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Qfanny On Color, Camera Angle, and Props: At this point, let me introduce myself. My name is Nancy Jeanne and I am also known as Qfanny. I have a pretty interesting background with this medium we call Broadcasting. My professional degree is in Broadcast-Journalism and that later helped me get a job as a technical director at cable company. I used to teach people how to make their own Television shows. So I have a bare-bones understanding of how much work it takes to put on a quality broadcast. A story line like Roswell is often going to deal with higher issues such as free will, the nature of humanity, and fate. These are complex issues and as a result, symbolism will be used to convey meaning. Some people do not put a lot of stock into symbolism. Instead, they await for the line to be delivered by the actor. Many of the theories on this web site have no direct dialog support. Instead, we learned visually what to think. In an initial post I made on the Switch Orb theory, I pointed out that some of the most important scenes have no dialog whatsoever. When Max heals Liz in the Crashdown Cafe, nothing is said between the two. Yet the entire series rests on this event! Dialog can be highly overrated. As a student, I was encouraged to produce material that told the same story visually and auditorally. This way I am relaying the same messsage via two different learning methods. I often found myself just listening to the audio track. "Does this dialog make sense? Does the sound effect work?" I would then just watch the monitor and turn the sound down. "Can I tell what's happening from the visual alone." If I could get it so the sound match the visuals, then I had a better story. To tell a story visually, I learned the importance of camera movements and shot composition. Now, this really isn't hard science to figure out. Shot composition involves things like, the left side of the screen is more important than the right. The front of the screen is more important than the back. Camera movements like pans, trucks, cranes, tilts tend to be distracting. If you use them, then there has to be a reason to use them! So whenever I observe an interesting transition, it often wonder why the director used their creative liscense in that way. The easy answer is to make the shot more interesting, the more profound answer is to tell a part of the story that cannot be done with dialog. Scripting is more than just lines. Scripting involves on and off screen blocking, scripting is working out each scene before the studio is set up even. Storyboards are often used, even if it's nothing more than scratch work. Good scripting involves good preproduction, and any show of quality will spend time scripting and that includes so many things, I wouldn't know where to start. shapeshifter wants me to comment on lighting. Roswell is a heavy lights show. Many, many effects from season one where accomplished with lighting. Lighting, first of all, takes time. I've spent my days moving fresnels, scoops and broad lights around from the lighting grid (don't look down) and believe me, it's not a fun job! My education taught me how to eliminate shadow, but in Roswell, lighting can be used more creatively. Believe me, there are more toys for the lighting director than perhaps any other director. Scrims, cookies, and gels come into my head immediately. Gels are thin colored, heat resistant pieces of plastic that are clamped onto the light. When the light passes through the gel a hue is added to the light. Pretty basic huh? The theorist of Roswell have noted that certain colors appear at different times. Red gels are used to portray a sense of urgency and danger. Blue gels are used to set a mood of tranquility. The bottom line is, good lighting can carry a mood. When a color is used for an effect, that color is chosen intentionally. After all, you have all the colors of the rainbow to used, why be flippant? Patterns have been documented about color usage. And the Color Theory is where all the fun begins. Nancy Jeanne aka QFanny! |
Basic Color Symbolism
from www.insteam.com/ LauraFunderburk/mycolor.htm#red Red: Red has been viewed as the vigorous color of health: The color red has also been a representation of love within a relationship between two people. (Liz and Isabel are often dressed in red.) Orange: Stands for fire and flames, lust, vigor, excitement, adventure and wholesomeness. Yellow: It also has been thought of as being a color that represents playfulness, light, creativity, warmth and an easy going attitude about life. The color yellow also has many negative associations as well. Among them are jealousy, treachery, cowardice, aging, and illness. Green: Green is the color of freshness and renewal: Became a symbol of fertility and growth, of abundance and external life. The color green represents harmony, nature and radiates a feeling of fullness. Blue: Blue is the color of constancy and faith: Stands for sensitivity, peace, loyalty and ones desire to nurture. Purple: The color purple is symbolic of power, leadership, respect and wealth. Black: Both in art and in religion black signified despair, sin and mourning. White: White has long represented purity, goodness, light and innocence: The color white projects feelings of calmness, relaxation and an inner peace with ones surroundings and inner soul. |
Summary of Posts made on Color: Red/Yellow/Orange light have been used many times through out Season One to help intensify the mood. When Topolsky is running through the alley in Crazy, the background is lit in Red. Yellow/ plays two roles on Roswell. Isabel is twice associated with the color in its positive role. First, in Toy House, when she tells her adoptive mom that she remembers the yellow sweater Mrs. Evans wore when she came to take Isabel and Max home from the ophanage and thinking the sweater was like the sun. Second, in Four Square, she walks up into the School Office stating she's the member of the Sunshine Committee. Other yellow references are negative. Yellow is the color of the many alien symbols, including Saturn. Yellow also symbolizes fire, and fire is never used in a good context in Roswell. And yellow is the color of the light in which Harding shapeshifts on a number of occasions associtated with evil intent (like kidnapping Liz in Max To The Max). Blue is a good color in Roswell. The whirlwind symbol is always done in blue. I (Qfanny) believe the whirlwind represents the Pod Squad, and Max in particular. Refering to the Theory of 2 Shapeshifters, color has been a method for distinguishing TicTac or Harding. Remember, TicTac uses blue light; Harding uses yellowish light. Blue is good: Yellow is bad. The healing stones have a reddish tint. Red is also the color of health. Liz often dresses in red. Red is the color of love. I think you can see why color theories are actively used by posters. They bolster our existing ideas! 08-28-2000 07:47 AM The idea that blue light is associated with TicTac and yellow/orange light with Harding makes me wonder if there's a connection with those beakers of blue and amber liquids in the science classroom. In SH (dropped-pencil scene), M/L's lab table has one of each, blue and amber. So do other places in the room. But in TLV (Tess-kissing, burning-shirt scene) the liquids in beakers are all amber. If this means something, it could reinforce the idea that both shapeshifters are seen near M/L in the SH episode, but only Harding in TLV. On one of the blue beakers was a hexagon logo (whereas the amber ones had no logo in sight, if I remember right). Interesting, because at the end of Crazy, "Dr. Margolin's" flashlight had a six-fold flare pattern (though the sheriff's had none) as GraceKel pointed out. Maybe this is another clue that we are seeing TicTac there. Nemo Here are a few more scenes involving orange and blue light that may be clues. from Destiny. Everyone but Tess is on the blue side. from Missing: Something startles Liz as she walks home apprehensively (shortly after Grandma's death). The orange light close to her comes from one of those "Don't Walk" signs that looks like an impending handprint attack. (In this sequence, camera angles and long lenses are used to bring several of those glowing orange hands close around Liz.) But closer to her there is a blue light. I can only hope it symbolizes a guardian. From 4-Square: On arrival at school, Tess goes to the women's room; the entry is bathed in orange light. Before following, Liz pauses briefly with Max, as seen here. Note the bluish glow behind them: when she backs away from Max this gets uncovered, beginning at her eye level, almost as if her eye is giving off a strong beam of light. Is this suggesting something? Maybe, that she's on the side of right, and has an important power of discernment? Or something else? [Edited by Nemo on 09-12-2000 at 02:34 AM]
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