How do specific color grading techniques and lighting choices in modern science fiction films influence audience perception of futuristic or dystopian worlds, and what are the measurable impacts of desaturated versus vibrant color palettes on viewer engagement and emotional response?
Advisor: Sophie Davies
From the neon-soaked skylines of cyberpunk cities to the bleak, desaturated wastelands of dystopian futures, science fiction films use color to shape how we imagine the world of tomorrow. It is widely known that the color grade of a sci-fi movie highly influences the overall mood and feeling the audience receives. However, it’s unknown exactly how it affects an audience’s perception of futuristic or dystopian worlds and emotional response. This project aims to study the direct impacts of colors in sci-fi films on their audiences. Through an internship at York and Wilder, a TV production company, I hope to understand the color choices directors make for their specific audience and why they make those choices. Additionally, interning for a producer provides me with connections to experts in different production fields, allowing for more thorough research by interviewing these experts. Along with interviews, a survey will be developed and distributed as part of my research process to collect primary sources and determine the correlation between colors and the audience's emotional response and perception. Through my research, I hope to determine the connection between sci-fi color grades and their effect on audience emotion and perception.
Project Blog
Week 0: Introduction
Hello everyone! My name is Axel Foley and I have attended BASIS Independent Brooklyn since 9th grade. For my senior project I will be exploring the effect of color grades in sci-fi films on viewer’s perceptions of futuristic and dystopian worlds. Additionally, I will be determining the measurable impacts of desaturated versus vibrant color palettes on audience engagement and emotional response. I was drawn to this topic due to my long developed interest in filmmaking. I fell in love with the editing process and then the filming process soon after. While I’ve been very involved with the technical sides of filmmaking, I’ve been eager to learn more about how the choices made behind the scenes affect how the viewers feel when watching the video. Throughout this project, I will be conducting interviews and creating and interpreting surveys, along with reading scholarly sources on the topic. I will be working with Matt Sprouse as my On-Site advisor with his company at York and Wilder. At the end of my research, I will create two versions of the same short film with different color grades, in order to show off the measurable effects of color grading specifically in sci-fi films. For more information on my Senior Project, you can view details here in my proposal. I’m looking forward to my research and stay tuned for future updates!
Week 1: Diving into Color Grading
Hi everyone! This week I officially started working on my senior project. At the beginning of the week, I started talking with my on-site advisor Matt Sprouse, the President and Executive Producer at York and Wilder. As a producer, Matt has a lot of connections to people across the television production network. He put me in touch with his production coordinator, and his director of post production.With the assistance of both of these people, I will gain a great understanding of how colors are predicted during production, and how they end up looking in post-production. Additionally, we focused on planning and logistics for a TV series that York and Wilder are producing for A&E, and developed strategies for managing incoming footage from the field.
Outside of my placement, I started reading some of my course texts: “Exploring the Combined Impact of Color and Editing on Emotional Perception in Authentic Films: Insights from Behavioral and Neuroimaging Experiments,” by Zhengcaoand Cao, and “Color Grading in Film: How Complementary Colors Affect an Audience’s Perception of Mood,” by Audrey Everett. Cao conducted two different experiments: a behavioral experiment and a Neuroimaging experiment. The behavioral experiment included 117 participants viewing film sequences varying in color (colored vs. black-and-white) and editing styles (fearful, neutral, happy). They rated the emotional valence of neutral faces within these sequences. The results indicated a significant interaction between color and editing on these valence ratings. In the neuroimaging experiment, 67 participants watched similar sequences while undergoing fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans. The study identified specific activations in brain regions such as the insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and middle frontal gyrus. Specifically, the left ACC showed interaction effects on neural responses, highlighting its role in processing combined audiovisual emotional cues.
