A good movie will leave you gratified in a multitude of ways: in a punchline, a payoff, or in a victory for a character. But perhaps the most compelling experience of gratification is one that has been created without any word having been spoken. They are constructed out of light and color. Directors, no less than artists, recognize that color is a language unto itself. They employ masterfully composed color schemes to strike straight into the viewer's heart and to evoke a feeling of uncomplicated, simple happiness. That they can do it is no accident; it is both science and art in terms of precise proportions of color, saturation, and light to produce a deep, emotional feeling of happiness and warmth.
The easiest way that a film can bring about joy is in the display of bright, warm, and highly saturated color. Consider the gorgeous yellow of a field bathed in sunlight, the gorgeous red of a balloon, or the gorgeous blue of a summer sky. These colors aren't muted; these colors are strong and vibrant. They are the manner in which we perceive the world on a flawless, sun-bathed day when all things are alive and stunning.
One film that employs this technique to breathtaking effect is Amélie. The whole film is bathed in golden-green light. The colors are deep and vibrant and include emerald greens, sunflower yellows, and ruby reds that fill each frame. This palette makes Paris less a real city, more an imagined, fairy-tale city. It constructs a world that is warm, secure, and perpetually attractive, so that the spectator experiences the same playful pleasure Amélie experiences.
Color schemes also create pleasure by constructing a cohesive and welcoming world. Producers and production designers take months to contemplate using a certain palette for a film. This is the selection of one or two colors that will echo and echo on the costumes, wall adorations in the rooms, props, and lighting. This is what gives the illusion of order and harmony that is aesthetically pleasing.
Director Wes Anderson employs a usual candy color scheme in The Grand Budapest Hotel: blush pinks, dust blues, cream purples. The hotel itself is a giant, consumable cake. This neat, toy-like world is most pleasing to observe. The orderliness of the colors is a source of order and niceness in terms of the world, and one feels at ease and charmed by its beauty. It is as if one steps into a fairyland where everything is beautiful and nothing seems to be misplaced.
Apart from that, color is an allegory for good and pleasant feelings. Yellow, and especially pale yellow, is the color most linked to hope, vitality, and wonder. A yellow-dressed woman is instantly considered a ray of hope and optimism. Joy's personality in Inside Out is quite literally radiating that brilliant lemony yellow aura. She's a walking, talking manifestation of the emotion, and the color that she represents encapsulates her. Blue can symbolize peace, and a spotless, untainted white will symbolize innocence, purity, and a new start. Using them on heroes and joyful scenes, filmmakers educate people so that when they are watched, the crowd is meant to be joyful. The color itself turns into a shortcut to the very feeling of happiness.
Lighting is equally so as the usage of color. Joyous color palettes are literally light-based. Lighting, employed by directors and cinematographers, is used to get colors to look richer and more alive. Soft, diffused sunlight opens up the colors from the inside out, drawing in warmth and security. No disorienting shadows or black holes are to be dreaded. This is a standard convention of romantic comedies and children's films, where one wants to create coziness and happiness.
Light makes the world soft and invites us into the screen and to be there, temporarily, in joy. It's the difference between a chilly gray day and a warm golden afternoon; one is solitary, the other is celebratory.
They are accomplished at every level of filmmaking. They start with the production designer, painting walls and selecting furniture in certain colors. It continues to the costume designer, who clothes the actors in colors appropriate to the overall tone.
The cinematographer illuminates the sets and actors subsequently, deepening or dulling the colors by just the right degree. And lastly, in today's age of computers, colorists sit in front of consoles, tweaking each frame. They can deepen the sky blue, saturate the green sweater, or add golden hour light over the entire landscape. This last step guarantees the emotional intent of the color palette throughout the entire duration from the first frame of the film to the end.
It does because color psychology is founded on human experience. We have learned to associate bright, warm colors with good things in nature: ripe fruit, flowering plants, and sunny skies. The shared meanings are now being used by filmmakers.
They do not need to explain why a sunny yellow room is a happy room; our minds are already programmed to think so. By the subtle control of the visual world, they can maximize this natural response and create an inescapable sense of joy. A beautiful, cheerful color scheme doesn't merely depict happiness; it makes us happy.
It is an artistic music, leading the emotions of the spectator through a color symphony.
Finally, to paint joy in color is to construct a larger world than our own. It is an escapism fantasy of life, in which life is more vibrant, light, soft, and peaceful everywhere in the composition. It is a genre providing a form of visual escape with a two-hour break in a world beautifully coloured. Whether it's the golden warmth of Paris in Amélie, the cotton-candy wonder of The Grand Budapest Hotel, or the cheerful hopefulness of Joy in Inside Out, these movies employ their colors as a strong, silent force to make simple joy.
They show that the shortest distance to a person's heart is not necessarily through a muddled maze of plot, but through the plain, emotive beauty of a lovely yellow.