Yesterday I saw a film by Taika David Waititi called Jojo Rabbit, and I said, “What a beautiful red and yellow and green! I was impressed. Lately I’ve been researching to see if I can somehow imitate Woody Allen’s colors, but it’s been difficult. The reason for this might be the hues of Japanese interiors, or it might be the hues of the Japanese skin.

In recent years, the prevailing colors in Japan have been cold, blue and cyan. I have the impression that this is where the trend is going to change, and that it’s going to be hard to break free. Overseas, there are colorists and professional lighting designers who try to make movies more attractive in color, and I’d like to know how they do it.

Returning to the subject of white balance, digital cameras tend to be set to reproduce the same hues as those in sunlight, thanks to the auto white balance function. Therefore, these days, they are less susceptible to the colors of light bulbs and fluorescent lights. Conversely, you can’t create exciting colors, and apples will always appear red under any lighting and in any weather. I don’t like this, so lately I’ve been fixing the white balance at about 5000k-5300k (Kelvin) and snapping away at it.

But, you see, although it’s good to have a fixed white balance that makes it easier to change the outdoor light, if you use indoor lighting as it is, the color becomes too exciting and strange. This is because, outside, the sun’s influence on the total environment (the buildings, the ground, the sky) is so strong that it expresses time and the environment, but indoor lighting doesn’t have the same power as the sun.

So, back to the coloration of the film, if you start watching the film and the first scene is an interior scene, it’s a little strange. You’re like, “That’s a little bit of a weird color scheme. That’s because the white balance is set to take advantage of the color of the interior lighting, but after watching the film for a while, your eyes become accustomed to it, and you don’t think of it as a “weird color” anymore. On the other hand, with movies, the real world, the world of the movie (long and continuous), and the real world, so my eyes and brain have time to get used to the colors in the movie.

In the movie, when you open the door from the orange space in the room to the blue sky and exit, the color space changes from orange (the world where the apples turn purple) to white (the world where the apples turn red). So you can see the transformation of the scene, the narrative progresses, and the position of the characters changes. This is a good thing.

This is quite interesting, and those who exhibit a series of photographs are able to create a world of stories (multiple and continuous), and they can tease out the colors. On the other hand, those who want to show a single photo in a blaze of glory may find it difficult to do so. In terms of photography books, it’s easy to control the color scheme for a single artist’s book because it can create a narrative, but for a book of multiple artists’ work, or a collection of their work, it’s hard to control the color scheme and it may be difficult to draw readers in. (When you think about it, it may be easier to make a book of photos in a short period of time, with the same idea of taking a bunch of photos in the same way, in terms of color, to control the color and make a book of photos that draws the reader in.

I think there are people who think that Western movies are cooler than Japanese movies. Maybe it comes from the so-called “it’s cooler to have a so-called gaijin face” due to the Western complex that has always been instilled in us, and Japanese movies are often uncool. But this means that the grass is only blue next to you, and you have to do your best to make what you and your friends think is good for where you are, and I think that these Japanese western complexes are the same for people in the west who think the same way.

The image above is from the movie, Jojo Rabbit. Outside is normal white balance, and inside is a little orange.

Another closer look at the colors of Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, which I had collected for your study, and even outdoors, orange! Great! I can’t believe this isn’t unnatural! In fact, if you look closely, you’ll see that the indoor area is about the same shade of orange. This may be due to the outdoor light coming into the room. And the indoor hue of the past night, a time traveled back in time, is no longer reddish beyond orange.

In Woody Allen’s Rainy Day in New York, he seems to have entrusted his cinematography to Vittorio Storaro, the alleged wizard of light, and it’s still awesome. I don’t know if Woody Allen is great or Vittorio Storaro is great, but I think their pursuit of color should be emulated.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)