Everett investigated how different complementary color gradings influence viewers' emotional responses. The study examined three color grading pairs—Teal and Orange, Red and Green, and Purple and Yellow—against an ungraded control to assess their impact on audience mood perception. Everett found that teal and orange grading elicited the most positive and robust emotional reactions from viewers, making it a popular choice in film production. During the red and green grading, viewers experienced slightly negative emotional responses. The purple and yellow grading gave the impression of a dated setting, affecting the perceived time period of the film. The research concludes that intentional color grading can significantly enhance an audience's emotional engagement by increasing attentiveness and mental stimulation.
In the coming weeks, I’m very excited to be working with Matt on various projects. I hope to utilize some color grading for social media to play around with the ways in which the message could be interpreted. I’m excited to learn more about the emotional impacts of different color grades through different experiments and how they have been applied to different films. In the next week, I plan to review a few sci-fi movies from the past, and explore how the movie turned out vs. how the director wanted the movie to turn out. This could provide some answers as to how color grading could affect a movie’s message during post-production, which can be hard to vision during production.
Week 2: From Pre-Production to Color Theory
Welcome back everybody! This week I officially met some people from my on-site advisor’s team including Erin (production manager), Sebastian (director of post production), and Hayes (production coordinator). We discussed future projects and the team’s workflow. I will be helping plan logistics for shoots such as transportation, location scouting, and filling in call sheets in pre-production. I can help with managing media and hard drives during post production, and various bits of editing (such as color grading).
Outside of my placement, I have also read two more of my course texts: “How to Use Color in Film: 50+ Examples of Movie Color Palettes,” by Mary Risk and “Mastering Color in Filmmaking: An Essential Guide - Filmustage Blog,” by Julia Stebleva. Risk examines the strategic use of color in filmmaking to enhance storytelling and evoke specific audience emotions. She provided some historical context where the transition from black-and-white to color cinematography in the 1950s introduced filmmakers to a broader visual toolkit, allowing for more nuanced storytelling through color choices. Risk also stated some emotional and psychological impacts where colors in film can subconsciously influence viewers' emotions and perceptions. For instance, warm colors like red and orange often evoke feelings of passion or urgency, while cool colors like blue and green can create a sense of calm or detachment. However this warm and cool color tone knowledge is already widely known, and is commonly repeated information that I’m finding in a lot of articles. Risk also explains how different colors can be used as symbols for something within the story. Deliberate color schemes can symbolize underlying themes or character arcs. For example, as mentioned by Risk, a character's journey might be mirrored by a shift in the film's color palette, subtly indicating personal transformation.
Stebleva examines color’s theoretical foundations, emotional impact, and the evolution of color grading techniques. Stebleva explores techniques for developing color palettes that evoke specific emotions, emphasizing the psychological effects different hues have on audiences. Stebleva also tracks advancements in color grading technologies and methodologies, illustrating how innovations have transformed film aesthetics over time. Again, this article went over some of the basics which are commonly known.
This is a problem I’m seeing so far, where some of the articles I read are covering the basics and are very surface level. However these articles are just to provide a good foundation for my research which my interviews and surveys will hopefully build on.
Week 3: Lights, Locations, and Luminance!
Hey hey hey!! I’m back with another great week behind me. At my internship, I started the week by helping find locations to film an interview in Salt Lake City. There were specific parameters and budget limitations I had to consider, and this really showed me the process of pre-production and the amount of planning behind it. I also got to see the creative vision during this time as I looked for locations, which is important because the color grade is what helps amplify this creative vision late in post-production. As such, finding the best location for the creative vision is key to the success of the TV show, film, documentary, or other video story. I also helped with some more logistical things such as picking out hotels in Salt Lake City for the crew to stay at, things I wouldn’t have even thought about when creating a production.
