How Colour Symbolism in Animation Affects the Viewer

How Colour Symbolism in Animation Affects the ViewerThe impact on slew of wring symbolism in animationAnimation movies present an unusual set of challenges and questions to academics examining contracts from a cognitive perspective. When the boundaries of the real world do not pull through like do in live action movies, the film maker is challenged to create the complete narrative space of scratch. How do animators succeed this seemingly big task? This question sure precedes making film life and space in opthalmic fine art has been a subject of deep story by artists, photographers, historians and psychologists alike. While the intention may be to create a graduate(prenominal)ly realistic visual space, the option given to visual artists and animators is to abandon principle of reality in favour of another different perspective on the visual reality. Animation al atomic number 53 burn bring to life inanimate objects, challenge and absorb got laws of physics, and create vi sual effects beyond the bounds of possibility in live action film.Animation and colour have evolved since their respective beginning. Colour has been both an app bent challenge as well as a field for exploration for animators throughout the animation history. Scientific discoveries in aspect to the perception of colour excessively influenced its give in art and animation, making colour an ideal goal for further exploration in a psychological context.In this chapter three questions leave be posed and answered. First, what is colour exactly and how is it defined? And second, how has colour been used by animators through the history of airy film? Finally, how does our cognitive sense of colour shape the viewers cognitive sense of a film? The final question will focus on a specific population of excite movies ( light movies adapted for children), and how the use of colour in these films strategically differs from other types of films.WHAT IS COLOR? tinge is a concept that philoso phers, artists, and scientists have historically spent a broaddeal of time exploring and quantifying. Physiologically, our perception of food colouring results fromvarying wavelengths of light being bounded onto the retina, which in turn are impacted by cellscalled photoreceptors. The relative responses to light spectra by these cells are what generate ourability to see and distinguish in the midst of colour in. Anomalies in photoreceptor cells can cause deficitsin the ability of an individual to see colouring, though in both(prenominal) unique circumstances, these anomaliesallow individuals to more than finely discriminate between colourize (Neitz, Kraft, Neitz, 1998Jordan Mollon, 1992 Nagy, MacLeod, Heyneman, Eisner, 1981).2Quantifying Color. Attempts to categorize color vastly predate our understanding of thephysiology of the eye, besides Isaac Newtons Opticks (1704) is pivotal in its introduction of hiscolor roll for understanding color theory2. The ordering of the colors around his color carrousel(and in subsequent iterations by other color theorists) is based on the order in which the colorsare refracted out from the prism, uniting violet and red to close the radial axis of rotation (see Figure 1).Thus the ordering of the colors on the color wheel is not arbitrary, however based in the physics oflight. Newton too introduced the notions of particular and secondary colors, and notes thatopponent colors on the color wheel combine to create a neutral light color3.Despite that it has evolved over time and exists in varying forms, the color wheelcontinues to play an important part in both the fine and psychological understanding of color.Notably, it is useful for defining several poetic rhythm of color, namely hue and volume. Hue pertainsgenerally to named colors, and corresponds to the sectors of color into which color wheels aretypically divided. Examples of hue-based descriptions include blue- blue jet, red, and pink. fertilisatio n is another important color variable, and generally refers to how silver or potent acolor is. Pastel colors (which are closer to the center of the color circle) are relativelyunsaturated. Very saturated colors (which are referred to as bright red or bold blue, forexample) lie along the outer edges of the color circle. cleverness is another variable importantfor discussing color. Luminance refers to how light or dark fewthing is when discussing colorin particular, it refers to how much black is contained within a particular color. Unlike hue andsaturation, luminance can be independent of color in other words, black-and-white imagescontain no hue or saturation information but do contain luminance information. Becauseluminance is not a variable unique to color stimuli, it is not represented on the color wheel4, butnonetheless it is an important variable when discussing color. These terms, including how theyare mathematically quantified, will be revisited later with data.The color wheel is not the only color quantification system to define colors using theprosody of hue, saturation, and luminance. integrity of the most noted color-classification systems,and the one still most reliably used in psychophysiological testing, was originally developed byAlbert Munsell, and also uses these color parameters5. Munsell compiled and organized atremendous set of finely-grained discrete colors now known as Munsell colors or Munsell chips(Munsell, 1912 Munsell, 1919). integrity important component of the Munsell color system is that itemphasizes that color perception is dependent on the physiology of the human eye. For example,humans can more chance on many more discrete levels of yellow than blue at high grades, whereasthe reverse is true at low nurtures. In other words, one can argue more light yellows exist than darkyellows, whereas color wheel representations