Color theory in film

  Color theory is an important part of film, and plays a big part in communicating the feeling of a scene to the audience. Not only does the color itself indicate a certain mood, but different hues of the color, the saturation of the color, and the brightness of the color can put make just one color mean entirely different things! A well known example of this is the use of the color blue. Blue can mean so many different things depending on its shade. Some blues are calm and peaceful, others mean sadness or depression. Sometimes some blues can be used to indicate professionalism depending on the hue. However, blue isn't the only example of this. Here are some other uses of different colors and what kind of context each can bring to a film:

  Another helpful resource in determining  all of the meanings different hues, saturations,  and brightness of just one color (let alone every color) can bring to a film and how you can use it to set the tone in your films was this video linked here: https://www.studiobinder.com/filmmaking-techniques-color-theory-in-film/                                          

  The use of color theory in my short film is going to be highly important. Because I am making a short film personifying bipolar disorder, setting the tone and the feeling is all the more important. I believe color will be one of the easier ways of doing this. Bipolar disorder is most simply put as a mood disorder in which manic and depressive episodes occur, and since I am bringing the disorder to life I immediately knew the type of color schemes I would love to utilize. I wanted to go with a red, blue and purple scheme. Red in this case would symbolize mania. This was a perfect choice because as you can see in the infographic, red increases physical energy, stamina, and spontaneity. These are all aspects of mania that red would symbolize perfectly. Blue in this case would symbolize depression, as mentioned previously depending on the tone of blue it can symbolize totally different things so getting the correct hue is super important here. Finally, purple will be used to symbolize either mixed episodes, in between states of red and blue, or the peace and harmony of a stable period (because people with the disorder aren't always experiencing a mood episode constantly, especially those getting treatment.) While purple doesn't usually mean this, I chose this color because when you mix red and blue you get purple. An in between state of the two. This ties in perfectly with a point the video makes, which is that you can make the colors of your film whatever you want them to mean, and with a good understanding of how to set the tone using color then this can be done well!