Outside of my internship placement I read my final course text: “The Palette Matters: The Psychology of Color and Its Influence on Film & Video | the Render | Suite Studios Blog,” by Samuel Taggart. Like others, Taggart’s article examines how filmmakers utilize color to shape audience emotions and perceptions. The article also distinguishes the difference between color correction and color grading. Color correction is adjusting footage for consistency in exposure and white balance, whereas color grading artistically modifies colors to align with the director's vision. The “look” as most colorists call it. Taggart also discusses three fundamental aspects of color. The first is hue, which is the type of color (e.g., red, blue). Next is saturation, the intensity or purity of the color. And then there’s luminance, the lightness or darkness of the color. Similarly with many articles I’ve found, Taggart discusses how different colors evoke specific emotions; for instance, blue can create a sense of calm, while red may elicit excitement or urgency. However, he also discovers how the luminance also has a subconscious application to emotions. As one could predict, the brighter the color, the more positive the feeling, and vice versa with a darker color.
After lots of reading, I’ve developed a baseline of knowledge on color grading’s impact on emotion, however there’s not a whole lot that touches on how these color grades may influence audience’s perceptions of the real world. I still have some outstanding questions I’d like to know more about, and have created a list. In the next week, I’ll try to reach out to different people working within a production such as directors, editors, colorists, and more to try and answer these questions through interviews.
Week 4: Hard Drives, Color Grades, and Cinematic Shades
Back for more I see. I started off the week by going to the server center for my internship location: Dataverge. There I learned how to manage the various hard drives the production company works with (which is insane by the way). I learned how to manage different disks and how to organize all of them in a way which the editors could use effectively to edit the footage coming in from the field. All hard drives plugged into the server allow all the files to be accessed remotely, which makes the post-production much easier. I also helped with creating transcripts from the interviews. I ran the videos through an AI that would transcribe the whole video, but it made a good amount of mistakes which I was responsible for fixing by combing through the video and transcription to make sure it all lined up. Apart from that, I also did some smaller tasks such as mailing hard drives to different editors and finding more locations for interviews.
Outside of my internship, I compiled a lot of my research from the previous 3 weeks and started developing some outstanding questions I still have such as: “How do the colors affect someone subconsciously and how can that alter their long term perceptions?” I learned from my readings that the color temperature of a color grade (warm and cold = yellows and blues) affects about 50% of the mood, which is not surprising and something which I’ve predicted from the start. I did not find much information on how color grades specifically can affect a viewer’s perception of a futuristic world directly. However I did learn that within 6 weeks of a viewer watching a sci-fi movie, they will subconsciously predict the future to look exactly as depicted in the movie. I am still uncertain how much the color grade effects that result. That’s something I would like to know more about, thus I have developed some interview questions for people and have reached out to a couple people to interview. Hopefully I will be doing some interviews next week.
I have also started to work on my final deliverable. I’ve started planning out a story and script, and planning possible days for me to shoot the short film. I will soon need to find actors and a crew (Additionally I am currently in the process of making two documentaries. One of them is about one of my climber friends and is for a film competition. The other is on my cycling friend and is just for fun. However I’ve planned on using my current research to aid with the color grading on both of these. I hope I can use the knowledge I’ve gained to help give off the mood I’m looking for in both of these documentaries. Stay tuned for next week’s post for more info!
Week 5: Cinematic Chaos (In the Best Way)
Wel- wel- welcome back to my podcast (I know it’s a blog but a podcast would be cool). This week on Axel Foley’s senior project progress we have internship fun, awaiting interview responses, and final deliverable pre-production.
At my internship this week we were doing some filming! We filmed some things for a new TV show being released sometime (sorry for the vagueness there’s a lot that’s confidential). It was awesome though because I got to be on set and help with lighting which is a huge part of color grading in post. This gave me great hands-on experience and an understanding of what the producer and director of photography was looking for lighting wise during production in order to elicit the intended mood with the help of color grading in post. I also got to witness the professionals in their workflow and got to see some dream cameras (sony fx9 and fx3). The day was long but thoroughly entertaining, lots of fun, and extremely educational.
Outside of the internship I’m still awaiting responses for interviews. I’ve also reached out to a couple other directors of photography, directors, editors, and colorists (specifically 5 others). Hopefully I’ll get some responses soon, otherwise I’ll maybe interview some friends I have in film school to see if they can offer any insight. This is a problem however that I didn’t expect to run into.
