ERIC ROLEX JOSEPH: MOSAIC

People use color for different kind of purposes. They try to express feeling by using different colors. It’s not easy to interpret if the use of color is successful, but we can feel it. Interpretation of colors is not a rational process but it’s an emotional one. During the last class, we watched some scenes in four movies during our last class. We had to take notes and we had to choose two movies in order to make our project. They were very good movies: Moulin Rouge and Kill bill were my favorite. So, I choose them in order to make my mosaic. It was not a very easy job but the result is successful.

In the movie Kill Bill, the filmmaker tries to create an environment where crime and vengeance constitute the background. We could see black colors almost everywhere and we can also see that the main character wear yellow. If we can try to interpret that I would say that the yellow represent backstabbing. The black color represents violence and crime. In order to be able to represent my mosaic, I choose to present a yellow body in the middle surrounded by many black points. These black points represent the other teammates who betray the girl in yellow.

For the second movie: Moulin Rouge, in this movie the filmmaker represents an atmosphere where love is: air that makes people breath. We can feel love everywhere and the filmmaker uses light pink, a blue like the one of the sky on the stage to spread out the feeling. We can also see that this is a first class representation because the public is a male public and all of them are in black suit. AS it’s about love and Romance I will try to draw a heart of a lady surrounded with human eyes. The colors that will be used are red, blue and pink. Red for passion, pink for love and blue for the blue light that appears in the stage during the presentation. I will try to do something very simple and I will try to express the felling that the main character, the lady with the necklace expressed in the presentation.

I realize that in both movies the filmmakers are really successful in expressing feeling and in the use of colors to share it. I realize also that color is a kind of language. I can use it to communicate emotions. It’s not easy at the first time to get what the filmmaker would like to share but when you take your time to better watch and to try to interpret what you see, you can feel the difference. When you understand what the purpose of the filmmaker is, we have to find how to represent it. Here is the big challenge. You have to imagine what will best describe the same thing. It’s not easy to figure it out.

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Movie Magic Project!!! COLORS ARE MORE THAN JUST COLORS

MOVIE MAGIC PROJECT!!! BY ELEITA KUTCHER BOUVIER

Colors are, more than just colors, colors can be expressions and feelings. Colors are beautiful. Through the years, colors had acquired meanings, for example in my country flag’s colors represent the two political parties of Panama, the Liberals (red) and the Conservatives (blue). The white symbolizes peace between them and the equal division of the colors states that they both govern the country at different times. The colors of the Panamanian flag also have alternative meanings. The blue represents the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea and red stands for the blood spilt for Panama's independence. The blue star represents the civic virtues of purity and honesty and the red star symbolizes the authority of the law. Together they represent loyalty and resilience. As well as, colors have meaning for my Panamanian’s flag; it also has meaning for other countries.

We watched four movie clips, one from a movie called Stranger than fiction, Kill Bill, Everything is Illuminated, Moulin Rouge. Where it was, a lot of colors, especially in Moulin Rouge and Everything is illuminated. Those two were, the clips that I chose to do my mosaics. And This time on our Cross Cultural Awareness class, our job was, choose two clips, from the four clips that we watched and then do mosaics. With different colors, we are going to represent what we saw, or represent our emotions that we got after watching the clips, with colors.

Doing my Mosaics

On my first mosaics, to represent “The Perfect Place” which is the name of the scene, in the movie “Everything is illuminated. I use sunflower yellow, to represent the plantation of sunflowers all around the dark brown path. Under the sunflower yellow circle forms, I use the color green to represent, the perfect grass in Ukraine. At the end of the dark brown path, I use cream color to represent the sticks that were buried in the ground. I use white to represent the shirts that were hanging on the sticks. To conclude my mosaic I use cream color, to represent the house in the middle, at the end of the path. Everything is really bright and perfect on the clip and on my mosaic.

On my second Choice, to represent “Moulin Rouge”, that is a movie full of love and desire. I use different tones of red and pink. But not only those pastel colors, I also use dark colors, to represent the crowd. Dark colors, because, on the scene, in the crowd, they were all men, in black suits. My perception about that clip was, that every single man in that theater wish to have the girls in the stage. It is all about the desires of those men.

