CREATIVE STORYTELLING WITH COLOR: AN EXPLORATION of YELLOW (part 1 of 8)
CREATIVE STORYTELLING WITH COLOR: AN EXPLORATION of YELLOW
Are you looking for creative ways to encourage young filmmakers to make more conscientious choices in pre-production that pay off in big ways when students make their films?
If you have novice, advanced, and/or IB film students, color symbolism can enhance their visual storytelling capabilities. It’s a great narrative tool even for those students without strong technical backgrounds.
Color plays a crucial role in setting the mood, conveying emotions, and exploring themes in stories. Today, in the first of a series on color symbolism, we’ll explore how directors objectively and subjectively use the color yellow in their films.
Remember, film is a visual medium. Using symbols, especially color symbols, helps young filmmakers explore and express ideas with subtlety and power without relying on clunky dialogue.
YELLOW: AN ANALYSIS ACROSS FIVE FILMS
When people think of yellow, one thinks of the sun–bright, warm, and positive; however, it can be fascinating to explore how some directors, cinematographers, and production designers experiment and play with these accepted ideas to craft their own subjective interpretation of yellow to convey a theme or emotion that grounds their story.
First, let’s explore two films that embrace the commonly accepted interpretation of yellow as a positive symbol. Next, we’ll conclude with three films that manipulate the meaning of the color yellow to explore character development and/or a noticeable theme of their films.
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Directed by Victor Fleming, this classic fantasy film uses yellow within its mise-en-scene to create quite the noticeable symbol. As the film transitions from black-and-white to Technicolor, Dorothy finds herself in the magical world of Oz where neither she, nor the audience, can miss the golden, yellow brick road. Although Dorothy and her motley coterie of allies face obstacles and peril on the yellow brick road, the yellow color of the bricks symbolizes the journey to self-discovery and adventure: it provides hope, safety, and security even during the darkest times of her journey.
Amélie (2001)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, this French romantic comedy-drama showcases the whimsical and colorful world of Amelie, the titular character. Whereas the use of the color yellow in Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz embeds the color yellow into the production design, Jeunet applies a yellowish hue to the film in post-production. Again, Jeunet relies on the common perceptions of the color yellow in the film: it represents happiness, warmth, and the protagonist's playful and optimistic nature. However, in her article “The Use of Color in Amelie”, Lafayette College film critic Adrianna Valentin contends that the yellow overtones of many scenes emphasize “something surreal” that “explains Amelie’s imaginative ways.” Regardless of its intention, the color yellow signals a positive, whimsical world for Amelie.
The Great Gatsby (2013)
Directed by Baz Luhrmann, this adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel features a vibrant and visually striking color palette. Film critic Madeline Novak, noting the bright gold and yellow hues of the wealthy East and West Egg, states that “The vibrancy and loudness of the color schemes in this part of Long Island help exaggerate what it is like to have fulfilled the American Dream.” While the yellow and golden hues do exude warmth and happiness, Lurhman subverts this common trope, using these hues as a false sense of security and happiness. Golden hues often suggest grandeur and high society; however, Luhrman uses these golden hues to mask the frail vulnerability and corruption beneath the surface of Gatsby’s opulent, but ultimately hollow, lifestyle and appearance. Here, Luhrman manipulates the audience’s commonly accepted notions of yellow and gold to further the thematic concerns of the story: anyone can achieve the American Dream and find success and happiness even at the cost of their own personal and moral values.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino, the film uses yellow for both practical and creative intentions. Movie fans will immediately connect The Bride’s yellow tracksuit as a homage to a similar yellow tracksuit worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death (1978) as both films focus on a titular character using kung fu to seek vengeance. Practically, the yellow jumpsuit allows the audience to always situate The Bride spatially in the frame during any fighting sequence. However, film critic Emily Langenbahn finds a more creative reason for the yellow color of the jumpsuit as it ironically characterizes her as a force of unrelenting determination and cataclysmic vengeance. In fact, her yellow suit is also a warning of the hazard that she represents (just as a yellow traffic signal means caution). Combining these ideas more succinctly, film critic Max O’Sullivan notes that if yellow equals happiness and red suggests anger, then The Bride’s yellow jumpsuit splattered with blood reveals that her “happiness is stained with anger about the believed death of her unborn child.” Yellow in Kill Bill, Vol. 1 not only serves a practical importance but a subjective one as well: the color yellow serves as a visual reminder of the happiness that has been so brutally taken from her as well a harbinger of the vengeance that she embodies.
