Colour 13

Pixar


Pixar use colour incredibly well. It's used in a fairly obvious way aswell to help get across the mood of the scene or film altogether.

These storyboards are for Finding Nemo. They showcase a fantastic use of colour in terms of variety and story telling. The first image is  the sequence where nemo is caught. You see near the start it's very bright and also colourful where he's safe and with the other fishes. But as they see the boat, there is only one colour tone and it's a bit unsettling. When you see nemo get captured and his dad starts swimming through the fishes, the bright and pure hue of the blue starts getting murky and it reflects on the situation that they find themselves in.

The second image shows the scene where Marlin and Dory are getting chased by the angler fish. Obviously it's a very dark scene and the blues almost become grey.
Next you see nemo in the fishtank. The colour scheme here gradually turns red and you start to get the feeling of discomfort as red symbolises danger and also we have been very accustomed by the overall blue colour scheme. This is kind of a false direction in which they lead us into because as we know, there was nothing dangerous or threatening about what was happening inside the tank.

Up is also another film which takes colour as a tool of story telling. We see it throughout the opening sequence of the film.

This is a very obvious example in the scene where the two characters get married. Ellies family is very energetic and you see this through their actions but also the colours in their clothes contain some very bright hues and quite dynamic colours. Whereas when you look at Carl's family, they where nothing but grey white and black. Even in the hair colours you see this difference. There's much more browns and blondes in Ellie's family whereas in Carl's, most area a darker brown/black or bald.

 Here we see a massive difference in colour, though lighting also helps with this effect. The first image is where the house is just re-done and Carl and Ellie start their new life. So we feel a sense of happiness and prosperity  from this setting due to the richness of colour and the purity of it.
At the end of the sequence, we see that all the colours are broken and the whole feel and tone is very dark. We still see the colours pushing through the darkness but it's not at all as prominent as it was before.

We also see this kind of dynamic difference near the middle of the sequence. We see Carl and Ellie painting and preparing a room for the baby that they are planning to have. Again all the colours are vibrant we see pure colours and the more dominant colours in this scene (blue, yellow) are primary colours so it's a very innocent sort of setting.

In literally the next scene, we realise that Ellie is unable to bear a child and this is shown through the lighting but also the lack of any colour. The colour on her dress is drowned out by the dominant shades. The fact that these scenes are next to each other makes them twice as dramatic.

Also it's important to note that there is no dialogue throughout this scene. So the scene is literally communicating through the use of colour as well as other elements such as lighting and music.

I think this progression and story telling through colour is important as i want to do something similar for my game concept.

My game is based during the plague of London . Through my game the character goes through different environments and eventually ends in a battle during the Great Fire. I think i will have a similar build up in my colour concept, with the main colour scheme being red,orange and yellow at the end sequence.