I’ve made some more progress on the short film pre-production wise which is fun. I won’t say too much because I don’t want to spoil it. But I’ve drafted a full script and have pulled reference images from other movies and have created a rough storyboard. I’ve also put together a couple color references for what I want the mood of the short film to be. Additionally I’ve picked out some music/sound effects that I like and have used my skills from my internship to start location scouting for good shooting locations. I still need to put a crew and cast list together (if you want to help out let me know!) and plan dates for the shoot. Right now I’m thinking mid May. That’s all I have for this week, not a whole lot, but definitely fun for me.
Week 6: What Do Sci-Fi Colors Say About Our Future?
Well hello there. How’s it going. I’ve been doing well thanks for asking. This week I helped with the post-production department at my internship. I watched through the episodes that are in timeline lock. Basically, these are the cuts between shots that have been finalized, and the video is in its final basic form. All that needs to be done now is fixing the sound quality, along with color grading. As I watched through the episodes, I had to timestamp every point where text appears on the screen and time how long it’s on the screen for. I’m honestly not entirely sure what this was for, I think it was to make sure we’re abiding by A & E’s standards. Additionally, the director of post-production mentioned he might set me up with their colorist, and I can sit in with him and watch his process as he explains to me what exactly he’s doing, and how he works in relation to the executive producer (since there is no director here).
Outside of my internship, I’ve had my first interview (hurray!). I met with an editor who primarily edits documentaries. He revealed that in documentaries, it’s important not to push the colors too much, because you want to try and ground the audience with the sense that this is a true story happening in the real world. He juxtaposed this with the general color grading concept in sci-fi movies where colors are purposefully pushed a lot in order to give off the sense that this is an otherworldly event. He mentioned how this could definitely impact how we perceive the future, because true stories have a very grounded feel with colors we’re used to in the present. So when we see colors that are more saturated and more colorful in sci-fi movies we think the future will be more saturated and colorful as opposed to the present. However he cautioned (like I’ve predicted) that it also depends on the movie someone is watching, as the setting and storyline also drastically influences an audience’s perception. This is something I hope to identify in my survey which I’ve started to make.
That’s a nice segway into the survey aspect of my week. I’m starting to develop the survey I want to make, looking to limit external factors as much as possible. These include setting, framing/composition, lighting, and storyline (the constants). I want to only change the color grade, and see that affect on people. A challenge I may face though, which I will try to figure out a way to work around, is that different people taking the survey will likely be of different age, race, ethnicity, sex, etc. These variables can affect the outcomes as different people likely have different beliefs, ideas, and perceptions. I’m going to try and limit this by asking them their most memorable movies they’ve seen. If the movie is memorable, it’s likely influenced their perceptions most, and if I know what pre existing perceptions they already have, I can better determine the results of my survey.
There’s a lot of stuff in this update, but I’ll keep you posted with next week’s blog.
Week 7: Survey Science!
I’m back again. This week was a good week. As in the previous week at my internship, I went through the footage in picture lock and timestamped every point at which text appeared on the screen. I also timed how long the text was on the screen. That’s pretty much it for my internship, not a whole lot, just some repetitive time stamping.
Outside of my internship I made a survey! If you have time, please complete this survey; it would be greatly appreciated. If you plan on completing the survey, do that first before reading the rest of this blog, as the rest of the blog has some spoilers.
When creating this survey, I wanted to include some good questions that can reveal a lot while remaining concise to where I could maintain shorter attention spans. I made a variety of questions that could be linked together in multiple ways to reveal different correlations and data. This also helped to make the survey shorter. I included some different images and asked the participants to compare them. I also asked them how they felt when initially viewing an image. This helps give me an idea of the type of feeling the color grade might be giving off. I also asked the participants to briefly explain why they felt that way when viewing an image, to try and decipher if it was the color grade that was making them feel that way, or other variables such as facial expressions and composition. At the end of the survey, I added a demographics section in order to try and understand who’s taking the survey. This can help me understand the different beliefs and biases people may have coming into the survey, which can better help me analyze the results later.
