How to Use Color in Film like Kubrick: Mise-en-Scène Elements Explained

Breaking Down The Movie Color Palette

How to use color in set design

One of the most effective ways to make a set stand out is by using bold colors — but using bold colors can be a double-edged sword; if you’re going to use colorful sets, there should be a reason for it. Sometimes, the use of overtly colorful sets can create the feeling of a magical world, like it does in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Other times, color in cinema does a great job of instilling within us a feeling of whimsy, or peculiarity. Perhaps nobody does a better job of creating peculiar, yet enticing sets than Wes Anderson. This next video explores Anderson’s color palettes and how they fit into Anderson's directing style. You’ll notice that his movie sets are almost always colorfully expressive.

Few filmmakers are better at this kind of conscious application of color than Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick is a master of allowing a single color to dominate the visual mood of a scene. Let’s look at a few examples to see how he does it.

Kubrick often uses red to suggest hostility and high-tension, like he does in this scene from The Shining.

There are a lot of different ways to use color in sets, whether they be constructed or natural. Consider how directors like Mel Stuart, Wes Anderson and Stanley Kubrick used color in their sets before you begin designing your own. But sets are just one part of color in the mise en scene film elements, let’s move on to props!

Color in Film Props

How to use color with props

Props play an enormous role in characterization and tone. For example: what if Batman used pink batarangs instead of black ones? Would the tone of the story still be dramatic? Or would it be kind of funny? How would we feel about his character? Would we still think of him as a brooding vigilante? Or more of a satirical superhero?

There’s no right or wrong when using colors with props, but you should be mindful of the impact they may have on the audience. Sometimes it’s okay for props to be colorful for the sake of being colorful, like they are in Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg:

Other times, it makes more sense for the color of a prop to have intrinsic meaning or for it to aid the theme of the story. Let’s look at some of the best props of all-time to see what makes them stand out.

First, the Golden Snitch in Harry Potter:

When gold is used as the color for a prop, we think that it must be an object of value. More importantly, we think that it’s an object characters covet. So when our protagonist gets their hands on it, we usually regard it as a victory.

Props can also use movie color palettes to communicate conflict. There is perhaps no better example of “prop conflict” than the red and blue lightsabers in Star Wars.

There are other lightsabers colors, but this “good vs. evil” conflict in Star Wars is best exemplified by blue and red. The blue and red prop “color in film symbolism” is used in other films to suggest diametric differences as well.

Take The Matrix for example: Morpheus offers Neo two pills — one blue, one red. He’s told that the former will allow him to return to his old life, and the red will show him the Matrix.

This prop is so juvenile that it should speak for itself. But what do we make of the color? Perhaps it’s nothing… or perhaps the fact that it’s porcelain white is ironic. We typically regard white props as symbols of purity. Conversely, we typically regard phallic statues as symbols of domination.

It’s possible Kubrick could’ve intended for the choice of color in this prop to have an ironic effect — or it’s possible that my interpretation is entirely incongruent to what Kubrick intended. Alas, therein lies the rub in film criticism and film color theory!

Here’s another example from Kubrick that may be more concrete.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick uses the monolith to stress the absence of color. We’ve touched on how different colors can have different tonal effects, but what is the tonal effect of the absence of color? Well, it’s mysterious that’s for sure. And perhaps more importantly, it juxtaposes white with very specific pops of green. 

Ultimately, this color conflict — or color vs. non-color conflict — results in visual symbolic depth. Next, let’s look at some examples of how to use color with costumes, hair and makeup.

Movie Color Schemes

Color in costumes, hair, and makeup

There are three ways to express the physical appearance of characters: with what they wear, how they style/color their hair and how they apply their makeup. Not every character expresses themself in a bold fashion. More often than not, characters are made out to appear as one of the pack. But when a filmmaker or designer decides to give their character a bold appearance, it can have a strong effect on the story. The filmmakers behind Joker, for example, clearly put a lot into Arthur's costume design.

Let’s look at a few examples of how color in costuming/hair and makeup can help express the physical appearance of characters. Our video on The Boys shows how expressive production design can be a superpower.

The Boys does a great job of showing how to highlight certain characters through physical characterization. We recognize Homelander by his swooped blonde hair, Black Noir by his signature suit, and Maeve by her Amazonian headband. Consider adding “trademark” items to your characters like The Boys does to further develop your mise en scene.

Let’s use Paddington 2 as our next example: I have to imagine when the director and production designers read the script, they probably thought “Okay, so Paddington bear goes to prison. How do we take that and turn it into something not incredibly depressing? How about when Paddington does the laundry in prison, he accidentally mixes the reds with the whites?"

Aha! An imprisoned bear wearing a pink and grey jailbird outfit is whimsical, not sad. Oh, and what if we give some of the guys funny mustaches and beards? Perfect.

The color of a character’s hair can also make them stand out. Before the death of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, many “quirky” female characters — usually written by men — had vibrantly colored hair.

As you can see, the Christmas lights communicate a sense of wealth and grandeur. Paul Thomas Anderson does something similar in Phantom Thread as Reynolds and Alma dance alone.

UP NEXT

Elements of mise en scene

We touched on a few different elements of mise en scene that filmmakers use to add visual expression to their works, but there’s so much more than what we went over here. In this next article, we break down mise en scene elements in further detail by looking at examples from Titanic, The Shawshank Redemption and more. By the end, you’ll be ready to apply a variety of new different mise en scene techniques to your own production.

Up Next: Mise en scene elements →