What makes a film interesting? What makes it stand out from other films? What makes it unique? The visual design aspects of color and lighting in a film play a major role in giving the film meaning and depth. A lot of thought goes into what colors and lighting should be used that will help convey a mood and theme central to the film. You wouldn’t see dark colors and lighting used in a children cartoon, instead you see bright color and bright lighting. And vice versa; most horror films don’t focus on bright colors and bright lighting. In The Wizard of Oz (Dir. Victor Fleming, 1939) , the director uses bright colors and lighting to portray the moods of happiness, joy and innocence in Dorothy’s life. In contrast, dark colors and lighting that go hand in hand with the evil parts of Oz portray the
All of these elements merge together to reiterate the theme of good versus evil throughout the film.
Red ruby slippers. Green emerald city. Yellow brick road. These are just of the few iconic colors that bring to life The Wizard of Oz film. But before color even gets introduced, we see Dorothy in a monotone world of black and white with a sepia toned film. Set in the middle of Kansas, the viewer gets a sense of boredom and bareness. It seems as if the only people in that whole state are Dorothy, her immediate family and the farmhands! However, after her house gets lifted up and redeposited, she opens the door to a world of Technicolor. Your eyes are shocked as the screen is filled with various bright colors. The colors of Munchkin Land symbolize a vibrant, surreal, dreamlike adventure. It creates moods of happiness and security for the viewer as we are transported back to a world we know; color. In his article Color and Storytelling in Films, Robert Mills says, “Kansas is described as grey and lifeless whilst
The first person the story talks about in the story is Dorothy. She’s a girl that comes form Kansas and was carried by a tornado. In the story when the reader first meet Dorothy he finds out that she is very curios, and straight forward. Dorothy in the story represents the average farmers in Kansas. On the other hand the tornado represents the change that has come up on farmers “ The Industrial Age.” Therefore the story creates a comparison between Dorothy and her new challenge getting back home and the farmer’s industrialization problem and fall of crop prices.
All are relevant to the film that I will be applying the study of lighting
L. Frank Baum achieved a fairy tale classic in his work of The Wizard of Oz. In the story, colors are used repeatedly to directly or indirectly give feeling and meaning to the setting.Color is a crucial imagery factor in a piece of writing. It lets a reader connect and use their imagination to make the words come alive in their heads. Baum specifically uses the colors; gray, yellow, and green. The novel is filled with many mood changes using these colors.
Shot 1: Wide shot. View behind Dorothy in black and white. Dorothy opens the door to the color world of Oz. She steps out into Oz and stops. Straight on shot, camera moves into Oz first through the door, followed by Dorothy appearing again in the foreground. Light symphonies playing magical music, birds are singing in the background.
The Wizard of Oz is the 1939 film musical released by the studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that became a cultural icon defining family entertainment for decades after its initial release. Though it did not turn a profit until 1956 when it aired on television, it has been considered a wide success, spawning several re-releases and sequels. The Wizard of Oz set the precedent for visual effects, innovations Hollywood still utilizes today in an age of computer generated images. The film has stood the test of time with its special effects, paving the way for the future of movie magic.
Braum’s use of color throughout The Wonderful Wizard of Oz might seem random or inconsequential to anyone reading the book, but the assignment of certain colors bring underlying meanings to certain aspects of the book that would not have been there without color. The land of the Munchkins, Quadlings and Winkies represents Baum’s knowledge of color theory. The yellow brick road and Emerald city represent the fall of the populist movement, and the greys of Kansas are used to contrast the magical land of Oz.
Identify specific elements of a motion picture that film studios look for in a successful movie.
Each element helps each other by making the next scene better than the one before. It has the storyline come to live, and having people thinking what can happen next or who has the power in the movie. By seeing this movie it can make someone feel complete and satisfied for a long time.