EVALUATING MY PERCEPTIONS

I really enjoyed this Movie Magic project, I have learned that colors are not just colors; colors are feelings, expressions and thoughts. I consider that the director of the movie, use the colors perfectly, especially on my two choices. Love, represented with red and different tones of pink and even more, on my second clip, where the director, use the intensity of each color. Colors are beautiful. Colors are life.

Color Mosaics

Situation

Colors are always fascinating. One color in different cultures might have different meanings. In order to uncover this fascinating veil, we watched four films. We chose two out of them and selected one scene each. Next, we made our mosaics to represent the colors that filmmakers used in those films. In my part, I chose Stranger Than Fiction and Kill Bill as the focus of my mosaics.

My Scenes

In Kill Bill, a woman was on an airplane to her destination. It was at dusk and the sun was going down, and it gave me the idea to represent flying to another country. In Stranger Than Fiction, I saw the main character walking back home from his office. There was no one in the streets, and he lived by himself. With the sight of condos and trees, it gave me the idea of living alone.

Solution

In my first mosaic, I first used the color of blue and cut it into a shape of Earth. In order to make it earth-like, I used the color of green and cut it into the shape of continents. I wanted it to look like the continents that people live in the world. Finally, I made a red airplane to symbolize traveling. I chose red not only because it was at dusk, but also because red means “Good luck” (meaning have a safe trip) in my culture. In my second mosaic, I used the color of reddish brown, made a few condos with many windows, and then made some trees. The trees were made in green, like green leaves and green grass. I wanted it to look like a place in a city. At last, I put a figure of a person in the middle of the square, to make people feel that the person is lonely.

Reflection

The two mosaics come from not only my experiences but also my emotional responses to the scenes that I saw in the films. In my first mosaic, I remember the
time when I watched a movie at a science museum. It was about the birth of the earth. From the space, the earth has few colors: mainly sky blue and green grass. The airplane made me think about the time when I was flying to America. Besides, blue makes me think about water, and continents green trees. Shortly after I saw the scene, I decided to make a mosaic like this. In my second mosaic, I thought about the time when I was living in a big city. It is a big city with a population of almost two millions. Every time when I walked out in the streets, people passed me and I passed people. I went to the place I wanted to go. I got my things. I met a lot people. Though I had seen some of them quite so often, I could never tell who they were. That’s why I used a lot dark colors. I hope to create a depressing feeling.

Movie Magic! (Genshu)

Situation

Our mission was to watch 4 movies and describe the favorite two scenes with colors. We had to express “How does the filmmaker use color in the film?” I found it very interesting when teachers gave us this projects because I never experienced such a project in Japan. Then, we watched four movies, each just five minutes, “Stranger than Fiction”, “Kill Bill”, “Moulin Rouge” and “Everything is Illuminated”. First, we watched “Stranger than Fiction”, I felt it was interesting, but at the same time I thought it was difficult to express this movie with colors. This is because this movie did not have peculiar scenes, and everything was going on plainly. Next, we watched “Kill Bill”. Though I have not watched this movie, I have known it, because a famous Japanese actress appeared and it was very popular in Japan. There were many violent scenes and hard colors like red, yellow, black were used in this movie. Third, “Moulin Rouge”: in this movie, such fantastic colors as blue and purple were used, and the entire of scene was a little dark. The last movie was “Everything is Illuminated”. I did not know why, but I liked this movie just in five minutes. Here, light colors were mainly used.

Problem

After that we chose two movies among the four. I chose “Kill Bill” and “Everything is Illuminated”. About “Kill Bill”, I was impressed by the scene where a Chinese woman who was wearing all white colored cloths, a Japanese girl who was wearing a Japanese school costume and other who were wearing black colored suits walked through a restaurant. These people were centered in the scene and the left side of the scene was a clear white colored door, and the right side was a bright red colored wall. I thought the red and white colors expressed a kind of symmetry and were very beautiful. These colors were never mixed, and each colors expressed oneself. I felt these two colors described two people who were going to fight right now, and that the fight was going to be very fierce. About “Everything is Illuminated”, I liked this scene where a car stopped by a tree on the road. It was the scene before a guy found a large and beautiful sunflower fields. The color of sky was pale blue and white, that of the field is pale green and brown, and that of a car was clear blue. Pale and light color were used in this entire scene used something like gradation in the sky, field and road. These colors impressed on me melancholy and sadness. I thought the filmmaker tried to emphasize the next sunflower scene, by using pale colors in this scene.

