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. ;)