Editing Colours in our trailer

From one of my previous posts, you can see that I experimented with changing the saturation, contrast, brightness and exposure levels of some of the shots. I wanted to look at other films we have deconstructed in the past from this blog, and look purely at what effect the altered colours cause.

From this screen shot, we can tell from the mise en scene that it is set in the past. It is extremely easy to tell, because of the mise en scene, and a more obvious different, the vintage style colours which have been used. The shot is mostly made up of yellowy tones, and there is no harsh contrast in the shot. The brightness and exposure levels are also quite low. When thinking about these qualities, and the time this is meant to be portraying, you will notice how they match up quite well to old photographs, and these similarities help us to realise when something is set in the past. If we were setting anything in the past, we could use these techniques. 

This shot varies highly from the previous one. The colours are much more vivid due to the saturation being increased, and there is also quite a high exposure. These qualities, combined with the mise en scene tell us that it is modern, and set in the present day. The still also has quite a warm look to it, probably caused by an increase in colour temperature and saturation, making it easy on the high and quite a common convention of film at the moment. We could take this idea and use it in our trailer, but instead go for quite a 'cool' look by decreasing the colour temperature and saturation. 

This shot is probably closest to our genre, and I think the colours are quite interesting. The saturation isn't very high, and there isn't a great contrast either, however the brightness is still high enough so that the viewer can see all the features of the character's face. The lower saturation immediately gives quite a dark feel to the shot, by no means is this a happy experience, and the feelings of sadness, depression and pain could be portrayed through these colours. I think this is definitely a technique to consider when editing the final montage shots for our trailer, and to make a distinction between real life and our protagonist's imaginary friend. 

Finally, I wanted to look at this shot because we could use similar techniques for parts of our trailer. We immediately get a sense of dark foreboding atmosphere from this shot, and most of it is portrayed through the colours - this could be used as a build up in our trailer. The low saturation makes the scene quite dreary, however the contrast is very high in this shot, making the black and white stand out, and helps draw the audience's attention to the dominant parts of the scene. The colour temperature is also very low, and we can see this and the lack of saturation by looking at the washed out red door on the right hand side of the frame. The high contrast also makes some parts of the frame, especially the background appear in very dark shadows, creating a sense of danger and mystery in the shot.