Realistic color combination and Subjective color combination

The color in films is not static, it changes with different frames and different plots. It can creating atmosphere and characters in films, such as highlighting the theme of the story.

There are two ways of color combinations in films-realistic color combination and subjective color combination. Realistic color combination is to use the nature color which comes from human's visual experiences, such as green grass, blue sky, golden sun, etc. Audience will enjoy the natural color as they expected before. We often use analogous colors to create realistic color combination to make the frame more vivid and enjoyable.

Subjective color combination is to use specific color on an object that we never seen or we are not easy to seen in the natural world. It comes from human’s mind, People use imagination create this kind of colour combinations. This type of color combination can create character’s personality in films, and it also can express director’s fancy thoughts.

Like this experimental test. I shot one scene that a person poured a glass of orange juice, and then change the orange juice to red, blue and green. And then I invite some people to watch this video to get some feedback, most people can accept the red juice, they thought it might be carrot juice or water melon juice. The green one and the blue one looks very strange, they feel a little bit disgusting and don’t want to drink it.

Because of human’s previous life experience, so people will react differently feeling with different color. We can use Realistic color combination to create people’s normal life, and use subjective color creates some especially effects.