WSF310 Visual Expression

To use tonal separation to flatten the space you will need to keep the tones in a limited range. 

In the photos above, the door is brighter and appears closer in the first shot and darker and appear farther away in the second shot. So the photographer has used tonal separation in the second photo (darker colors in the background) to enhance the illusion of depth.

COLORS have psychological implications, but they are difficult to categorize because of personal and cultural differences. Be mindful of the context of your film and take care to avoid cliches and stereotypes -- of course you may want to highlight or subvert these stereotypes, but in that case you need to be aware of them.

FOUR-WAY SPLIT COLOR SCHEME. This scheme involves four hues, usually equidistant around the color wheel. Af four-way split is an extremely complex scheme that has to be carefully managed.

SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY Color Schemes start with a hue such as cyan and then add analogous pairs of complementary or near-complementary hues such as yellow and orange.

Red, Yellow, and Blue.

ANALOGOUS COLOR SCHEME involves colors that are close together or analogous on the color wheel. The above example uses Yellow and Green.

COMPLEMENTARY COLOR SCHEME utilizes colors that are opposite on the color wheel -- these are complementary colors. Examples are Orange-Blue or Yellow-Purple or Magenta-Green. 

MONOCHROMATIC Color scheme involves one color throughout the entire scene, sequence, or film.

Analogous colors are neighbors on the color wheel. The third rule of color interaction states that when analogous colors are placed next to one another, they appear to push apart, or separate, in their position on the color wheel. They will seem more different in hue than they are.

When complementary colors are placed next to one another, their saturation increases. Thus the cyan in the above example looks more saturation when it is placed again red than it does when places against an analogous color (green).

Color interaction occurs when black or white is placed next to a color, but the results vary depending on the proportions. This example uses cyan as the susceptible color and black or white as the neighbor. When cyan is surrounded by white, the cyan looks darker. Surrounding the same cyan with black makes the cyan look lighter.

AFFINITY OF WARM/COOL hues is shown in the second shot. Green is cool. Blue is cool. Thus an affinity.

AFFINITY OF SATURATION WITHIN A SHOT. In this shot all the colors are desaturated. The saturation of all the objects is the same. Thus affinity.

CONTRAST OF SATURATION WITHIN A SHOT. In this shot we have both saturated (red jacket) and unsaturated (fence, house) colors. These are different saturations, thus a contrast.

AFFINITY OF BRIGHTNESS WITHIN A SHOT. In this shot all the hues are red. All the tones are dark. All dark tones=all same tones.

CONTRAST OF BRIGHTNESS WITHIN A SHOT. The hue is the same (Cyan). The brightness is different. There are bright cyan tones and dark cyan tones.