Reality Can be Whatever You Perceive
Hello and welcome to the first digital final presentation on my blog! GCE sadly had to cancel in house final presentations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The upside of working digitally is being able to explore working through almost entirely digital mediums!
First, let's ask, what are colors? Our good friend Sir Isaac Newton made an interesting discovery in 1666 (spooky). He saw that when pure white light would pass through a prism it would break apart into all of the colors in the visible spectrum. He also found that each color is made up of a wavelength (something we've studied in our first unit, Light). Through more experimentation, Newton found that you could mix light, for example, red and yellow light mixed into orange. What he found curious was that when you mixed colors like green and magenta they would cancel each other out and result in a white light once again!
Now that we know roughly what colors are (if you want to learn more check out THIS project where I made my own camera!) let's dive into what color psychology is! Color psychology is a concept that has been used a lot in marketing, art, design, and other areas that require eyesight. It basically states that certain colors can instill certain emotions, feelings, and behaviors in humans. What's more fascinating is that the feelings one has about colors are deeply rooted in personal experiences and/or culture! For example, a lot of western culture associates red with emotions closer to anger and blood while eastern culture associates red with love and excitement. Universally, however, it is assumed to mean stop/stop and look as stop signs, poisonous berries, poisonous animals, some fire hydrants, and a lot of company logos are red.
To keep going on this red train a study by researchers at Dartmouth College found that there is an innate response to the color red. In a study, they found that the monkeys avoided humans who wore the color red vs green or blue (the other two highly saturated and triggering colors on the spectrum). We can assume that these innate feelings towards colors stem from past experiences through evolution and death. Red mostly likely became associated with blood and poison, blue with water and the sky, green with foliage and grass, and so on. Or perhaps you can go the more scientific root of how the lights electromagnetic waves are what stimulate the brain to feel certain emotions/feelings. Now besides being influenced by the innate feeling of color we humans are also influenced by culture and location. For example, take this study that asked 700 people from each country what they felt about the color black:
Sound
So what does EIE change to create a new feeling?
You guessed it, light, sound, and time! Without going into too much detail I want to break down why some changes in the editing were made and how they create the feelings you have while watching.
Lighting in a movie is vital to visuals, for most children's movies the lighting and colors have to be vibrant to retain their attention. Shrek being a children's movie is indeed colorful but if you wanted to edit the movie down into a thriller/horror movie trailer some simple visual editing will work wonders! Saturation is a big part of horror as greyscale or 'dead' looking colors look scary or intimidating. Black and shades of grey are also associated with the unknown, and the dark, both things that instill fear. For the romance trailer, the edges of everything are softened, soft edges create a sense of safety and comfort. The colors are also glowing which is a sign of purity and beauty. There are also snips of the film that in context are not scary, but when taken out of context and darkened to appear more intimidating can create uneasiness.
Music and sound effects drive a movie, they are vital (but not 100% necessary) parts of a movie. With editing, you can take snips of dialogue and sound effects and out their original place and place under different visuals to create a different context or mood. Audio jumpscares are also very popular in horror movies, an audio jumpscare is when a very loud noise or scream is played suddenly for a fear factor. Fast-paced ascending notes are often used to create an anxious buildup in a movie or a mood of uneasiness. Long, deep, and heavy notes are often used to create a mood of despair, sadness, or mindfulness. EIE also uses different songs in each edit to create a different mood because of the tempo, range, and connotations each song brings. Even the lack of music in certain contexts can create different moods!
Timing in this context goes hand in hand with the other two stimuli. If you time the right emotional visuals with an emotional piano progression you have the recipe for sobbing! Horror movies use timing a lot to get you really scared and anxious. Comedy requires good knowledge of timing as well because we all know if you tell the punchline a bit too early or too late the joke won't be funny anymore. Timing in editing is very important because the timing of certain scenes are what make the feelings happen! So if you mess with the timing, you mess with the emotions. If you manipulate all three of these stimuli you can make someone perceive whatever you want!
How about I give it a go!?