suggest that all color set exist equally in ourvisual milieu.While the study of how we physiologically perceive color is important, mayhap morecritical in studying art and film from a cognitive perspective is the question of how wepsychologically respond to color. Our discernments for and biases toward particular colors havethe likely to influence how we respond cognitively and emotionally to art.Color Preferences. Artists across visual domains recognize how the use of coloraffects viewers perception of their work. Deliberate and comprehensive choices regarding theuse of color permeate all types of visual art, including intentional choices to omit color from3artwork6. Unsurprisingly, people tend to have strong predelictions for particular colors. While it office intuitively seem like individuals each have their own color resources that are unique, thepsychological research on color gustatory sensations reveals a surprising number of concordance acrosspeople in terms of color discernments.In terms of specific colors, research has consistently demonstrated a cross-gender andcross -cultural election for blue hues above other hues (Eysenck, 1941 Granger, 1952McManus, Jones, Cottrell, 1981 Komar Melamid, 1997). People also tend to consistentlyrate yellow and brown hues as being least pleasant, specially in their darker forms (Palmer Schloss, 2010). Biases across populations are not particular to hue people consistently tend tofavor colors in more saturated forms as contrary to more washed-out or pastel counterparts of the similar hue (Granger, 1952).Naturally, the consistency in color preference drove psychologists to posit theories onhow color preference develops. nigh have proposed that color preference is an innate artifact ofhuman evolutionary history, which developed to facilitate our early survival in hunter-gatherersocieties (Hulbert Ling, 2007). While some biological evidence supports this idea, if colorpreferences are present at birth, infants and matures should show similar color preferences, whenin fact they do not. Data collected from infan ts and junior children suggest that color preferenceschange over time, and that while children finally match adults on their color preferenceslater, they are not born with those preferences. Infants tend to prefer colors that adults classify asunpleasant, namely dark yellows, yellow-greens and reds (Adams, 1987). Children also have apreference for very high saturation that gradually diminishes to match the adult preference levelfor saturation (Child, Hansen, Hornbeck, 1968).Since preferences for color dimensions seem to be dynamic over the lifespan, it isunlikely that color preferences are built-in. This is not to say that color preference is stringently nonfunctionalin fact, the ecological valency theory of color preference suggests that the earlyassociations humans build with colored objects facilitate their color preferences (Palmer Schloss, 2010). For example, our early preference for dark yellows in infancy may come fromconsistent positive exposure to caregiver skin tones a nd hair color it is only later that we copthe association between dark yellows and rotten food or excrement, at which point thispreference changes direction. Conversely, as we increase our exposure to stimuli like clean wetand fresh food, our preferences for blues and slightly-saturated hues begins to dominate colorpreferences.Yet another theory, which is specially relevant for the use of color in an art space, isthat we learn strong associations between emotion and color, and color can consequently be usedto evoke particular states of emotion. Specific colors have been shown to correlate with arousal(Valdez Mehrabian, 1994) and scales of emotional valence (Kaya Epps, 2004 for a detailedreview on color-emotion literature, see also Steinvall, 2007). This theory is not necessarily atodds with other theories on color preference in fact, it may simply supplement the idea thatgaining positive associations with a color increases our preference for that color, which is anassumption th at guides most current theories on color preference.4The question that remains from our understanding of color preference is whether or notart mimics life in other words, how do animated filmmakers instill color in an artificial world,and do filmmakers exploit our color preferences in order to make their films more engaging?HOW IS COLOR intakeD IN ANIMATION?Color is arguably one of the most salient features of flat the earliest animated films. Thisis not to imply, however, that the techniques involved in creating an animated space withdynamic color is a simple process. In fact, some of the biggest obstacles in moving animationforward as an art form arose from the complications of colorization.Cel Animation. Often referred to as traditional animation, the cel animation nestledominated the animated film landscape from very early in films history to the relatively recentadvent of computer animation. Cel animated films composite a meticulously headstoneed backgroundlayer with transp arent celluloid (or cel) layer containing foreground information. Each layercarries with it important implications for how color is eventually represented and rendered in thefinal film.The background layer, while usually created first, must work commonly with the cellayers in order for the colors to appear natural together and for the layers to appear integrated.The overexploitation of color, in particular colors that are heavily saturated, tends to overwhelm celforms placed overtop the background instead, the background ideally consists of more mutedcolors to balance the component cel forms. This led to the Disney animated film signaturewatercolor effect of its background layers (Thomas Johnson, 1995).The cel layer presents significantly more challenges where color is involved, and thesechallenges