Additionally this week, I finalized my script for my short film. Hurray! I’m now in the process of planning the shot list and trying to get actors and a crew together. I have to find a good location to shoot the film and a good day and time to do so. There is still a lot of planning to be done and I’m excited for the finished result.
That’s about it for this week. Talk to you soon!
Week 8: Survey Results!
Well hello there. Welcome, welcome. This week at my internship I did some hotel searching and post-production data entry. I was asked to help find some hotels in two different locations for the crew. We needed to find these for some interview shoots we are planning to do, and the crew generally likes flying to the interviewee rather than flying the interviewee somewhere away from home. It’s more comfortable for the interviewee and can lead to better, more genuine answers in the interview. For post-production, I went through the picture lock of the second episode and filled out a music cue sheet. A music cue sheet is just a log of all the music used in the episode, when the music starts and stops, who published the music piece and who wrote it.
Outside of my internship I’ve had success with my survey! If you haven’t filled out the survey yet and you want to, you may do so here. After looking at the initial results, everything I expected to happen, happened. This is good because it validates my prior research during the third trimester. However these results also allow me to make different connections that I haven’t found in my research such as different first-hand emotional reactions to different color styles, and understanding if the color had any influence or if it was another aspect such as the composition. I will continue to analyze the survey results as more people take it and more answers come in.
I’m planning to shoot my short film sometime during the week of May 30th. I have an assistant director who will help me acquire actors and crew for it, along with helping schedule and handle logistics such as equipment, location scouting, and so on.
Week 9: Project Workflow
Hey!! Welcome back. This week at my internship I did some file transferring from one platform to another. This is really just creating backups so that we can save storage for new videos and projects coming in. I also had the pleasure of meeting with one of the editors. He talked to me about the overall project workflow and how his process goes from receiving the footage, and through the editing procedure. Though he’s not strictly a colorist, he did offer me some color grading insight. He mentioned how for a TV show like this, the producer (since there’s no director) and colorist would generally come up with the color grade, or “look,” before actually filming the first episode. This is because they would then match the lighting and composition to fit the color grade throughout the production process. I thought that this was interesting as I always thought color grading came after the production process. However it was cool to learn that sometimes directors and producers switch it around, so instead of matching a color grade to the visuals, they would match the visuals to the color grade. It just goes to show how much cooperation is needed between the director, producer, cinematographer, and colorist.
Outside of my internship, I have been continuing to plan for my short film. The script is all done and dusted, and I have an assistant director and producer. I have also asked some people to help with operating sound (boom operator), and being a script supervisor. Production assistants to help fill the gaps would also be great if I could get any. I also need an actor and two actresses for this, and so far I have one of the actresses. I have no doubt I’ll be able to find everyone I need in time. Right now, I’m planning to shoot the film over Memorial Day weekend, May 24th to the 26th. It will be 3 fairly full days of shooting. Until then, I will be planning out my shot list, as my assistant director makes the call sheet (the who, what, when, and where) and plans the daily schedule. The more planning I can do now in pre-production, the less work I’ll have to do later.
Lastly, I’ve continued analyzing all of the results from my survey by placing all of the responses onto a spreadsheet. I can make different correlations between different things by looking at the results overall, and other correlations by looking at individual answers. I hope to get more responses so if you haven’t filled out the survey yet, it would be great if you could here.
Talk to you next week!
Week 10: Short Film!!!
Welcome, welcome. This week was fairly uneventful at my internship. I was filling out face ID charts for the network. This is basically just going through every episode and seeing who was in that episode. Then I would write down their name and reason for being in the TV show into a google doc. I would also put a photo of them next to their name. This can help the network (in this case A&E), identify who’s who.