Here is the original trailer for comparison:
I chose to bend the truth on a Disney film, Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast. It's a heartwarming fantasy adventure movie for kids, so the obvious route was to turn it into a horror movie. Here are some of the main changes I made:
For light, I desaturated a lot of the colors and at times darkened the clips. What is very interesting if you examine Disney films is that often lime green is associated with evil/bad people such as villans even though green is not commonly known as an 'evil color.'
For sound, I added in a suspenseful track that had a fast tempo and used a lot of anxiety-inducing notes, I moved certain pieces of dialogue to fit the narrative I wanted to tell, and I added extra sound effects (like the thunder) for 'realism' and spookiness.
Now timing played a HUGE role in making this movie spooky! I had the power to choose when to play a certain clip or sound at any point in time and to be effective you have to time everything down to the frames! I am very proud of how the timing in this edit came out because I tried to be very thoughtful about it. I actually watched some horror movie trailers (like The Shining) for groundwork and inspiration. What I ended up implementing were short bursts of action along with dialogue or longer visuals to soften up the fear factor. I also tried to match up the visuals and sounds at certain times to emphasize them and create an even bigger reaction!
PHEW, when people told me editing was a tedious job I did not believe them but editing a full 70-minute movie into a 2 and a half minute trailer in 2 days was hellish! I had a lot of fun making the video though don't get me wrong! The psychology of color has always fascinated me so learning more about it and about the influences of sound and time has been a fascinating endeavor! I am sad to see my class Light, Sound, and Time come to an end, but I know I can always learn more about each one like how I've done here! I hope you enjoyed my exploration into light, sound, and time, next post I'll try time traveling!
Today I will be explaining how and why light, sound, and time, make us feel different emotions using my knowledge from my class Light, Sound, and Time and some research I did recently. Our guiding question for today is, How do light, sound & time influence video editing? Let's begin!
Light
How do visuals/light make us feel?
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| Joshua Seong. "Color Psychology". 2019. |
First, let's ask, what are colors? Our good friend Sir Isaac Newton made an interesting discovery in 1666 (spooky). He saw that when pure white light would pass through a prism it would break apart into all of the colors in the visible spectrum. He also found that each color is made up of a wavelength (something we've studied in our first unit, Light). Through more experimentation, Newton found that you could mix light, for example, red and yellow light mixed into orange. What he found curious was that when you mixed colors like green and magenta they would cancel each other out and result in a white light once again!
Now that we know roughly what colors are (if you want to learn more check out THIS project where I made my own camera!) let's dive into what color psychology is! Color psychology is a concept that has been used a lot in marketing, art, design, and other areas that require eyesight. It basically states that certain colors can instill certain emotions, feelings, and behaviors in humans. What's more fascinating is that the feelings one has about colors are deeply rooted in personal experiences and/or culture! For example, a lot of western culture associates red with emotions closer to anger and blood while eastern culture associates red with love and excitement. Universally, however, it is assumed to mean stop/stop and look as stop signs, poisonous berries, poisonous animals, some fire hydrants, and a lot of company logos are red.
 | |
| Amber Ooley. "Red Logos: When & Why Your Brand Should Use Them". 2017. |
To keep going on this red train a study by researchers at Dartmouth College found that there is an innate response to the color red. In a study, they found that the monkeys avoided humans who wore the color red vs green or blue (the other two highly saturated and triggering colors on the spectrum). We can assume that these innate feelings towards colors stem from past experiences through evolution and death. Red mostly likely became associated with blood and poison, blue with water and the sky, green with foliage and grass, and so on. Or perhaps you can go the more scientific root of how the lights electromagnetic waves are what stimulate the brain to feel certain emotions/feelings. Now besides being influenced by the innate feeling of color we humans are also influenced by culture and location. For example, take this study that asked 700 people from each country what they felt about the color black:
 |
| Fredrick, Ava. "Researchers can guess where you’re from by how colors make you feel". 2019. |
Sound
How does audio make us feel?
Before we ask how again we must always ask what first. What is sound? Much like light, sounds are waves creatively called sound waves! They vary in frequency, pitch, and amplitude, these varieties shape what we know as sounds. (If you want to learn more check out THIS project where I made my own guitar)!
