Colour in Movies
Prepare to show the film “Aladin, ou la lamp merveilleuse,” either from the student chapter “Aladin” or from this link. Before students watch, remind them that because the movie was coloured by hand, the media-makers had to think carefully about what colours to use.
Tell students to watch for:
- Which colours appear most often?
- What are the different colours used for?
Assign each student one of six colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple). Have them call out the name of their colour every time they see it onscreen.
For younger students, or if you want the activity to be quieter, you may want to give them a stack of coloured sticky notes or cut up construction paper of different colours so they can tally the different colours when they see them instead.
Now have students watch the film.
If you are delivering lesson to younger students, you may want to stop watching the film at 6 minutes, then skip Talking Colour and go straight to the Colourize a Photograph activity.
Remind students of the two things they learned from the Pleasantville images:
- Colour can change how we think about a picture.
- Colour can change how we feel about a picture.
Now ask:
Which colours appear most often? (Red and yellow.)
Which colours appear only a few times? (Green and blue.)
Which colours don’t appear at all, or almost never? (Purple and orange.)
Were there colours that weren’t exactly one of those six colours? (Some of the reds were more like pink, and some of the yellows were more like gold.)
Remind students that because the movie was painted by hand, every colour has chosen for a reason.
Ask:
What is red used for? (Mostly to make sure we can spot important characters, like Aladdin.)
What is yellow used for? (Mostly to make sure we can spot the lamp and also treasure and other valuable items.)
What is green used for? (Only the genie is coloured green. That makes it stand out from the other characters.)
What is the only part of the movie where everything is in colour? (You may want to go back to remind students of the moment at 5 minutes and 30 seconds, where the Genie turns Aladdin’s house into a palace.)
How did those choices change how we think about the pictures? (For instance, it helped us know Aladdin was the main character.)
How did those choices change how we feel about the pictures? (For instance, it made the lamp and treasure seem more special.
Can you think of ways that more recent media use colour in the ways we’ve just talked about?
