FILM 3800 - Film and Color

5 credit hours
What does color do in film? How does color shape our sense of space, direct our attention to specific areas of the frame, and offer cues for depth, movement and atmosphere? How do humans see color, and how is our perception different from other life forms? Under Walt Disney, color was a key tool for animated verisimilitude, or what he called ‘the illusion of life.’ But in addition to its traditional functions and reality effects, color can also be intensely emotional and expressive, and through costume, production design, props and lighting, shape our perception of narrative actions, character, mood and theme. In cinema, color has been created in many different forms, from painting on the surface of the film strip to computer generated digital manipulations. In this class, we will explore the technological histories of color and film but we will also consider the relationship of color aesthetics to perception, psychology, and spectatorship. We will consider these and other questions: How do our optical and neurological capacities inform our perception of color? How does color function narratively, abstractly and affectively? How do ideas about surface and pigment connect to ideologies of race, class and gender? How do specific cinematographic processes like Technicolor produce spectacle, offer product differentiation and prompt certain effects? What is the relationship of color to realism, surrealism and abstraction? Meets Special Topic Requirement for Film Major. ST.