Up (2009)
Directed by Pete Docter, Up finds ways to create meaning through its use of mise-en-scene, editing, and cinematography. Although difficult to simply isolate the mise-en-scene, Doctor makes masterful use of the color yellow, but unlike the other directors here, he creates a motif using the color. Now, let’s define the term “motif”: a motif is a recurring symbol that can (and often does) change meaning throughout the text. In the moving montage situated at the beginning of the film, Ellie and Carl marry and build their life together: a life full of happiness and brightness and hope. In the image above, notice how yellow (including the sun) dominates the mise-en-scene. However, as the montage continues and Ellie’s health fails and dampens their dreams and hopes of an adventurous life together, notices how Docter mirrors these feelings by using an image of the house, no longer bright and yellow but muted, dark, hopeless. Docter uses the motif of yellow to mirror the character’s internal landscape as it shifts from youthful innocence to unfathomable despair, and not a single word is ever mentioned (granted, the music and editing help convey this as well). That’s the power of yellow as a symbol.
CONCLUSION:
So, what can young filmmakers, especially those in the IB program, take away from these films in terms of how a filmmaker uses a color like yellow to help tell the story?
Students can lean into the color yellow in their films to add commonly associated feelings and moods to their stories, feelings like happiness, hopefulness, and even personal fulfillment as we see in both Wizard of Oz and Amelie and Up. In contrast, yellow (and/or variations in the color yellow) can also suggest something darker, something tainted: caution, corruption, and even insecurity (in films like The Great Gatsby and Kill Bill Vol. 1).
However, the idea here isn’t to force students to adopt one of these documented, creative approaches to using the color yellow. The ideas in these films should be used as a springboard to inspire students to create their own meaning no matter which color that they incorporate into their story.
PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS:
Ask students to incorporate the color yellow, either in their mise-en-scene or their editing (post-production color grading) and consider the thinking behind their choice/s.
Novice filmmakers: ask them to incorporate the color yellow as a symbol in the film. The color should be used two to three times in the film (patterns have meaning), and students should be able to articulate the significance of the color to the overall story (or theme) of their film.
Advanced filmmakers: ask them to incorporate yellow as a symbol in the film. However, ask them to manipulate its meaning from the beginning to the end of the film, i.e its meaning changes based on its context throughout the film (very much like Pete Docter does in Up). Once, again, have students articulate the significance of the meaning of yellow in their story..
In the end, film is a visual medium. Using symbols, especially color symbols, helps filmmakers explore ideas with the tools of cinema because these tools are always more successful and effective at conveying ideas in contrast to dialogue that is often over-written and too on the nose.
Works Cited (sources and images)
Amelie. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Miramax, 2001.
Kill Bill, Vol. 1. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, Miramax, 2003.
Langenbaum, Emily. “Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2 – A formal analysis.” Film Studies 2270. Web. 1 June 2023.
Novak, Madeline. “The Great Gatsby Film Analysis.” Medium. 17 November 2018. Web. 1 June 2023.
O’Sullivan, Max. “Kill Bill Micro Analysis.” maxosullivan.weebly. Web. 1 June 2023.
OpenAI. “ChatGPT-3.5.” OpenAI. September 2021. Web. 1 June 2023.
The Great Gatsby. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, Warner Bros., 2013.
The Wizard of Oz. Directed by Victor Fleming, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, 1939.
Up. Directed by Pete Docter. Pixar, 2009.
Valentin, Adrianna. “The Use of Color in Amelie.” Introduction to Film and Media Studies. 8 February 2015. Web. 1 June 2023.
Meet the Author, Adam Russell
Adam Russell lives and works in Marietta, Georgia. He is finishing his 21st year of teaching both film and literature. A 13 year veteran of teaching IB Film, Adam seeks to constantly refine and demystify the art of teaching with the IB framework to help teachers and students find success. In his spare time, he writes feature length scripts and consumes anything and everything that he can get his hands on regarding film: screenplays, films, video essays, books on screenwriting, etc.
Adam, your resident IB film teacher, wants to help your students walk the talk. How understanding the Big 4 (mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography, and sound design) can transform student analysis and filmmaking.