> There's no specific colour decision-making process where we sit in a room and say, 'We're only going to use complementary colours to try and move the audience in a particular direction – and only use those combinations.'
A lot of production designers would strongly disagree with this statement. The color palette of a film is very much a part of the decision-making process (pre-production as well as post-production), and it's used primarily to "move the audience" in one way or another, as per the film's theme and story elements.
It may just be that the colors within a chosen palette are often classified as either "warm" or "cool" - orange and blue being the most obvious manifestations of those classifications - so we tend to see a lot of them. Without contrast (literal and figurative), a film simply doesn't say anything. Warm and cool colors go a long way in helping the audience feel positively or negatively about certain story elements.
Right. There are also those color houses that standardize more or less the worlds palette for the next few years. It is not an accident that we all had avocado refrigerators and green minivans. It is a truly big brother industry.
Upon re-reading this quote and its source article, I believe he was probably referring to moviemaking at a more meta level; i.e., there's no decision-making process wherein all (or many) filmmakers discuss and agree upon a narrow choice of colors to use across all of their films. As the quote continues, "[e]very film has its own look."
I inferred "we" as meaning a single production team. It makes much more sense if "we" refers to filmmakers as a whole.
A lot of production designers would strongly disagree with this statement. The color palette of a film is very much a part of the decision-making process (pre-production as well as post-production), and it's used primarily to "move the audience" in one way or another, as per the film's theme and story elements.
It may just be that the colors within a chosen palette are often classified as either "warm" or "cool" - orange and blue being the most obvious manifestations of those classifications - so we tend to see a lot of them. Without contrast (literal and figurative), a film simply doesn't say anything. Warm and cool colors go a long way in helping the audience feel positively or negatively about certain story elements.