Color Temperature
- Color temperature is the measure of how “warm” or “cool” a light is, measured in kelvin (K)
- Just like with the light emitted by stars, lights with a lower temperature are “warmer” – they are on the orange end of the spectrum
- Indoor lighting tends to have a lower color temperature
- Lights with a higher temperature are “cooler” – they are on the blue end of the spectrum
- Natural light (on Earth) tends to have a higher color temperature
- Lights with variable color temperature tend to range from around 3200K (sometimes labeled “tungsten”) to around 5600K (sometimes labeled “daylight”)
- You experience light of different color temperatures every day without realizing it
- Our eyes adjust very quickly to changes in color temperature, while a camera may not
White Balance
- White balance is the setting on a camera used to match the color temperature of the light in the environment
- Cameras with highly automated controls (like most default phone camera apps or point-and-shoot cameras) use auto white balance to estimate the appropriate setting for each shot
- Cameras with manual settings allow you to either use a white balance preset or specifically set the color temperature
- I recommend the Moment Pro Camera app ($6) if you would like more manual control when using your phone to record video
- White balance can used stylistically – for example, to make a scene filmed during the day appear to take place at night, you might use a low kelvin setting. This will add a blue tint to the footage, since the camera is trying to compensate for orange lighting.
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Color Schemes
- White balance is usually an “invisible” setting, but color can be used in much more overt and stylized ways
- A color wheel arranges primary (red, blue, and yellow), secondary (orange, purple, and green), and tertiary colors by hue in a radial pattern
- Different color schemes can be chosen by their arrangement on a color wheel
- Monochromatic or analogous color schemes use colors from a limited area of the color wheel
- Complementary color schemes use colors from opposite sides of the color wheel
- Triadic color schemes use colors from three equidistant points on the color wheel
- Discordant color schemes deliberately break an otherwise harmonious color scheme
- There are also many (highly subjective) theories about the psychology of color – red for violence, yellow for hope, blue for calm, etc.
- Equipment for manipulating color includes variable temperature lighting, gels, reflectors, and practicals
- Color can also be heavily manipulated in post-production – this is called color grading
I know of several projects that use data visualization to represent the color palettes in different films. The Colors of Motion determines the average color of each frame, then stacks them from top to bottom. Here are a few examples from science fiction:
2001 
Aliens 
Arrival 
District 9 
The Empire Strikes Back 
Interstellar
Here are the first six Star Wars films, courtesy of designer Dillon Baker.
Production Challenge – Off World
In pairs, find an area of campus that looks like an extraterrestrial world and take a photograph of it. Think about ways to crop your image to make the result look otherworldly. You can use any of the colored gels provided, or alter the hue and saturation after the image has been taken. Email the finished image (with both of your names) to dan014@bucknell.edu. You have 15 minutes.