Upon watching many of the short films which Whitestone Motion Pictures have produced/made, I have similarly come to notice that colour plays a significant part.
There is one example where this is easily evident, whilst the other is done very subtly, the first being “The Candy Shop”, whilst the latter is “Lest We Forget”.
In “The Candy Shop”, colour has been used to represent the truth and the concept of good versus evil. The initial colour of the short film is very dull, consisting of mostly greys and blues. At the beginning of the film the 12 year old main-character, Jimmy, is seen in grey, but as he comes to realise about the candy shop and the fact that it is turning young girls into candy (designed to represent child sex trafficking) he starts to appear in colour.
Similarly the innocent girls who go into the candy shop are also wearing bright colour. This is designed to juxtapose the owner of the shop/ child catcher who is primarily dressed in black.
Within this video colour representation/ symbolism is important as these are used to represent certain meanings within the short film. For instance,
The young girl is dressed in red to signify sin/sacrifice or temptation. Whereas the child catcher/candy shop owner black appearance, which could be designed to represent evil, whilst the young boy, Jimmy, wearing the blue shirt is intended to be a symbolic reference to the truth which the boy has discovered.
Whereas in “Lest We Forget”, the colour is not designed to represent certain meanings, but instead to make the mise-en scène more believable and realistic.
The intention was to give the overall short film a more antique vibe, as so to reflect the basis of the film, which is a historic film about a soldier trying to get a key, in order to release a family forced into slavery, to release them.
The majority of the colour which has either been created or enhance in post production, has an overall yellow and brown tone, in order to create the vibe intended.
[above: the original colour of the scene
below: the colour enhanced and final version of the scene]
[above: the original colour of the scene
below: the colour enhanced and final version of the scene]
[above: the original colour of the scene
below: the colour enhanced and final version of the scene]
However in this short film, there were additional uses of colour, which were designed to represent and evoke different meanings and emotions to the audience. For example when the family of slaves crosses the river there is the use of the light, peaceful colours of the sky and the light reflected off the water, which might have been intentionally included to suggest to the audience that the family is going to be safe. The light yellow could also be a symbolic reference to suggest ‘hope’ for the family.
Another example where colour has been used to represent certain emotions is where the solider who has been shot, is watching as the family crosses the river. Due to the fatal gun wound the colour of the background slowing fades to black to suggest to the audience that the solider is dying.
This symbolism could be due to the time restraint of short films, as it is more practical to show this in this manor. However I believe, more importantly, that it has been done due to it being vastly more powerful to use as the closing scene, rather than watching the solider die. This is due to the fact that it is more though provoking and emotional for the viewing audience.
In both these short films “The candy shop” and “Lest we Forget”, the representation of colour is very important and key to symbolising certain factors within the films. The reason f or this is because the makers of the film do not have enough time to set the story up properly and focus upon in depth detail. So they therefore have to rely upon symbolism to get across certain meanings through the use of the mise-en scène, in particular, colour, to subconsciously indicate and tell the audience certain pieces of information about both the story and the characters.
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