were originally addressed by Disneys larger-budget animation studios. The physicalproperties of celluloid itself have implications for color the thicker the cel, the darker theresult ing colors layered onto the cel layer (Thomas Johnson, 1995). Thus, paint color had to bebalanced in such a way that the resulting cel painting did not clash with the watercolor visual aspect of the background layer. Colors high in saturation were often difficult to achievebecause they also ultimately darkened when photographed from the cel. Disneys animatorsfound that muted colors in the cel layer often were the better complement for a variety ofbackground layers. When designing a character or a cel-layer object, animators were oftenlimited by the expense of cel paint colors, and thus character design was in a sense limited bycolor. Adding to this complication, cel artists and color keys also had to adjust the color palettesof characters depending on the implied lighting of a background, to avoid a character lookingoverly-red or overly-saturated in a nighttime scene, for example (Thomas Johnson, 1995).Color in the cel layer also contained some complications for maintaining reali sm in the animatedscene. For example, outlining characters in black often made their appearance visually heavierand detracted from their integration with the background layer. Disney first introduced coloredinking to replace universal blank inking, and colored inking was also integrated with celXeroxing technology as that emerged (Thomas Johnson, 1995). Another color problem dealtwith creating depth in the cel layer textures in hair and fur could be created via airbrushing anddrybrushing, but this created a flicker effect when the individual cels were captured in sequence.5Animators ultimately decided this depth was charge a certain small-scale amount of flickertradeoff (Thomas Johnson, 1995).figurer Animation. The cel approach dominated animated films for decades, and the interest in streamlining the cel animation process led to the initial familiarity of computers inanimation. The first film to be digitally composited was Disneys 1990 film The Rescuers DownUnder (Prince, 2012) . Computer involvement in animation was also prioritized as a means offilm restoration and improving film resolution that same year, digital paint techniques allowedDisney to fix flaws in the original print of Fantasia for reissue, and in 1993, Snow White and theSeven Dwarves was completely restored to create a higher-resolution version of the film(Bordwell, 2012). Computer-based coloring was particularly valuable because it generated morefreedom to alter independent components of an image. Prior to computer involvement, colorcorrection had to be done on a whole-frame basis the process of digitally compositing andaltering films meant that color-correction could be done on an individual object or characterwithout the need to alter the full frame image (Prince, 2012).The involvement of computers in animation continued to grow as the technology becamemore inexpensive and accessible, and animators experimented with new computer-basedtechniques for animating (such as crowd-generation in Mulan(1998))7. By the mid-90s, the vast legal age of cel animated films employed computers to streamline the once-arduous tasksinvolved in hand-animating films, including colorization. Because animators no longer had torely on physical paint or hand-calibrate background and cel layers, the colorization andtexturization processes became much easier, and artists in turn were able to work with moredegrees of freedom in their animating.The revolution in computer animation began with the first fully computer-based animatedfilm, Toy tarradiddle (1995). Moving from a two-dimensional animation space into a threedimensional,digitally-constructed environment had a huge initial investment cost (both in laborand finance), but ultimately gave the animated filmmaker a great deal of flexibility inconstructing visual narratives (for a review, see Lasseter, 1987). Constructing and coloring a 3Denvironment and set of characters involves a great deal of initial time and planning, but theultimate outc ome is a greater degree of control in colorization, in which every individual elementin the digital landscape can be fine-tuned in color space.Film Stock. One important caveat worth noting when discussing animation is that thecolor of the final product is always affected by the film stock. Even in contemporary computeranimation, where color design can be done on a very fine-grained scale, the final film isultimately rendered onto film stock. The choice of film stock, as evidenced especially by thechanges in stock availability and popity over time, as well as advances in stock quality,renders color variably (Bordwell Thompson, 2004). Technicolor film stock was popular withearly Disney animated films, which exacerbated complications with cel painting by renderingcolors heavy in midtones. This forced animators and color keys8 into a particular spectrum ofcolors when painting in order to achieve the desired final look on the Technicolor film stock(Thomas Johnson, 1995). Even in moder n animated films, the change between the cel orcomputer and the film stock accounts for some variability in coloring of the final product.Indeed, this is not even the last step in color fluctuation the original camera negative is almost6always different from the colors displayed in theaters, on home televisions, or on computerscreens (Prince, 2012). Some of this variance can potentially be put to rest with the change magnitudenumber of films being distributed as Digital Cinema Packages (rather than in 35mm form), but itpersists as a problem for those interested in studying pinpointing color in film scientifically(Bordwell, 2012).It is clear that artists have more freedom with color in animated