Goethe's Color Theory and Filmmaking
Another Color Theory-- how colors live between the light and shadows-- how centuries old studies and notes can better craft film visuals and motifs.
photo credit: still image taken from the documentary
Goethe's Theory of Colors | A Documentary
Date: 1998
Type: Video, Documentary
Topic: Production Design, Directing
Length: 51 minutes
Source: YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtMvYHq2-uI
Color is one of the main elements of the visual arts. How we use it, or purposely remove it, to formulate a 'look' to the scene and overall story. It can be used in minuscule but pertinent ways, like appealing contrasts in props, or as symbolism and patterns for events and characters.
Modern knowledge of visible light is derived from physicist, Isaac Newton's study and experiments of refracted light, in 1672. He observed that white light is broken down into component colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, when refracted through a prism. We are fairly familiar with Newton's contributions to what we know as the visible light spectrum, color theory and the color wheel today. The common idea is that these colors make up white (visible) light.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a poet, however, didn't agree completely with this notion. He carried out his own series of studies and notes, publishing 'The Theory of Colours' in 1810, as a critique of Newton's theory documented in the book, 'Newton's Optics' (1704). Goethe argued and illustrated that colors were not necessary only contained within light itself, but existed because of the harmony between light and dark. Colors existed in the edges-- and the entire visible spectrum of color actually existing where the edges of lightness and darkness overlap.
This documentary covers Newton's and Goethe's theories, with great demonstrations to physically show how light is broken down, manipulated and how we, as humans, perceive color. Examples include how colors recede and extend into or fields of vision. They beautifully showcase visible light and the varieties of color in nature and daily life, and how we experience them. They also discuss color psychology and how color is associated with certain emotions.
The appreciation of color theory aides our abilities to use color in filmmaking well, to craft and suggest mood, and develop story. Better understanding the origins of color theory, allows us to control and achieve its function. Whether it complementary or disturbing, we as filmmakers, use color to build the scene at hand, consciously, and sometimes through gut sense alone.
Despite the documentary's age, it continues to be applicable. Plus, didn't you always want to know why the sky was blue? This has the answer.