Got any screenshots for examples?
Denis Villenueve’s movies are good examples.
I’d settle for muted colors if things were lit at all at this point. So many movies feel like they filmed in an abandoned warehouse at midnight with all the lights turned off.
A movie video essayist I watch did a good video I share with non cinema folks about the lack of colors in marvel movies.
You might enjoy it: Why do Marvel movies look kind of ugly?
New Star Trek manages to look dark even with tons of lights for the lensflares. Because nothing says „space“ and „modern“ like working in a dim, depressing space while simultaneously getting blinded by half a dozen lights strategically placed at eye height.
It’s mad to see a ten year old Patrick Willems essay, then hear him say at the end that it’s a departure for his channel. I’ve only ever known him for his essays.
Yeah but back then it really was unusual for him. It was all “what if x was done by y” and such. He’s come a long way since then.
it’s often crazy to put on a foreign film and see vibrant colors. it’s almost like a religious experience. who knew green looked like green? american color graders are just like ‘lets turn the brightness down to barely being able to see anything on the screen.’
I think they do that to cover for shitty CGI. Can’t tell its shit if you can’t see it.
Yet the director most famous for his muted colors, Christopher Nolan (who is red green colorblind and intentionally avoids color), is also famous for refusing to use CGI when practical effects are available.
I don’t think one dude is a good example when talking about trends. Nolan is an outlier in more ways than one.
If anything other directors are copying him without understanding why it works in his films and not in every film.
Does it work though? For being the first film shot totally in Imax, The Odyssey was kind of dull to look at.
The Odyssey was kind of dull to look at.
It’s a movie where the stills/screenshots aren’t that visually interesting but that the actual video (accompanied by a killer score/soundtrack) is somehow visually stunning. Agamemnon’s armor draws the eye in every scene it’s in (especially the opening of Troy’s gates), the giant Laestrygonians seemed terrifyingly strong and powerful, the visuals of Odysseus’s men slurping down Circe’s soup, all had visual qualities that make an indelible impression.
And obviously the dull, darkly lit, grayed out scene of the dead characters talking to Odysseus from beyond the grave really sells that scene, too.
Maybe I don’t have a subtle enough eye.
But still, there could have been some spectacle.
Like the scene where Zeus is destroying the ship, and for some reason he does it with rain and wind? And this was changed from the original story, where Zeus strikes with, obviously, a gigantic fucking lightning bolt. Is there some artistic reason for this that I missed? I know Nolan hates CGI, but come on.
I enjoyed the movie well enough, but it never wowed me.
Colours Nolan who lives in an editing suite and eats 1 million colours a day, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
