The Effect of Colours: Emotion and Symbolism of Colour

The Effect of Colours: Emotion and Symbolism of Colour Colour theory has been dated back to the 15th Century with the writings of Leone Battista Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci. From these early beginnings, colour theory has developed to cover painting, optics, psychology and many other disciplines, including film making. Colour and Emotion There has been research into colour, emotion and how they interlock for at least the last 50 years. A lot of this research comes under psychology. This is still useful to many other disciplines including film makers so they can try to control the emotion of the viewer using colour. T the work of Lois B. Wexner (1954) explores how mood-tone and colours are associated with each other. Her research shows that certain colours do have strong associations with mood-tones, such as red with excitement, blue with tender-soothing and yellow with cheerful-jovial-joyful among others. The American psychologist Frank H. Mahnke (1996) has also conducted experiments into colour and emotion associations, in his findings he found some very strong associations, especially with red/love, black/hate, blue/peace blue-violet/noble. In Table 1 tabulated from his experiments, it shows the range of colours chosen by participants with the term and the percentage match they gave. Mankhe also grouped certain colours together where there was strong overlap , for example, blue, blue-green, green with the term peace/tranquillity. Term Colours Chosen Percentage Love Red, Red-Violet 81% Hatred Black, Red 89.6% Peace/Tranquillity Blue, Blue-Green, Green 93.6% Mourning/Sorrow Black,Grey 86% Happy Yellow, Orange 63% Jovial Orange, Yellow 50% Life Green 73% Luminous Yellow 65% Noble Blue, Blue-Violet, Violet 81% Table Colour Emotion Associations (Mahnke 1996) Wei, Dimitrova Chang (2004) established their association of corresponding colours to mood-tones (emotions), which is summarized in table 2. Colours Associated Mood Tones (Emotion Terms) Black Hatred, Mourning, Sorrow, Indefinite White Mourning, Grief, Depression Red Love, Hatred, Life, Noble Orange Jovial, Happy Green Tranquillity, Peace, Life Blue Peace, Tranquillity, Noble Purple Love, Noble, Authoritative Table Wei, Dimitrova Chang (2004) Use of Colours in Film The use of colour by film makers is deliberate and planned (Bellantoni 2005). To ensure that a film will have the colour which will bring a response from the audience they can either do test screenings, such as what cinematographer Rodger Deakins does in Shawshank Redemption. He tested different colours and paints to find the look required for each scene. While the use of colour can be analysed as it can have a strong affect on mood and emotions many times cinematographers will work by instinct and what it just looks right (Bellantoni 2005). It is possible to distil each film into its own colour palette. Artist Alan Woo shows quite distinctly how a film can have a distinctive colour palette. In his project Pie (Woo 2008) he processed each frame of a film into a colour and produced a pie chart for that film. Film makers have used colours nearly the whole spectrum of colours to their advantage in storytelling. Red Red is associated with danger, risk taking, action, love, hate. Director Alfred Hitchcock used these associated in the film Marnie, where he added red frames to attempt to excite the audience (Hullfish Fowler 2003). Director Sergei Eisenstien use of selective red in The Battleship Potemkin where a hand painted Soviet flag is hoisted up the ships mast. As well as the glorifying the Communist regime, according to Misek (2019) the redness overwhelms its intended meaning, the viewer notices the colour red and its power over the Soviet connotations. Reds can also convey action. In the film Run Lola Run, director Franka Potente uses the central characters red hair, a red ambulance, red bag (Martell 2002) and saturated red light to keep the audience in a high octane state (Bellantoni 2005). Orange According to Bellantoni (2005), oranges on the other hand do not give a strong emotional response to the audience, they are often provoke a warm, romantic, welcoming and also a sense of nostalgia. This is strongly convey in the Coen Brothers film O Brother Where Art Thou? where the whole film was digitally coloured in a orange/brown sepia to give the viewer a sense of the Mississippi during the Great Depression, a look of faded postcards (Fisher 2000). One place where orange does give the audience