The lighting in this movie is very effective. It helps to establish the characters very well. The audience is helping in distinguishing the bad and the good characters through the lighting. The movie overall is very stylized. There are some other strange lighting patterns brought out by Hype Williams, but by far the most effective lighting patterns are ones that help to characterize the main players in the film.
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 film directed by Victor Fleming, which follows Dorothy Gale on her journey through the magical land of Oz. Dorothy is swept away from a farm in Kansas to the land of Oz in a tornado and embarks on a quest to see the Wizard who can help her return to her home in Kansas. The director, uses a number cinematic techniques such as camera angles, lighting, colour and dialogue to portray a central theme of There’s no place like home.
This movie relies on lighting because it lets the viewers know how the movie will be. For example, this movie uses a lot of dark lighting to add to the gloomy and ominous feeling. The opening scene sets the mood for the entire movie and starting with this nightmare gives the movie a feeling of foreshadowing. This movie uses wide angles, zoom shots, high angles, low angles, and point of view shots. In this film, scenes with Ethan and Lena are often wide angles.
The Wizard of Oz is a fiction story written by L. Frank Baum. The story has two main settings. The first setting is, Dorothy’s home, the Kansas prairies. The prairies are described as dry and gray. The second setting is the land of Oz. Oz is opposed from Kansas, it is colorful, bright, and full of joy. The Wizard of Oz has a grate theme or message behind the story. The message is that we all have good qualities in us, but it is up to us to use them.
Another example of lighting that is used is much darker. The scene with Jafar in his lair using a dark red light creates a taste of evilness and wickedness. The lighting also makes the character Jafar seem more of the antagonist and grants the audience to see how the character Jafar is illustrated. This was effective for the most part, but I think for Jafar’s scene the crew could have made it more compelling by adding a dark black light to enhance the characters feel. The scene in the marketplace was the most effective and the designer of these lights did a great job at setting the mood right away in the
Dorothy is a very motherly figure to the two other girls, Katherine and Mary, but she is also a very motherly figure to the whole west wing computing group. The director shows us the many obstacles that Dorothy must overcome to reach her goal which is to become supervisor and have the same pay as one. One of the main obstacles for Dorothy to overcome is racism. As Dorothy, the very determined woman she is, she does not care about what other people think and just wants to have a good paying job. In the library scene in Hidden Figures, Dorothy is looking for books with her two sons and she happened to be in the “White section” whilst looking for a book on computers, she runs into a white lady, and the first thing the lady says is “We don’t want any trouble here.” This is a perfect example of the racism Dorothy must overcome and how her self interest is pushing her through all this racism she is receiving for no reason. In this scene the director uses lighting to make us further our understanding about the time. The lighting on the side of the bookshelf that Dorothy is on, is a very bright and welcoming type representing good and the kind heartedness of Dorothy. On the other side where the white woman is, it is very dark and shady as if the director is trying to convey evil and how the white woman is very closed minded and doesn't see that Dorothy is just a regular human being.
The biggest and probably most memorable special effect of the movie is the transition from black and white film to color. The film starts in black and white while Dorothy is in Kansas then as soon as she lands in Oz the film magically transitions to color. This was extra unique because during the time it was made, most movies were strictly in black and white. “As a child I simply did not notice whether a movie was in color or not. The movies themselves were such an overwhelming mystery that if they wanted to be in black and white, that was their business. It was not until I saw ‘The Wizard of Oz’ for the first time that I consciously noticed B&W versus color” Here, Ebert expresses just how wowing that effect was to him and how it really added to the movie (Ebert 1). There are so, so many other special effects expressed in The Wizard of Oz like the house getting spun up in the tornado, trees coming to life and throwing apples or a beautiful woman in a beautiful dress traveling by bubble. Frank Nugent from The New York Times makes a comment on these effects “They are entertaining conceits all of them, presented with a naive relish for their absurdity and out of an obvious—and thoroughly natural—desire on the part of their fabricators to show what they could do” even though the gentlemen does almost mock the people in charge of these effects here, he does