Artefact 4 Evaluation

In my fourth artefact I looked at whether colour and lighting could effect the audience’s perception of genre in film. The artefact contained four clips from different films; The Departed (2007), Perfect Stranger (2007), Meet The Parents (2000), and Collateral (2004). All four clips begin by showing the original film footage and then changes to the version with edited colour and lighting, the effects in each were achieved using a program called Magic Bullet.

In my questionnaire I included questions to discover what genres the audience associated with different colours. My findings were that the following colours related to the following genres;

Red – Horror
Blue – Drama/Thriller
Green – Sci-Fi/Action
Yellow – Comedy/Romance
Black & White – All Genre’s/Film Noir

My findings from the artefact revealed that colour plays some part in shaping the audiences perceptions of film genre. I discovered that in some cases the audience would place an entire film in a different genre based on colour or lighting. The majority of results revealed that although colour has a vital role in shaping film it cannot override the content of the film, and so the core genre will remain the same regardless of any colour or lighting adjustments. As well as this the artefact showed that because the colour and lighting has an effect on the way the audience view film, it would in essence place the film into a different sub-genre.

In conclusion colour and lighting can change the audience’s perception of a genre but cannot change the whole genre and whilst certain colours may be associated with certain genres this is due to the cultural meanings of those colours.