an unsettling appearance is when its in the air. For example, the orange sky in Blade Runner shows the polluted atmosphere. Production Designer Larry Pauli mentions to Bellantoni (2005 p.142), that the orange sky is acid but conversely softer and romantic depending on the outside or inside of the shot. Green The colour green can have two contrasting emotive responses in the viewer, depending on how it is used. Green is the colour of nature, health and vitality but also the colour of poison, illness and evil. Bellantoni (2005) writes that green is used by cinematographer John Seale creation of the lush vista in Witness. The green wheat fields where the Amish work. They connect the rural Amish to the agricultural work they live to do. These scenes are also where the protagonist is healing and in a stage of renewal, which the greens convey to the viewer. The colour green is used in The Matrix to show the virtual reality that central character Neo is trapped in. Directors the Wachokwski brothers took this green from was a whole motif inspired by the phosphorous green of old PCs (Davies n.d.). The use of the green in the simulated world contrasts with the harsher blue-white palette of reality, despite being a film all about the digital these greens were achieved optically through use of green lighting mise-en-scà ¨ne (Misek 2010). Blue Blue has strong associations with peace and tranquility. However in film it is more used to show coolness, detachment and passiveness. Dorothys dress in the Wizard of Oz is blue and white gingham showing her powerlessness in the film. It is not until she gains the bright red ruby slippers doe she gain any power (Bellantoni 2005). Bellantoni (2005) writes that blue is used to show the detachment and coldness of the prison in Shawshank Redemption. The prison uniforms and walls are all bathed in a soft blue/grey light which also highlight the passiveness of the inmates. However, blue also represents hope and freedom, Ellis Boyd Red Redding (Morgan Freeman) says I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams talking about his dreams of freedom and when the audience does get to see the ocean it is a much richer blue than the pale washed out version in the prison. Purple Purple has a long history of being a regal colour. This can be seen in Gladiator, where character Marcus Aurelius wears a purple hood, symbolising his regal power. Purple can also represent death or change. In Chicago, the strong use of purple light alludes to the death and delusion, bringing a seriousness to the musical song and dance (Bellantoni 2005). The dark purples are also heavy, representing the closeness of the criminal underworld. Death is also represented by purple in the film Apocalypse Now where a bright purple smoke flare is released and men start to die. Gaspar Noà ©s Enter The Void, a film about death, the afterlife and crime uses strong use of neon-purple contrasting with the dark Tokyo night where the film is set. Yellow Yellow can represent happiness, jovialness, wealth and warning. The use of yellow of Johns car as well as the yellow-neon lights in American Graffiti shows his youth and playfulness. Gold, a shade of yellow is closely associated with wealth. Koszarski (1999) writes that in Erich von Stroheim silent film Greed, Von Strohiem used Handschiegl colour on certain film prints to colour yellow all the gold items in an otherwise black and white film. This gave it a recurrent symbolism of the main characters greed. Greyscale Even with the advent of colour film, many film makers still choose to use the absence of colour in their works. The first film to go through the digital intermediate process of colour grading was Pleasantville, a film which uses the absence and presence of colour in its story. As the film progresses from the black and white beginning, the introduction of selective colourisation is used as a disruptive force on the traditional suburban black and white town. While other films have used the contrast of full colour and black and white scenes they are usually separate, giving the viewer an understanding of the differences between two places. For example the Wizard of Oz has a black and white Kansas, while the land of Oz is a glorious colour. Schindlers List is another example of selective colour used, in an otherwise black and white film a red coat of a young girl is used to individualise the cold, mechanical horrors of the holocaust. Greyscale can give a sense of seriousness and realism. Masik (2010) writes that Spike Lees Shes Gotta Have It was