Solution

In the mosaic of “Kill Bill”, I put red and white colors on each side in order to describe symmetry, and put white and black people in the center of the mosaic in order to express them.

In the mosaic of “Everything is Illuminated”, I used these four colors: turquoise, pale blue, pale yellow and white, and expressed plain sky. In the field, I used pale green and green for grass, and brown and beige. I tried to use gradation in entire mosaic to suit the scene.

Evaluation

I had many troubles in this projects because I had to express what happened in the moment, with only colors - I could not use movement and sounds different from movies. And especially, it was hard to cut papers to shape of people because it needed exactness and endurance. I thought there were big differences between just watching colors in movies and using colors actually in mosaics. However, I found that colors changed the characters depending on how they were used. For example, red, orange and yellow often express warm and love, but sometimes they express the danger and war. Also by contrasting different and symmetrical colors, we can emphasize the characters. Finally, we can emphasize a scene by putting light-pale-colored scene before.

The Color Note (By Nelson Salgado)

Karlowski & Fyke Productions Presents: “Movie Magic Project”

Color has inspired human beings throughout history. Cultures and social groups have attributed to color special meanings according to their beliefs and traditions. For instance, red is related with virginity and purity in India. In contrast, in the Western cultures, we grow with the idea that red symbolizes love.

As another visual form of expression, the seventh art uses color to create different atmospheres, to illustrate surroundings, to describe settings and a main purpose of transmitting emotions to the viewers.

This is where the Movie Magic Project “enters the picture”… For this new assignment, we were required to watch four movie clips (five-minutes sequences) corresponding to the films “Kill Bill Vol.1”, “Moulin Rouge”, “Stranger than Fiction” and “Everything is Illuminated”. With one eye on the screen and the other one in our notebooks, my classmates and I took notes about the clips, paying special attention to the colors used in scene. These notes would be used to create two 3”x3”-poster-board mosaics with pieces of papers in a variety of colors. One mosaic per movie, what means that we had to choose two sequences before “saying action”.The objective was to represent the scenes seen in class and to reflect the feelings that we have while we were watching them.

Sunflowers for the Gentlemen

It was time to choose our two movie clips that we were going to work on it. The young Jewish American with his tender story and the Parisian courtesan “won the play” and I chose them. In “Everything is illuminated” we saw three main male characters. The young Jewish American who is awakened by his tourists guides with their faithful pet: a dog. Driving a car through beautiful landscapes in Ukraine, they stopped in an old, wooded, almost-destroyed house with a plantation of sunflowers.

On the other side, in “Moulin Rouge” a beautiful dance with Indian influences performed by Nicole Kidman, protagonist of the film. A stage with a big heart shape over round stairs, curtains with a characteristic burlesque style are the background of the scene. With colorful outfits, dancers perform a choreography having Nicole Kidman in the center of the stage singing and dancing. Suddenly, stage lights turn blue and a mystic atmosphere is created to continue with this spectacular presentation.

It’s Show Time!

It’s time to analyze the sequences and make the mosaics. Here we go! The way that color is used in “Everything is Illuminated” is fascinating. Through beautiful environments full of green and blue in Ukraine, its filmmaker presents us a peaceful surrounding to contrast it with the terrible acts perpetrated in those lands. Many of the actual plantations and forests in the East of Europe (including Ukraine, where the story takes place) were the stage of massacres of during Nazi occupation. A tone of yellow similar to the noon sun, one of the colors in the Ukrainian flag is represented with the sunflowers plantations. Full of an intense yellow and light green, sunflowers are a very important product for East of Europe economy and the director decided to give a main character to this plant.

