The trendy thing in food these days is the deconstructed meal. In digital video, we are afforded the ability to deconstruct in new ways that, perhaps only the bravest filmmaker attempted before. As a function of deconstruction, I chose to lead my group down two distinct paths, which, while not precisely a binary opposition, are at least a kind of dualism. The first is the contrast between Kubrickian filmmaking and Music Video style, which will be discussed in depth in my final commentary. The latter, which will be discussed herein, is the contrast between vibrant color and high-contrast black and white, eventually leading to a deconstruction of color into it's distinct channels.
Visible Spectrum
In this aspect, I must be solely technical, and state that, thanks to a very good camera, set up with the excellent Magic Lantern software, we had an incredible control over white balance in the field. Very little had to be done to correct whites in post.
The Color Wheel
We shot in a low contrast mode (what the industry calls flat, in this case, it is Technicolor's cinestyle) in order to be able to bring up a wider range of colors in post with a simple contrast correction than we could with a full range image coming directly from the camera. This also gave us an incredible amount of wiggle room in color correction, as our colors were captured with very low saturation, and it is easier to boost saturation than to decrease it evenly.
Primary Colors
The red cups are a theme in our video's Kubrickian first half. This is the most promenient use of primary color in that section. However, our second half, which is inspired by music video aesthetics, is a total deconstruction of color into it's primary channels. Two short clips are played multiple times, each in full color, then the red channel only, then the green channel only, then the blue channel only, before going into a black and white, slow motion cut. This means that, all told, color is extremely present in it's primary forms in our second half.
Warm/Cool shots
The Kubrickian half of our video is mostly warm, when in color. It has a single shot that is done in an intensely cool tone, in order to cause a sense of discomfort. The MTV half of our video is shot in a neutral tone, as the shots are often far too fast to even notice warmth/coolness.
Contrast
The black and white shots of this video are done in an ultra-high contrast style. This is to heighten the feeling of theatrics that is present throughout this video.
While not all of the concepts apply to our particular video, contrast and primary colors are completely present in such a way that the real star element of the video is color. This is probably not at all surprising to anyone who is familiar with my passion for color grading. These decisions were highly stylistic, and ultimately cannot be aptly considered in a blog post of this length. To consider the color alone is something that could take quite a bit of ink, when considering the artistic influences and style choices in each shot. Moreover, there is a vast wealth of babble I can make crediting Stanley Kubrick's The Shining and 2001 as well as Russell Mulcahy's work on The Highlander for some of the choices, not to mention Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet, for it's method of adaptation and modernization that inspired me while conceptualizing this video, or Bertholdt Brecht's Alienation Theory, which permeates through most of my work, but is ultimately perfected in this piece. However, for the purposes of this blog, I will leave you with this surface look at the color work I have realized. That is to say - deconstruction of color as a signifier of not only our villain's death, but of the pulling apart of our video at it's ends.