made in black-and-white for aesthetic and budget reasons and also because the Director of Photography liked the film black and white film Raging Bull which he interpreted as summoning the photojournalism s in 1950s Life magazine. Use of colour however is not always to the audiences and critics taste. Filmmaker Todd Miro (2010) blogs about the Color Grading Virus that is Teal Orange He cites Hollywood productions of Transformers 2 and Iron Man 2 where the colour grading has been overdone to attempt to bring attention to the skin tones(usually orange range of colours) of the actors away from the background. Journalist Phil Hoad (2010) spoke to Hollywood colourist Stefan Sonnenfeld, who says Traditional vs. Digital Colour grading has a long history. From the early days of hand painting individual frames to the photochemical processes still used by modern filmmakers. The bleach-bypass method was introduced by Technicolor (Shaw 2010). Shaw (2010) explains that this is when film is processed in lab to alter the colour balance. This process is also expensive and not reversible. This process has been used in many films, such as Dick Tracey, Saving Private Ryan (American Society of Cinematographers, 1998). Director Steven Spielberg and Director of Photography Janusz Kaminiski also used this technique in Munich. Kaminski mentions to Goldman (2005 p.14) a sense of tenseness, a sense of rawness. Kamainiski works with traditional laboratory methods as that is what he has done in the past and feels that the use of digital technology allows the colourist to constantly change their grading and get lost as they have no standard. Process used by Digital Colourists Primary Colour Grading When grading video, the first task is to set up the overall image. Tasks included including fixing white balance, removing colour casts, matching tones between shots and contrast levels. The first task many colourists will tackle first is setting the black level of the image.

Prejudice and Racism in Heart of Darkness? Essay -- HOD Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness: Racist or not? Â   Many critics, including Chinua Achebe in his essay "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness", have made the claim that Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, despite the insights which it offers into the human condition, ought to be removed from the canon of Western literature. This claim is based on the supposition that the novel is racist, more so than other novels of its time. While it can be read in this way, it is possible to look under the surface and create an interpretation of Conrad's novel that does not require the supposition of extreme racism on the part of Conrad. Furthermore, we must keep in mind that Conrad was a product of a rather racist period in history, and it seems unfair to penalize him for not being able to transcend his contemporaries in this respect. Â   This novel, it seems, must be read in a symbolic manner. Objects and characters are not so simple as they seem. Achebe tells us: "Quite simply it is the desire... in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest" (251-252). If Africa is a foil to Europe, as stated here, then perhaps Conrad only uses the continent of Africa symbolically, without regard to its people - as Achebe himself states, descriptions of Africans as anything more than vague limbs in the darkness are few and far between in the novel. The opposition between light and darkness in the novel, far from being Conrad's own, is traditional in Western literature. Conrad simply uses the most familiar of symbols for the dichotomy between good and evil to enhance his novel's psycho... .... One might also argue that while Marlow is racist, Conrad is not - something like the scenario in another famous river novel, Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, I reject this claim - Marlow does the vast majority of the speaking in this novel, and so the reader identifies him as the novel's narrative voice even though there is, strictly speaking, a frame story outside of this. Â   Finally, even if Conrad was more racist than other authors of his time, why is this so significant? The novel is still valuable as an object of art, for the psychological insights it offers both into the human condition at large and into the motivations of European imperialism and colonization. A novel such as this should not be removed from the canon on the simple basis of its offensive potential. All great literature must have at least the potential to offend.

