Patti Bellantoni's "If its Purple, Someones Gonna Die"

Colour plays a vital role in the whole cinematic experience. The director works closely with production designers, costume designers and also the DOP in creating a colour palette that fits the style of the film children's film rich in primary vivid colours, while thrillers adopted a colder palette (blues and greys).

"If it's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die" by Patti Bellantoni's was a book that we were suggested to read in one our lectures. Bellantoni talks about 6 main colours, each trigger a certain emotion.

Red

"Bright red is like visual caffeine. It can activate your libido, or make you aggressive, anxious, or compulsive. In fact, red can activate whatever latent passions you might bring to the table, or to the movie. Red is power. But red doesn’t come with a moral imperative. Depending on the story’s needs, red can give power to a good guy or a bad guy."

Yellow

"One of the reasons yellow is the color used for caution signs is that it’s visually aggressive. It appears to come toward you. We’ve built it into our consciousness as a cautionary color… It is also the color we identify with the sun. We associate yellow with

powerful life energy—exuberance itself."

Blue

"Blue can be a tranquil pond or a soft blanket of sadness. It is quiet and aloof. Year after year, our color investigations show that in a blue environment, people become passive and introspective."

Orange

"There were no flare-ups, no surprises. There were no in-depth insights at the critiques. The color simply supported a warm and welcoming congeniality."

Green

"Simple fact that green, in its plant manifestation, signals life itself. Green in the atmosphere, however, can signal a low-pressure system that can spawn a tornado… So green can signal health and vitality or danger and decay"

Purple

" In fact, there seemed to be no real evidence of purple’s having an effect in the physical

realm at all. The color did, however, hold a powerful sway in the realm of the noncorporal, the mystical, and even the paranormal."

Patti Bellantoni's insight to colour theory was a great starting point and found it very interesting looking at how each colour had a certain effect on the audience linking it to films was a really helpful.

Bibliography

Patti Bellantoni's. 2005. If its Purple, Someones Gonna Die. [ONLINE] Available at:https://designvisualuff.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/if-its-purple-someones-gonna-diethe-power-of-color-in-visual-storytelling-2005.pdf. [Accessed 02 February 15].