies but I have no idea if it has a name... I'll have to make sure to keep an ear out for it!
There is a really annoying one that used to haunt me when being forced to enjoy watching football (soccer) with my dad: ALL video replays had the exact same audio on it. It really used to grate on me as it was really obvious once you had got used to it, but my dad could never hear it.
Just a little anecdotal evidence of my experience on this fascinating subject. Perception, attention and information are very interesting facets of psychology!
This is a result of the colour constancy effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_constancy
I noticed, and disliked it, and it turned me into an anti-color-grading fanatic. However I assumed it was due to trying to make movies on blu-ray look more movie-like by limiting their colors to the colors they are used to seeing on dvd as opposed to the realistic colors people see on modern HD camcorders, that might make movies look home-made or amateur.