Research and Development of Anti-Retroviral Drugs Essay

‘Discuss the reasons why the research and development of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) has impacted differently on people suffering from HIV/AIDS in developed and developing world’ HIV/AIDS still does not have a know cure, but has a treatment that slows down the affects of HIV/AIDS which is called ARV (anti-retroviral drug) The ARV drug is a very â€Å"exclusive† drug because as it is very expensive, around $400 a month if not more depending on which stage you are in, and that is a huge dilemma because many people cannot afford to pay that amount of money so they are not able to receive the treatment. If people in the first world countries cannot receive the drug, how do people in the third world receive the drug? In third world countries the drugs are given to them for free, but on the 47% gets the full treatment. The drugs are given to them by of the drug company itself of other companies that buy the ARVs from the company and send it to the place where it is needed, for example Africa. Africa is the location where the most HIV/AIDS cases are, and is also the one getting the least amount of treatment. The reason for this is because the ARV drug company wants to get their money back for all the research they put in, so giving the ARVs for free would become a great loss economically for them. The first aspect of this issue is the social part. Infrastructure is a big problem because as buildings coast a lot to construct they are not able to put up many, and you must also have trained people able to work there, which are hard to find in Africa. There are very few amount of places where you can go get tested but they have a limited amount of treatments and supplies. This is a huge problem because if people go to get better they have to wait or not get better at all due to the lack of resources. I would solve this issue by having not many small structures but several big structures so the supplies have a greater chance to arrive and more money is used wiser and more efficiently. Another social aspect of this problem is the education. In Africa the education is something that not everyon e gets, so they are not aware about how they get the disease, how they can prevent it or what are  the affects. A reason for why in Africa they do not receive the education is because there are a very few amount of teachers, and the teachers that they have may also be contaminated and are not able to execute their job correctly. HIV/AIDS affects everyone in their community because the disease spreads fast in their case (the people in Africa). This is due to their sexual behavior. Their culture does not have monogamy or a custom of only one sexual partner, but they have many different sexual partners, and that is why HIV/AIDS spreads so quickly in Africa. They also do not use protection because it is not available to most people and so chances are higher to get HIV/AIDS. Another cultural aspect is that there is a lot of prejudice against testing. Many people do not want to get tested for HIV/AIDS because one, they are scared the test might come back positive, second if it does result positive how will they tell their family/friends and thirdly how will they get the treatment they need to get. If the people get tested and do want to not tell anyone, because of various reasons, and as a result the problem amplifies and does not get solved. Another problem for the cultural aspect is get the people to take responsibility and try to change. Of coarse it is easier to ignore the problem and pretend it is not there, but that would not be helping the matter, it would be making it worse. How to solve these problems would be, in my opinion, have protection available to them, encourage testing, reassure the people that there will be a treatment for them, make them understand the severity of this issue and that if we do not take action it may get a lot worse, have session/groups for them to talk about their worries, experience ect. However before doing this we must solve the bigger problem, how do we give them the treatment for free. Another aspect of the issue is the ethical/moral part. The richer countries to some extent have an obligation to help the poorer countries, but the third world countries should not relay or take advantage because also the richer countries have their own problems to solve. For insists America is going though a very tough crisis but at the same time they are helping the less fortunate get better. The poorer countries should also take action and do something to help themselves, because they should be putting the money where it really needs to go to, the people. This leads us to another aspect of the issue, the political portion. Politics have caused a lot of mayhems in the world because they sometimes do not have they  priorities sorted out. For example in Africa instead of investing their money in this issue of HIV/AIDS and the treatments, they have decided to invest their money on weapons and in their natural recourses such as oil. It is very hard to run a third world country but it should not be an excuse. To solve these concerns although it is a difficult task but one way to solve them, in my opinion, is to have people from the first world talk and discuss about what they can do together (with the people of the third world) instead of just have the first world do everything on their own. The last aspect of this issue is the economic part. Africa is already a poor continent, having a poor economy is not helping either. They do not have enough money to circulate and this stops Africa growing, having sick people also stops the economy from growing because it is another matter they have to face. Child labor increases due to the fact that the adults are sick and are unable to work and the poor people have no way in getting better because there aren’t enough doctors. In conclusion a way to resolve the problem in the distribution of the ARVs is to have several multi-national pharmaceutical companies sponsor the ARVs, so other independent companies do not have to buy the drug and then distribute them, but by sponsoring the drug, the ARV drug company directly gives the drug to the third world countries without loosing it’s money. The multi-national pharmaceutical companies get advertisement and so they also gaining not loosing their money. As you can see this is a win, win situation. The main issue here is that the ARV drug company does not want to loose the money that they put in research so they make the drug excessively high-priced because to produce the drug is a coast next to nothing. Once the people receive the treatment, they should help educate not only the affected people but also the people that haven’t been affected yet. I believe by doing this, the transmission of the HIV/AIDS with decrease significantly and things will start to get better. I do believe that this problem is solvable.

