The trilogy discussion of the film's colour palette. #GABFilmColourSeries
1. Color overview - https://ansoncheng.media/post/a-road-to-a-village-1-colour-overview
2. The Earth Tone - https://ansoncheng.media/post/a-road-to-a-village-2-the-earth-tone
3. Conflicts & Tragedies - https://ansoncheng.media/post/a-road-to-a-village-3-conflicts-tragedies
Here is the final breakdown of the film's colour palette.
The moment when Maili the wife was told her husband had been arrested
As we get closer to the end of the film, we are expecting some conflicts, and perhaps tragedies, in the remaining sequence. I would like to walk through my choices of colour in designing the dramatic level. In fact, it is more about creating differences (or oppositions) in colour and should not deviate too much from the established colour philosophies in the film.
The negotiation between the officer and village team about Maila (the father) being arrested
As expected, conflicts arise when the family ran into unexpected problems here - Maili was in shock when she was delivered the news that Maila had been arrested. Being a film colourist should also take into account the narrative changes, so I adopted the opposing treatment in order to introduce the conflicts. This treatment is more than creating the colour contrast that makes the visuals 'pop' and stand out; the main purpose of the cool tone is to create a sense of discomfort in the earth tone. To emphasize the conflict further, I desaturated the warmth which helps add an extra flavour of sadness.
Depending on the scenes, I used the mono-theme and painted the tension with a yellow hue brutally (with an exaggerated amount of saturation). The earth tone was no longer organic and was distorted with the bluish highlight to echo the struggle. In some scenes, On the right still, I deliberately pushed the greenish-yellow tone to introduce the uncertainty in their adventures, and had the colour density (the level of colour saturation in the dark area) denser to deepen the impact.
Another example of the bluish highlight by the time the tragedy happened. The mono-tone on the right still with muted red created a sense of lifelessness and 'sepia' of the reminiscence.
At the end of the film, the family decided to embark on another journey in their lives despite not knowing the future, so the blue was predominant and served the cluelessness outside the sadness, particularly the blue painted in the atmosphere/sky was a symbol of the future.
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