films. Before digitaltechnology, live action films were confined by the natural color of objects in a scene as well asby the limited amount of post-production work available to alter color (Prince, 2012). However,from animations inception, animators have been able to select a wide range of c olors to best suittheir needs, despite some of the early cost and technical constraints. The introduction ofcomputer animation allows for the greatest amount of freedom in color control, place the entiredigital color environment under the direction of the artistic team.The precise control of color in this setting not only has artistic consequences, but alsoimportant implications for how films can evoke particular psychological responses from itsviewers. The rest of this chapter will examine work revolving around the use of color for aparticular audience of animated viewers specifically, how filmmakers use color in animatedfilms intended for children.CHILDRENS ANIMATED FILMSARE THERE DIFFERENCES IN COLOR USE?In the introduction to her book A Reader in Animation Studies, Jayne Pilling (1997)discusses how Disney, as the first company to invest heavily in animated features, eventuallybecame the model for animated films and subsequently marginalized animation into an art formsomehow int rinsically only appropriate for entertaining children (xi). Indeed, it appears thatthe Disney model caused an aggressive bifurcation in the animated feature world, with heavyemphasis being placed on the creation of child-oriented animated films, and a smaller contingentof artists attempting to legitimize animation as an art form invokeing to adults. While Pilling iscorrect in that the latter set of films is certainly underrepresented in the film studies literature,child-oriented animated features have a particular appeal for being studied from a cognitiveperspective. Filmmakers in this animation subset face a specific challenge in trying to engagechildren in their visual narrative there is ample evidence that the cognitive and attentionalcapacities of children differ from those of adults considerably, so what changes must the directorof a childrens animated film make in order to captivate this unique audience? One potential shiftto accommodate this audience appears to take place in colorization of these films.In order to study the physical properties (including color) of childrens films, weassembled a sample9 of G-rated childrens films made between 1985 and 2008 (Brunick,DeLong, Cutting, 2012 Brunick Cutting, in prep). Films in the sample were the highestgrossingG-rated theatrical films from each year in the range and also included some direct-tovideofilms10. The sample included live-action, cel animated and computer animated films gearedto a variety of ages11. We considered our entire sample of childrens films for our originalanalyses for the purposes of this chapter, only the animated films (both cel and computer) willbe discussed. This sample is contrasted with a subsample of adult-geared, non-animated films7from the same time period (see the 1985 through 2005 films from Cutting, DeLong, Nothelfer,2010). The following sections will (1) discuss how the color parameter in question wasmathematically quantified and (2) discuss the trends in the color parame ter for the child- andadult-directed samples.Saturation. As discussed earlier, saturation refers to the brightness or boldness of acolor. Saturation radiates outward from the center of the color circle the center of the circle iswhite, with no saturation, while the edges of the circle represent fully-saturated forms of aparticular hue. However, when analyzing color digitally, saturation is typically not discussed interms of a color wheel, but instead in terms of a digital color space known as the HSV cone. Thisspace is named for its dimensions hue, saturation, and value. Value is roughly tantamount(predicate) toluminance, and this space is essentially constructed by adding this variable to the color wheel(see Figure 2). The base of the HSV cone is a color wheel, and the height of the cone representsvalue. As value decreases (as the colors become darker), colors are limited in their saturation.Saturation is generally quantified on a scale from 0 (white, no saturation) to 1 (fully sa turated).Saturation levels for each pixel in a frame were digitally computed. The mediansaturation level for all the pixels in each frame was computed, and an average of the frames wasobtained for the entire film. Within the childrens film sample, we found that cel animated filmsuse significantly more saturated colors than computer-generated animated films, independent ofthe year that the films were made. Both live-action childrens films and the matched sample ofadult-geared films have been increasing in saturation over time in other words, newer films aremore prone to be more saturated than older films. However, even with this trend, the live-actionchildrens films and adult-directed films are dramatically less saturated than their animatedcounterparts. This finding is both interesting and unsurprising for the same reason the saturationlevels in childrens films likely reflect young childrens preference for bright colors. However, itis unlikely that filmmakers are consciously making these choices based on the psychologicalliterature filmmakers instead are likely intuiting this preference, perhaps based on their ownconceptions of how children respond to film or other parts of their visual environment.Regardless of the basis of this intuition, it is important to note that the saturation trends in thefilms appear to match the scientifically-established preferences of the target audience.Luminance. Though it can be measured independently of color, luminance plays animportant part in color space and ultimately how a color is perceived on-screen. To assessluminance, color was digitally