Outside of my internship, I did a lot of planning for my short film. I gathered a crew and cast and planned to shoot the film during Memorial Day weekend. It would be three fairly full days of filming going from 11:30pm to about 6pm. I planned out my shot list (all the shots needed to make up the film). Turned out, I planned the film to include 103 shots. Each “shot” is defined as switching camera angles, lens type/zoom, or scene. With 103 shots, my producer and I planned to shoot 29 shots on day #1, 35 shots on day #2, and 39 shots on day #3. I’ve decided to pivot slightly from my original idea of creating two identical short films, just with a different color grade. I thought that it would be hard to directly compare the two, so I decided I would have two different color grades within the short film as we switch between different worlds (trying not to give too much away and spoil it). I plan to heavily incorporate cool vs. warm color tones, the color tones that have the most impact on emotion in a color grade. Half of the scenes in the film take place during nighttime, so I’m going to try and challenge myself to make the footage look like nighttime, and film it during the day. The power of color grading babyyy, I can turn day into night. This is beneficial because night scenes are notoriously hard to light, and lighting is key to the final look and feel of the final image. Shooting the film during the day will allow me to better light the scene how I want to and will allow for proper exposure in camera, so I don’t have to worry about a low quality image. Then I can color grade the footage in post-production to make it look like nighttime using cooler color tones.
Week 11: Kowalski Status Report! (Analysis)
Hey heyy. At my internship this week I continued filling out face ID sheets. Basically just putting a face to the name so everyone in post-production knows who’s who. I also filled out a contact sheet. I gathered each person’s information who helped as crew on an episode and put it all in one place, so production could contact anyone if they needed. That’s about it for my internship, nothing crazy.
Outside of my internship, I filmed my short film! Kind of. I planned to shoot it over three days: Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. However, the unexpected happened and my actor could not make it on Monday, thus I had to postpone that shoot day. I plan on filming that day’s footage on June 8th. I have also decided to cut a scene from the film, giving me 4 less shots, bringing the total down from 103 to 99 shots and only having to film 35 shots on the final day instead of 39. However the shoot days on Saturday and Sunday went great! I got all the footage I needed, and will edit as much of the short film as I can without the final day’s footage. This will help me edit faster after I film the final 35 shots.
As for my survey, I have some very interesting results. I only have 40 responses and would like more, so if you haven’t filled it out yet, fill it out here (also it would be much appreciated if you could send this link to anyone and everyone you know for them to fill out as well). I’ve found that people who watch more dystopian movies tend to perceive the future as more dystopian, which makes sense. This is also true with utopias. I also found a strong correlation between the saturation of colors and audience engagement and emotional response. In the survey I asked questions about two different images and if they elicited any strong emotional response. One of the images was a screenshot from a movie, and another image was the same screenshot, just with the saturation increased. About 90% of responses recorded that they had a stronger emotional response to the more saturated image, even though the more desaturated one was the one actually used in the movie! I found this very interesting. I could write so much more about the results of the survey, but these are the most interesting results that I could fit into this post.
Week 12: Bye bye!
Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls of all ages…welcome back to my final blog post! In my final week I was hastily wrapping up my final deliverable, the short film. The short film (Let’s Go for a Dream Walk) is about a young writer with writer’s block and sleeping trouble. As a final deadline approaches, they get some pills from their therapist to help them sleep. These pills allow the young writer to enter a dream state. I used my research knowledge and editing skills to portray the real world as very bleak and cold with cooler colors such as blues and desaturated tones. In the dream world, I depict it as idealistic and perfect with bright warm yellows and a soft contrast.
Apart from my final deliverable I created my final research presentation which I rehearsed three times before presenting. I’m fairly happy with it, I got the technicians at the venue I presented at to help me with colors and lighting for the introduction which I think turned out very well.
It’s been a fantastic journey and I have developed so much more knowledge which I will happily take with me to my next adventures in college. I thank BASIS for this amazing research opportunity, I thank Ms. Davies for being such a wonderful advisor and a delight to work with, and I thank Matt Sprouse for allowing me to intern for him and his company.
Until next time, this is Axel over and out.