Is Standardized Testing Positive or Negative - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 736 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/06/24 Category Management Essay Level High school Tags: Standardized Testing Essay Did you like this example? With the recent introduction to common core, people face standardized testing with ambivalence. While they allow students to experience normal testing situations and measure their progress against their peers, standardized exams often do more harm than good. They can negatively impact students in many ways. Despite having some positive aspects, standardized testing puts too much pressure on students, discourages divergent thinking, and often fails to measure success. Standardized tests puts a lot of pressure on students and teachers to receive high test scores and often results in a decrease in motivation, narrowing of the curriculum, and does not lead to learning. The high stakes testing puts too much pressure on students forcing them to no longer be engaged in enhancing experiences for the pure joy of learning (Standardized Testing Has Negatively Impacted Public Schools 5). The duress dictated by the test causes students to become frustrated and, eventually, students will become uninterested and stop doing their work. Furthermore, the pressure of the tests results in teachers narrowing the curriculum to only teach students the information they need to receive a higher score (Standardized Testing Has Negatively Impacted Public Schools 6). Because of this, students will not get a full understanding of the course of study. This will directly impact the students grades due to the decrease in curriculum. Additionally, little information has existed showing that standardized tests have actually improved learning (Standardized Testing Has Negatively Impacted Public Schools 5). Therefore, these tests are useless and a waste of time. Students should not be forced to take this test with no proof of a positive outcome. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Is Standardized Testing Positive or Negative?" essay for you Create order Standardized tests seek answers that are not different or distinct, forcing kids to be the same as everybody else and preventing teachers to teach life skills. The biggest problem with standardized tests is that they seek standardized answers (GPA, SAT, ACT RIP 1). Tests do not allow kids to excel in creativity, but rather them respond with a narrow minded answer. Likewise, tests fail to assess higher level thinking. Tests have taken the power of teachers to teach useful instruction and learning practical information, such as decision making, and instead resorting to skill-drill teaching (Standardized Testing Has Negatively Impacted Public Schools 7). Beneficial information needed to help students with everyday life is more important than drilling information on how to take a test. Testing prohibits teachers to instruct skills that are needed in everyday life. Parents want their kids to be uncommon, not common; unique, not the same (GPA, SAT, ACT RIP 2). Every parent wants their kid to be different. What parent would want their child to be like everybody else? Standardized tests do not measure many attributes that contribute to success. These tests also unfairly discriminate bad test-takers. Scores on a test usually dont provide a direct and complete measure of educational achievement (Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement 2). Schools measure ones ability to comprehend a subject. Poor test takers are differentiated because of their lack of timing or environment. Standardized tests do not shed light on measures of success, such as grit and resilience (GPA, SAT, ACT RIP 1). Testing only analyses subjects such as reading, grammar, science, and math. It doesnt focus on certain characteristics that will lead to future success. Studies of students have found a statistical association between kids with high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking (Standardized Tests Do Not Effectively Measure Student Achievement 3). Shallow thinking, obviously, is a negative characteristic that tests are rewarding. Standardized tests should focus on things that will provide an accurate and reasonable validation for success. Critics may believe that standardized tests are a good way to increase student learning, however, testing does not always lead to learning. This is because of the timing and pressure of the test. When kids feel pressure to receive high test scores they naturally resort to doing things that will earn them [lower test scores] (Standardized Testing Has Negatively Impacted Public Schools 5) . Testing overemphasizes factual knowledge and low-level skills. Standardized testing has put too much pressure on students and teachers to succeed resulting in a decrease in motivation, narrowing of the curriculum, and does not lead to learning. In addition, the tests seek answers that are original and common. Lastly, the test does not measure many attributes that contribute to success. Standardized tests are a waste of time and have provided no proof of positive results. Therefore, these tests are negative and should not be taken.