For my animation, I want colour to play one of the main parts in how I express aspects such as emotion as I think it will be an explicit and interesting way to do so. To gain an understanding of how to effectively use colour in my FMP, I will be researching how it is used in media to convey different things to the audience.
Colour Systems
There are two primary colour systems known as additive and subtractive (or reflective). Both are used in everyday life but for different things.
Additive colour uses red, green and blue (RGB) and works with things that emit light and so works with things on digital screens. The mixture of these colours with varying measures of light is key to what makes different colours – the more light added, the brighter the colour will be. In this colour system, white is the combination of RGB and black represents the absence of colour.
Subtractive colour uses cyan, magenta and yellow and works on the grounds of reflected light, opposite to emitting light. It is used for printed and physical media. The way that a colour reflects varying measures of light will determine what pigment it appears as to the human eye. With this colour system, white represents the absence of colour and black is the combination of colour. However, our colours have a limit on how much light can be absorbed and so a compensating pigment, black, is needed to make up for it. The black is known as key and so this system is referred to as CMYK.
Emotion in Colour
Different colours are associated with certain feelings and emotions and so companies utilise colour psychology to convey to consumers the nature of their product in order to make it appealing.
As colours already encourage an emotional reaction from audiences, I will be changing the colour of my character to directly communicate how they are feeling throughout the animation.
A single pigment can have multiple associations and so I might be able to experiment with utilising gradients to symbolise multiple feelings at the same time, highlight conflicting emotion and more.
Print Examples
Colour psychology is especially important within commercial products and marketing as colour is a main part of the first impression that consumers will have to influence their interest and disinterest.
In this We Are Not Sisters womenswear label image, the orange is used as a strong colour to ensure that the information is not overlooked. The warmth allows it to stand out against the fairly neutral photo.
In Anna Rosa Krau’s portfolio website, sage green is used for the background which matches the cool-toned photos featured to ultimately create a very cohesive design that is easy and comfortable to look at.
Animation Examples
Colour is powerful in conveying the nature of a scene to its audience and so to help to visualise what it might look like, colour scripts are used in production. It can be used to give an idea of how the whole film will look as well as allow you to think of new ways to approach how you want to express the events of a scene. It will also make it easier to keep the colour design cohesive throughout the film which is important for helping the animation with flowing nicely. For my animation, I plan to make one or a few scamps of shots from my storyboard which can then be used for colour scripts.
Colour saturation and colour value are two of the main characteristics of colour that will change the feeling that you are trying to communicate.
Colour saturation measures the intensity of a colour. For instance, with increased saturation, the colour will become stronger and have more richness whilst decreased saturation will encourage a paler, more washed out pigment.
Colour value measures the lightness or darkness of a pigment.
Colour saturation and value are used in conjunction to tell the story, change the mood, highlight an event and more and so I will take note of how I can use colour effectively in my animation from this research.
sources:
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/color-theory-for-designers-part-1-the-meaning-of-color/
https://newstyleprint.com.au/the-power-of-colour-in-printed-media/
https://www.baianat.com/articles/the-power-of-color-in-animation
Jasmine Cooper 