Color

(boinging) (clicking) - Color is an important part of visual story telling. Like tone, color is primarily used to create mood or emotion. And direct the eye by emphasizing different parts of the image. We have a whole lesson on the Science of Color. So check that out if you wanna know more. (clicking) (dinging) (tinkling) In this video we'll look at a few fundamental ways artists use color. Let's start with the Color Wheel because it allows us to identify Visually Similar Colors, which are close to one another, Contrasting Colors which are further apart, and Complementary Colors which are opposite each other on the wheel. The use of contrasting colors can really direct our attention. Notice how vibrant they feel? Now compare that to these similar colors. Notice how natural and cohesive they feel, as if they belong together? Also each color on the wheel can have a different psychological influence. For example, this shade of blue can be used to support a calm and relaxed mood. Compared to this red, which feels much more alarming or alert! Now let's return to our concept art and look at it from the perspective of color. - So the color in this image, which is the color script that was used for the film, is very specific. So if we look in the background here there's a lot of blues and cold colors, especially here with Carl, 'cause he kinda feels sad. And then if you, as you push over you start to see the warm light come in to the frame. So from the window we have like this really bright and vibrant yellow, and then when we get to Ellie, she's almost wrapped in a warm, reddish tone. - We decided magenta would sort of be her color. And so even this piece tied onto the balloon is magenta. We wanted to sort of play against the theme of darkness and coldness which is the interior of this room, everything that's surrounding her, yet she's still full of life. - The concept art as we move forward with this moment in Up, that blue says a lot about him emotionally. It brings him down a little bit. It helps us feel a little bit more somber on his behalf. We connect that balloon with Carl, and with his expression, as we're kind of looking at things here. However Ellie, on a second look at this image, we can see how optimistic she is. We can see her powers with the color are overpowering everything in the panel. Her emotion is overpowering everything with her colors, really bringing up a spirit of optimism and comfort and things are gonna be okay, "Don't worry about me. "I'm going on to another adventure." - A sunset, you know a warmer light, often represents the end of something. When Carl goes home the sunset is pink. We know the pink has been the color that represents Ellie, and the sun completely sets and that pink color goes away. And we feel emotionally, through the use of color, what we're supposed to feel for the character. - For storyboarding we really don't use color very often, unless it's a very important story point. And so one time that I did use color was in the beach scene where I wanted to show a change in time where he's trying really hard, is finally making some progress, but ultimately he fails. So I used the deeper reds and oranges because they make you feel, they're a little bit more passionate and a little bit more fiery. Almost like an anger or competitive spirit that racing is. - If you look at these images of Mr Incredible at the beginning of the film, we're talking about the golden days, you know, he's being a superhero, and his costume is represented in blue. It's pretty cool costume but it's not quite as powerful of a color. Then you go to a Mr Incredible working at Insuricare, he's completely unhappy, the color has been taken away from his life and from his costume. And finally when Mr Incredible comes back as a superhero, we have a really powerful color, this red super suit which is a lot better than the original one. So there's a very clear progression when you look at these three pictures of, you feel emotionally how the character is feeling and how his progression is, how his arc is in the film. - As we've seen, color is essential to our story telling process. And so are the other compositional elements we've explored in this lesson. All of these things work together in our films to direct our audiences' eye, convey meaning, express emotions, and support story points. The goal of this lesson was to open your eyes to these ideas so you can apply them to your own stories. In the final exercise you'll work on creating a Beat Board to visualize your Story Spine from the previous lesson. Your job is to create a single image for each beat which captures the essential story point of that moment. So go and have some fun.