Colors And Story

After the Grand Budapest Hotel exercise I learned more on the effect of color on a scene. When watching it in black and white, then told to create a color scheme we only really had the storyline to base our colors off of. I had thought that due to the, what I thought to be, playful storyline the color scheme would be very bright and saturated, although that was not exactly the case. Many scenes were very colorful, but the lighting threw everything off. The colors were darker but still saturated and some scenes so dark you could not make out the people. This made the clip from the movie seem very serious although when I watched it in black and white it was playful to me.

From this exercise I learned more about the importance of color on the storyline. When watching it once in black and white and the other in color I realized a significant difference in the story. Although the storyline was playful the director chose to make the color and lighting more serious which threw me off. Honestly, I didn't like the artistic choice in the color scheme and preferred my own. Colors have a grater effect more to a story than I realized. Therefore, to get the story across in my animation I will be sure to take colors into account.

I have decided that in my animation I will start out with a lack of color. Mostly white and have accents of reds and oranges to emphasize my character's actions and certain important items in a scene. This I feel is useful to get my point across to the viewer easier using simplicity. The second half of the animation I want to use a lot of color. I want the viewer to be taken by the color, just as the character in my animation will at this part. At this point the character will still be emphasized but I will allow the viewer's eyes to wander as this part of the story is more explanatory. This was brought to my attention due to the distraction I felt by the darkness and use of so much different colors in the Grand Budapest Hotel scene.