One scene that attracted my attention immediately was the previous one before of the end of the sequence seen in class. Alex, who just got out of the car and was wearing a sailor-blue jacket and a beret, stared to a plantation of sunflowers under the light blue noon sky. I chose this scene in particular not only because it is visually interesting, I think it is full of meaning. In my mosaic, I used light blue to symbolize the serenity and peace transmitted by noon. I used green and lime green to represent the sunflowers plantations. Its yellow in combination with the medium blue in Alex’s jacket, represents the colors in the Ukrainian flag in my mosaic.

Red symbolizes passion and love, and the filmmaker uses them as main statements in this film and at the same time, a guiding thread in Moulin Rouge story. We can observe several tones of red during the sequence varying from blood-red, dark red, to medium red or dark pink. The red in the traditional-Indian gown of Nicole during the performance is related with a part of innocence, totally lost for her character representing itself a sort of paradox.

My mosaic is an illustration of the cabarets stage and the way how it looked like for this performance. The back of the stage was the typical curtain a cabaret style in a blood red.

With dark pink, pink, blood-red and lilac, I symbolized the colors in Nicole Kidman and the other dancers outfit which fits perfectly with the idea of love and passion in the story.

Evaluating the Project

Art and expression: These two words summarize the “Movie Magic Project Fall 2010”. Color is not only a sensation experimented by our eyes. With color, we are able to express our thoughts and emotions and develop our creativity at the same time. I enjoyed creating the mosaics; it was my favorite part of the process. Without using words, I was able to express myself and at least try to explain how the filmmakers used color in the film.

**** Four stars for this assignment from a maximum of four. Perfect score for “Karlowski & Fyke Productions” and its project. ;)

Movie Magic

Can you explain what the project was exactly ?

We watched five-minute excerpt of four different movies which were “Everything is Illuminated” by Jonathan Safran Foer, ”Kill Bill volume 1” by Quentin Tarantino, “Moulin Rouge” film by Baz Luhrmann and “Stranger than fiction” by chuck Palahniuk. We took notes about the colors used and their meaning according to the whole movie or only the excerpt. Then we had to choose two of those movies and create two mosaics, decorative designs made by setting small colored piece onto a surface.

What were your observations?

The two movies I chose to make mosaics on are “Everything is illuminated” and ”Kill Bill volume 1”.

“Everything is illuminated”

In the first one, in the scene I choose there is a house in the prairie surrounded by sunflowers. The background color is a skylight blue with some clouds. The over hall colors are a bright green, a sunny yellow. The house in this prairie is in a mixture of clear grey and beige and its roof is brown.

“Kill Bill volume 1”

In the second movie, the scene represents a plane in the twilight sky. The background and over hall colors are a degraded from a bright orange to a dark red (from up to down) for the twilight. The plane, as the only prop, is in a bright white with some red.

So what are your deductions?

For the first movie, “Everything is illuminated”, we can see how nature is important. I think Jonathan Safran uses the yellow and the blue for a non measurable happiness, we cannot even see the end of the prairie. This happiness doesn’t reside in material things: there is only one house in this vast plain and it is represented in grey beige and brown. Those colors give to the house a deteriorated aspect. The author may want to insist on the aspect that those people in this Ukrainian village can be happy without being concerned with material issues. I choose to represent the door of the house in black for mystery because while we were watching the extract, it stopped before we knew who were in the house. On a personal plan, I choose to represent this scene also because it reminds me Lyon in France. I’ve been several times in

For “Kill Bill volume 1” I think Quentin Tarantino used the twilight sky with this degraded orange to the red to represent tension. We can feel by this mean how danger is always present in the movie .The white used for the plane makes think at purity. For me, the white represents the principal actor which is a woman. She is represented within this red sky because she fights against evil: Good against evil. On the white of the plane, there is also some red trace and effectively, there is a part of evil in every good.

What’s your impression about the project?

The experience of Movie magic wasn’t an easy one because it is hard to focus just on colors while there is sound or/and people moving everywhere during the scene. We get really easily disturb by these details but if we concentrate enough, we can see in the colors, the purposes of the director. This project gives a completely different vision of the cinema experience.

By ISSABRE Hamadoun