Flutterby™! : Teal and Orange 2010-03-31 23:22:20.618083+00

Teal and Orange

2010-03-31 23:22:20.618083+00 by Dan Lyke 4 comments

Awesome link: From Shawn (who, I think, got it from Felicia Day), Teal and Orange: Hollywood please stop the madness!

Those of you who watch a lot of Hollywood movies may have noticed a certain trend that has consumed the industry in the last few years. It is one of the most insidious and heinous practices that has ever overwhelmed the industry. Am I talking about the lack of good scripts? Do I speak of the dependency of a few mega-blockbuster hits to save the studios each year, or of the endless sequels and television retreads? No, I am talking about something much more dangerous, much deadlier to the health of cinema.

Yep, and Felicia got it from @IdleThumbs, but I was posting from a modal dialog so I didn't manage to grab him for reference.

For a good contrast to the modern avoidance of actually lighting a scene, I would recommend looking at the 1938 version of Robin Hood. The colors are absolutely incandescent. Now, the reason for this is that this was an early film in the 3-strip Technicolor process. The cameras split the image into 3 components with a series of prisms, so they needed thousands of footcandles of light just to get a usable image. This resulted in such vibrant colors. There was also the idea that in a world of black and white films, if you did color than by God you'd get color until your eyelids bled. Early color TV shows were the same way.

Of course, there was a cost. The 1938 Technicolor camera was the size of a refrigerator, so it couldn't move very easily. So you got beautiful, colorful, but almost completely static shots. Instead of a jumpy camera you got elaborately staged action scenes and clever editing. Today the camera is small and light, so if you want some action all you have to do is throw it down the stairs.

Laughing.. That's how they did it! I've actually had to stop watching several movies because I got motion sick. No loss, they were not that good of movies.

I've always accepted this kind of thing as artistic license by the DP and various co-conspirators to generate mood/style/hey I'm cool and can alter your worldness/settings for the film. I remember over exposer as an initial trick in sci-fi films to make sure the viewer was reminded that they were watching an alien world. For a while I found myself squinting through entire films but eventually the fad went away. This will die out too when the next new thing comes along. And leave Felicia along shes all mine all.....what 1 million followers? awwww crap!