The "redish" / "blueish" tint of Hollywood productions ... (1 Viewer)

[Aurel Savin]

I am not sure if this was ever discussed on the board yet, but there is something that has been bothering me about the "look" of most Hollywood productions in the last 5 years or so.

It seems that most Hollywood major motion pictures seem to either have a very strong "redish" or "blueish" look to them. I watched parts of BEHIND ENEMY LINES last night on HBO and this one had the heavy blueish tones to it. But it seems to be a trend in mostl action type movies and the earliest one I remember exhibiting this look was BAD BOYS. While that particular movie had a strong "redish" hue, it worked well for it as the setting was in Florida and it gave a sense of the heat for the setting. But it seems since then countless motion pictures have used this. From the Bruckheimers and the Ridley and Tony Scotts even Spielberg in the last 3 films.

Its almost like no major Hollywood release can have a "natural" look anymore.

Is it the directors style? Is it the film stock? Is it just a look that Hollywood has been thinking is "hot" right now? I know the lighting has a lot to do with it but it seems rather odd.

It is more apparent when you watch a movie like Y Tu Mama Tambien and realize how "natural" everything should look.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[ThomasC]

i believe they're the result of filters, and i think it's become popular in the past few years. minority report used a blue (gray?) filter, traffic used yellow and blue, etc. it gives the director yet another way to express the mood of the movie, etc. but don't quote me on any of that.

 

[JohnE]

Myself, I like it. I agree it can get to be overkill, but for some of the movies it just lends itself to the atmosphere really well.

 

[Guy_K]

Yes, I think this trend really took off after Traffic.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

I like it as long as I know it's intentional on the part of the film makers and not a malfunction in my gear.

One recent disc that uses a natural look almost throughout was Insomnia. It also is a very nice transfer. I think a live action movie with a good transfer and minimal color/lighting tricks can be better demo material than the computer animated films like Shrek, Monsters Inc, and Toy Story I and II.

 

[Timothy Alexander]

I loved The Ring's greenish-grey tint. The Matrix and Dark City also used that type of hue.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Fine with me as long as it's intentional. Just another device for creating the desired look. Not really much different than the lighting, which is almost always under at least some artificial control even for outdoor scenes and is not necessarily natural-looking.

 

[Kirk Tsai]

I'd say it's quickly becoming a cliche. Besides it often not giving a meaningful look, it also just take away some of the pleasures that a lush film print can look like. Watching the first half of Auto Focus reminded me of how colorful a film can look.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Like almost everything else in Hollywood, it's monkey-see, monkey-do. Lots of borrowing from what's already been done and few original ideas. If you don't like something then just wait a while and it will change. Sometimes it changes to something better.

 

[kevin_asai]

Most of the directors who uses tint will say they are trying to set the mood, well, I am not those who supported the hue or tint idea.
Can you see how natural and GOOD Austin Powers series look?
my 2 cents.

 

[Scott H]

More often than not this is prob a result of color timing (post-production), not filtration (production).

 

[Ken Chan]

The tints in both The Matrix and Traffic are (also) used to distinguish different realms/storylines.

//Ken

 

[chung_sotheby]

I think that many times the look/color of a film can easily be changed due to post-production telecining. I know that the Coen brothers use this technology extensively, most noticeably in Oh Brother (The washed-out Dust Bowl look) and The Man Who Wasnt There (Filmed in Color, posted into B+W). A great demonstration is on the special edition of the Se7en DVD.
But at the same time, this tech makes it too easy for bad and talentless directors (Simon West, Michael Bay, McG) to try to "add" some kind of feeling/emotion into the film, via color- enhancing, that they hacked together in between their playboy mansion parties.

 

[Seth Paxton]

More often than not this is prob a result of color timing (post-production), not filtration (production).

