Color me shocked

On that same note of editing tricks, one part that sometimes gets overlooked is the color of a film. Color can be used to highlight certain aspects of characters and their worlds. It also sets the mood for the scene and is crucial in driving the audiences attention. 

Just like with cutting and pacing, each genre has their own style for coloring. Action and adventure films are typically more bright and colorful to help keep viewer attention and add to a more happy mood. In contrast, horror films are darker and have more prominent colors, usually this is done to add a creepy and foreboding mood.

The left has the Adventure film "Sonic 2," The right has the horror film "No one gets out alive"

Since we are creating a phycological Thriller film, i should look at a few films in this genre and observe how they use color. What I saw is that not any of them shared a specific color theme or any correlation. Each film stuck to their own color choices to match their moods. Black Swan had a more studio lighting feel, and had muted colors to reflect the setting of a performance stage. Compared to Jacob Ladder (2019) which can a tint of Green throughout, setting an uneasy mood and aiding in making the feel of a otherworldly feel. American Psycho is different as it's colors are more normal, and it feels the most normal feeling as it wants to portray one person as a psycho in a normal world.

 

The films "Black Swan," Jacob's Ladder," and "American Psycho," listed from left to right

This tells me that there is not just a "One size fits all" for any films, regardless of genre. Each film is different and each is fulfilling their own goal in storytelling their own way, not following a certain type of film. This tells me that finding a certain type of style is not what matters to make a good film. What matters is that our film must match our mood, story, and characters. and not to adhere to a specific genre archetype.