Introduction and Use of Colour (Element 1)

This morning seminar was the introduction to the Cinematography strand for production skills. The module involves us making short 5 to 10 minute film that must include the following four elements, use of colour, the sequence shot, lighting and POV techniques. We would cover these four elements in much more detail through the duration of the module.

As well as these four elements we had to create a film within  these certain parameters.

• Should only be two characters any age or any sex.
• Both need to live in the city
• Filmed in a city location and Grindleford
• One character tries to get the other character to go to the countryside (Grindleford)
• Dialogue or sound should be minimal
• Can be any genre.
• Doesn’t have to follow a liner narrative.

At first glance of the brief, my first initial thought where all about a stalker but I think that’s a route that a lot of people would chose. While I’ve been at university I’ve always wanted to create a dark comedy, I think these parameters do limit some of our creative freedom but I’m still excited to create and develop a short film that fit within these parameters.

After looking at the brief we then looked at the first technical element, the use of colour.  Colour can be used to communicate information to the audience as well as evoke emotion through mise en scene and/or dress code. 

• Red: passion, love, desire, as well as danger and anger
• Blue: tranquility, cold, peace, power
• Green: jealously, greed, as well as safety, compassion, unity.
• Yellow: Joy, happiness, energy.

We then looked at a website called movies in colour, where they take stills from films then add a colour palette. I found this really interesting it was a great visual tool to see what colours made up each shot. 

Canon XF305

During the session we where introduced to the main camera we would be using this semester the Canon XF305. I haven't used the camera and didn't really find the introduction very useful, i had never used the camera before and would have liked to use the last 30 minutes using the camera instead of just looking at it. However i have planned to book out the camera in my free time just sos i can get a little bit more familiar with it. 

Bibliography

http://moviesincolor.com