I was just going to mention this, but Scott was there first (and is a more reliable source anyway ).
Watch the Traffic extras and they show you VERY EXPLICITLY how the desert look was obtained. It's about 6 steps of processing and goes well beyond just a "filter".
Traffic certainly did not create this trend in the least, as any Bruckheimer disciple has long had a problem with this. Take a look at Top Gun for example, or Days of Thunder (2 horribly annoying cases in my book).
In fact, if you dig up the Cinematography discussion thread you can find my piece on Soderberg's earlier work Out of Sight and see that he had already used such techniques to create a contrast between Miami and Detroit. In fact, he addresses the techniques on the commentary. One thing is to NOT FILTER, or rather not correct coloring problems with a filter. By not correcting during the capture point, the Detroit scenes end up with a bluish tint that could have been removed by using a filter.
Really, "natural" would seem to make little sense in terms of film because film doesn't capture natural as we might think. If we think natural in terms of how the light looks to us as we look at a scene that is. For one thing, films of different capture speed need different amounts of light. Also, the different sources of light have very different profiles that can affect how the scene captures on film. And beyond color, just a polarizing filter can take out the reflective glare from a window or windshield. The question arises from these ideas - which way is how the human eye would see it, and is that what we mean by "natural". It's very tricky to equate the camera eye with the much more sophisticated human eye, not even mentioning all the "post capture filtering" our brains do to compensate for what we really see.
Regarding these color choices I would say that the artistic reasons are highly diverse as well, so that any sweeping generalization about the good or bad of the process makes little sense.
Coen's washed out Oh Brother to get that hot, dry look along with some "oldness".
Traffic distinguished the various locations to help the audience keep their bearings among all the narrative jumps, as well as to set different moods in each location.
Matrix went green for the "inside the CPU" effect, of course.
Bad Boys appears mostly to do with the standard Bruck reasoning...it looks cool. Again I also refer you to the previous works like Days of Thunder, Top Gun, and Beverly Hills Cop 2. In the Bruck family case, it's really not new.
Finally, speaking of colorization being new, consider the fact that tinting on the actual film frames was one of the very first techniques used in film-making. Just one of a thousand examples would be The Great Train Robbery (Edwin Porter 1903) in which sections were hand painted. Also for entire frame tinting we have stuff like Intolerance (DW Griffith 1916) which basically does the same thing Traffic did, it sets each storyline apart via tinting.
And beyond that, just looking from B&W film to B&W film we see a variety of "colors". Certainly the look of Duck Soup is not the same as The Passion of Joan of Arc.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Also for entire frame tinting we have stuff like Intolerance

And another example would be Häxan tinted to match the director’s intent. In color there are any number (as mentioned) of examples, including much of the early 3-reel Technicolor, such as The Red Shoes with it’s impossibly saturated color. And certainty the dream sequences in Oklahoma! would be another example (this one from the 50s) of deliberate use of altering ‘reality’ to achieve the filmmakers intent.

 

[Jeff Kohn]

I agree that in the hands of a competent crew this can be a useful tool to enhance the story telling. But it seems like every hack director and his brother are copy-catting, and the results can be tiresome. I'm noticing this more and more on TV shows, too.

 

[Dion]

The "green" look is especially popular at the moment. Movies, video clips, and even TV commercials are using it. Hell, it's even used on the cover art for Sting's "Brand New Day" album! It seems to be used whenever the aim is to look "hip" and "alternative," a la Se7en (except with Se7en it was still a pretty original look, IMHO).

I am sick of the "green" look!

 

[Patrick Sun]

I got tired of the blue look whenever I was watching a war film of recent vintage. I was grateful that John Woo did not do this with Windtalkers".

 

[John Watson]

Color us jaded...

PS Why does red, orange, etc., alwsys look so bad on so much TV programming?

 

[Rollie]

Maybe this will be the "look" of this decade. You can see a movie from the 70's or 80's and know that its from that era, just by how the movie looks and feels. Maybe that's how these movies will be seen 20 years from now. I don't want to watch that blue colored crap, it's so 2000!