removed from the film using a standard digital grayscaleconversion. Each pixels luminance value is computed, with values ranging from 0 (pure black)to 255 (pure white). The mean of the pixels in a frame were averaged to create the meanluminance for that frame, and the frames were subsequently averages to create whole-filmlumimance.The trend in Hollywood films for adult audiences is a d ecrease in luminance in otherwords, films have steadily been getting darker throughout the studied period, which hasimplications for directing eye-gaze and attention of the viewer during the film (Cutting, Brunick,DeLong, Iricinschi, Candan, 2011 Smith, 2012). Animated films for children, conversely,maintain a steady level of brightness independent of year, the target age of the film, or what typeof animation (cel or computer) was used. While one could argue that consistent brightness is a8possible artifact of representing particular colors in animation, childrens live action films areactually increasing in brightness over this period this evidence instead supports an interpretationthat the intended audience is driving the brightness level, not simply that animated films aregenerally brighter.Another question posed by these findings is the potential interaction between saturationand luminance. As demonstrated by the HSV cone, colors with lower values are limited in theirsaturation. Is it then possible that childrens films are more saturated only because they arebrighter? Or, perhaps, does the inclination of filmmakers to use saturated colors in childrensfilms necessitate a certain luminance level? While this is certainly possible, it is unlikely that theluminance findings are purely an artifact of the saturation levels, or wrong-doing versa. If this were thecase, one would expect the trends in both the childrens films and adult-directed films to becomplementary in other words, both luminance and saturation should be increasing or fall together in the samples. This is not what we find. In the childrens sample, saturationlevels hold steadily across time, while these films have increased in brightness over the sameperiod. Even more importantly, adult-geared films have gotten considerably darker, but have alsobecome steadily more saturated, not less. This evidence suggests that while luminance andsaturation have a reciprocal relationship, and while some of the v ariance in one accounts forvariance in the other, the findings reported here on the two metrics are largely independent.Hue. As discussed earlier, hue generally refers to named colors. In both the color wheeland in the HSV cone, hue is represented around the radial edge. One major problem with thisrepresentation of hue is that it is based in circular geometry, which makes mathematicallyquantifying and comparing hues difficult and unintuitive. Fully isolating luminance from hue inthe HSV color space is also problematic an ideal space for considering hue would allow for afull spectrum of colors to be represented (1) in a more convenient mathematical space and (2)independent of luminance.Accordingly, we considered hue using the YCbCr color space, which meets theseimportant criteria. This color space takes the form of a rectangular prism on a diagonal axis (seeFigure 3). This color space is also named for its axes in the space Y (on the vertical axis) refersto luminance, while Cb and Cr refer respectively to chrominance-red and chrominance-blue. Thechrominance axes plot complementary colors from the color wheel (red-green and blue-yellow,respectively) on opposite rectangular planes of the prism. The distinct advantage of YCbCr ishaving luminance on its own axis in this way, one could take a square slice through the prism toget a square containing all colors at an isoluminant level. kinda than examining whole-film hue, which is nearly impossible without reducing hueon arbitrary dimensions, our research has examined the hue of particular characters in childrensfilms. We asked independent coders to view childrens animated films in grayscale, and toidentify unambiguous protagonists and antagonists in the film. Frames containing thesecharacters were selected, and the characters themselves were extracted from their background.The dominant hue of the protagonists and antagonists were plotted on an isoluminant slice ofYCbCr color space. The analyses showed that protagonis ts, defined as unquestionably positiveand morally-right characters, contained more blue and green hues. Antagonists, conversely,contained more red and yellow hues (Brunick, DeLong, Cutting, 2012). Unlike saturation,9where films mimic the preferences found in children, this analysis shows that the use of hue inchildrens films coincides with adult hue preferences. If childrens preferences were beingexploited, good characters would likely contain more child-preferred hues, such as red andyellow, when in reality precisely the opposite occurs. It is unclear why this trend is present, andcertainly merits further analysis. One possible explanation is that the shift in hue preferencessupposedly occurs earlier than the shift in saturation preferences adults may not be as aware ofthe hue preference in children because it shifts earlier, and thus adults and filmmakers have lessexposure to this cognitive facet of child color preference.The implications for studying childrens animated films, an d childrens films in general,are vast. Researchers not only are able to gain insight into childrens cognitive capacities andpreferences, but they can also observe the early reciprocal relationship between filmmaker andviewer. While films for adults are mostly classified as art or entertainment, film in a childsworld also serves as an important tool for learning. Facilitating early learning from visual stimuliis a major goal of both psychology and education researchers, and childrens films c