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Orange/Blue Contrast in Movie Posters

Posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 by Peter Sciretta

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I’m sure you’re aware of Hollywood’s overuse of floating heads on movie posters… but have you noticed the excessive use of orange/blue contrast on theatrical one-sheets? David Chen happened to come across this comic illustrating the Blue/orange contrast, although I’m not sure where it originated or who created it. After the jump you will see a ton of examples of orange/blue contrast, however I must warn you — as the comic says, once you see it, you’ll notice it everywhere.

Yes, Of course….

As Gravity13 points out: orange/blue just so happens to be the most common set of complementary colors because blue is “cool” and orange is “enthusiastic” and “energetic.”

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Here are a few more examples I was able to dig up:

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via: reddit

Comments

godmode

watch Transformers. Its all orange and blue.

Alex Malm

Blue and Orange as complementary colors are probably the most common selection for an overall color palette in terms of production design and cinematography. Blue gels are used to light night scenes and orange is sometimes used during day or romantic scenes (just one example of many).

Film School

Wrong. Daylight is blue and so i night... both are the same color temperature.

Ghisolabella

the most common way to color-correct most scenes in movies is to have color the lows and mids blue-ish/green while the highs are a faint orange/yellow. it's also important to preserve skin tones, which are typically an orange-ish tan. almost every movie you see in a theater will have this characteristic in a majority of scenes, especially in "summer blockbuster" types.

Pitah

I think this is expected. Just as Positive is RED and Negative is BLACK in representing poles. In most cases when showing contrast in two distinct fields either one is the suited choice e.g the swastika.

To me it seems subconscious that the Principle characters in the films are in Blue. Could it be Fire and Water a balance?
See the Mozillia Firefox and Ms Explorer logos.

Tetsuo_Man

But here's the thing. Whenever a movie is based in LA now-a-days, it automatically HAS to have orange skies. Transformers, Hancock, every other Bay film, etc. It's really annoying... really really annoying.

Seamless

Also its funny but i didnt see a single good movie on that list either sorry if i offended any Bay fans *computer screen and all surrounding environments explode* there that made my comment good for all the bay fans

raizor

so cool!!!

GDW

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!

im never watching a movie again, scumbags!!

Lumpy

And lens flares, Lots of lens flares

Martin

And dont forget Avatar :)

http://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/r...

minkuru

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

MylesL

I wonder where this originated from *sarcastic smirk*
also red text/white background is a big one.

HAYTER

red text, white background indicates a half-assed comedy

JD

And Red/Yellow indicates it's time to eat:

* McDonald's
* Wendy's
* Burger King
* Denny's
* In-n-Out
* Fuddrucker's
* Bojangles
* Sonic

...do I have to go on?

The FilmFreak

My God...

coldmilk

it's all basic color theory

starscream9289

CAN'T UNSEE!

Kashif

Yeah - most major films colour grade like this, too: Transformers, Die Hard 4, even Where the Wild Things Are, to an extent. Denzel Washington is pretty much orange in Pelham 123

Stu Maschwitz did a video about the trend, and how to achieve the effect
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/redgiant...

Josh

That was really interesting. Thanks for posting it.

mymhm

Not to mention Underworld is one of the smurfiest films I think I've ever seen...

Ghisolabella

stu is the man when it comes to color

dagreenman18

Only 5 of the properities are any good, so Orange/Blue isn't a sign of quality

The Guest

Yeah I'd like to see green and red for a change.

Swarley

The Christmas-ness aside, green and red are usually never used because the two colors are so close in value. So putting the two together is usually unsettling to the eye, moreso than orange/blue or violet/yellow. I'm sure violet and yellow aren't used either because they actually have TOO MUCH contrast.

Captain_Howdy

While it didn't use the gradient, The Dark Knight definitely took advantage of the blue/orange mix as well:
http://media.movieweb.com/news/04.2008/dark2.jpg

Ryan McHenry

Damn, I just posted this. You were 13 minutes faster than me :(

CRASHkennedy

MOAR!!

BobT

I started to notice this last year, when I saw the poster for Eagle eye, and then saw the opening titles of Quantum of solace that also uses the blue orange color scheme.

I think there's a poster for QoS that has this colorscheme as well.

I actually think it's become a bit of a cliché.
But you could do a whole series on that.

Just look at how many comedy films just lazily go for a poster with red titles and a white background or how many romantic films have a pink/white color scheme.

matthewwells

Even the Allstate ad that showed up on this page is orange and blue.

Reid

Complements are an easy combo to achieve visual appeal. The reason blue-orange is so common is because red-green is associated with Christmas and holidays, and yellow-purple is, let's face it, kind of lame and feminine. Blue-orange, for lack of a better word, is more neutral and not really associated with readily with anything.

CRASHkennedy

gold/yellow and purple

WWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

go lakers

Tom Faraci

It took me forever to no longer associate blue and orange with the Cleveland Cavs (This, of course, was before they switched to wine and gold).

Swarley

I mentioned this as a response to someone else's comment already, but it also has a lot to do with the fact that red and green are very similar in value and are thus unsettling to the eye, and conversely violet and yellow have very strong contrast, which appears unnatural.

Ryan McHenry

http://screenrant.com/images/april-dark-knight-...
THE DARK KNIGHT IS AN OBVIOUS ONE

mudywaters

Wow. It's so true. The Bourne Identity for some reason really stands out to me, maybe because it's very obvious.

[A]

You know what we need, right? A Deathstroke movie. At least, the orange/blue thing would be 100% fit.

Federico

Source: 4chan
Artist: Anonymous.

[A]

Probably -- hahaha

CRASHkennedy

amen brother

konando

its a conspiracy. here's another big one.

http://firsthour.net/screenshots/halo-3/halo-3-...

[A]

*page not found*

mbellerbrock

I know what konando is talking about, I have it hanging in my room.

http://www.wallpaperez.info/wallpaper/games/Hal...

CRASHkennedy

*page not found*

NEONBEAR

a sure fire way to make your movie poster scream "i should probably be straight to dvd"

Rev Rick White

It isn't just movie posters. This colour contrast is used in photography and cinematography all the time. It is very pleasing to the eye and it really just mirrors lighting situations in real life.

Basically the idea behind it is daylight/moonlight= blue and tungsten/street light/household lamps=warm yellow/orange.

Rev Rick White

PS: an additional thought on the subject has to do with printing. Is it still cheaper to make posters and such with a limited palette? Does that old rule still apply? Perhaps I am showing my age.

[A]

Maybe. But I'm sure it has to do with convenience and -mostly- idleness. Someone, somewhere, must've released some kind of study on the human reaction to these colors and, bam, now everyone follows that rule.

Swarley

Printing technology can basically mirror any color you want now, and even online ads have the web-safe pallet, which is 216 colors (pretty limited, but usually able to get what you want.)

TheGreenMalice

I know in other forms of offset printing, depending on the press, it is cheaper to go with a 2 color vs. 4 color press. Most of these look like the 4 color process, so it kind of rules that out.

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