Image by Anthony Kavanagh

Filmmaking duties often overlap. Color is the job of the camera crew, but also production design. The camera can't record a red wall if the production designer doesn't get it painted red. Likewise a red wall won't even come across as red if the cinematographer shoots in black and white.

Production design and camera are supposed to serve the story being told in metaphorical and literal ways. A way to get a sense of change in a film is to slowly alter the elements of camera and production design from one way at the start to another at the end of the movie. Here are a few ways you can use color to get across this feeling of change in a subtle manner.

Saturate, De-Saturate

A film that starts out full of saturated color that gets sadder as the film progresses might emphasis this visually with by slowly taking away color in an attempt to mimic the feeling they want the film to take on. On the flip side, a film can go from a subdued color representation to more vivid to get across an increasing feeling of delight or the surreal.

Increase, Decrease Single Color

Certain colors tend to evoke certain emotions and you can play with this in your film by changing the amount of that color as the film elapses. You could go for an ironic sense where as the film gets more lively you decrease the red or as the film gets warmer feeling you increase the blue. You could also use these techniques to buttress the feeling and have them correlate directly.

Change Palettes

This is often used to signify time passing but it can be used to denote change of any kind. That room your film is set in can have elements in it change slowly as the fortunes of the characters do. The couch could go from green to brown and the walls go from cream to white. There are myriad items on a set that you could manipulate to convey to the subconscious of the viewers that things are changing. You could have a room with taupe, burgundy and black slowly change into yellow, bright red and gray. There is no limit to what you can do.

Brightness, Shades of Color

Instead of drastic changes of all colors or changes from one color to another, you could just alter the hue, brightness, and saturation of a single color. If you have a dominant color in the film's palette changing that single color won't be so subtle, but it will be effective in changing mood. A less prominent color could be changed drastically and not call attention to itself but still radiate the feeling of change you want.

It's important to keep the look of the film near reality, but also use its poetic qualities. The subtler the change the better. Though not obvious, an impact will be made on some mental level. People may not even be able to speak about what they saw, but it makes an impression that's more profound than films that don't use these elements to their advantage.