Now, are we ready for a new funky word? Psychoacoustics, the psychology of sounds! Independent Hearing Professionals have found that sound, especially music, has a direct cognitive response to our memories and emotions. This is why we remember songs or sounds from long, long ago and why sound therapy works on people with dementia! The association with memories is also why we can differentiate, for example, a shriek of fear from a shriek of happiness. Fascinatingly sounds affect much more than just your psyche they also affect you physically. Sounds affect your hormone secretion, breathing, heart rate, and brainwaves!
 |
| Daxx4434. "Psychoacoustic Model". 2009. |
Before we ask how again we must always ask what first. What is sound? Much like light, sounds are waves creatively called sound waves! They vary in frequency, pitch, and amplitude, these varieties shape what we know as sounds. (If you want to learn more check out THIS project where I made my own guitar)!
Now, are we ready for a new funky word? Psychoacoustics, the psychology of sounds! Independent Hearing Professionals have found that sound, especially music, has a direct cognitive response to our memories and emotions. This is why we remember songs or sounds from long, long ago and why sound therapy works on people with dementia! The association with memories is also why we can differentiate, for example, a shriek of fear from a shriek of happiness. Fascinatingly sounds affect much more than just your psyche they also affect you physically. Sounds affect your hormone secretion, breathing, heart rate, and brainwaves!
Time
How does time make us feel?
You know the drill, what is time? Time can be defined as a continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future. We measure time to help create schedules and to be organized, and we've done so for ages! (If you want to learn more about time check out THIS project where I designed a time-telling device)!
Now, the truth is that time isn't what really makes us feel, in actuality none of these stimuli are what makes us feel things. What makes us feel things is our perception of light, sound, and time. One can perceive time moving faster than desired that can cause stress, anxieties, sadness. One can also perceive it moving too slow which can cause depressive feelings, hopelessness, and restlessness. Humans have found a lot of different ways to measure things even though we don't technically have an accurate clock in our bodies However, most say that the circadian clock, a biochemical oscillator that cycles and is synchronized with solar time whos period is almost exactly 24 hours is thought of as the internal clock.
You know the drill, what is time? Time can be defined as a continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future. We measure time to help create schedules and to be organized, and we've done so for ages! (If you want to learn more about time check out THIS project where I designed a time-telling device)!
Now, the truth is that time isn't what really makes us feel, in actuality none of these stimuli are what makes us feel things. What makes us feel things is our perception of light, sound, and time. One can perceive time moving faster than desired that can cause stress, anxieties, sadness. One can also perceive it moving too slow which can cause depressive feelings, hopelessness, and restlessness. Humans have found a lot of different ways to measure things even though we don't technically have an accurate clock in our bodies However, most say that the circadian clock, a biochemical oscillator that cycles and is synchronized with solar time whos period is almost exactly 24 hours is thought of as the internal clock.
What Happens When They're Together?
One of the best examples of the blending light, sound, and time I could find was video editing. I found a lot of inspiration from the YouTuber Editing is everything (EIE)! Here is an example video from her where she edits the movie Shrek into 7 different movie genres trailers.
So what does EIE change to create a new feeling?
You guessed it, light, sound, and time! Without going into too much detail I want to break down why some changes in the editing were made and how they create the feelings you have while watching.
Lighting in a movie is vital to visuals, for most children's movies the lighting and colors have to be vibrant to retain their attention. Shrek being a children's movie is indeed colorful but if you wanted to edit the movie down into a thriller/horror movie trailer some simple visual editing will work wonders! Saturation is a big part of horror as greyscale or 'dead' looking colors look scary or intimidating. Black and shades of grey are also associated with the unknown, and the dark, both things that instill fear. For the romance trailer, the edges of everything are softened, soft edges create a sense of safety and comfort. The colors are also glowing which is a sign of purity and beauty. There are also snips of the film that in context are not scary, but when taken out of context and darkened to appear more intimidating can create uneasiness.
Music and sound effects drive a movie, they are vital (but not 100% necessary) parts of a movie. With editing, you can take snips of dialogue and sound effects and out their original place and place under different visuals to create a different context or mood. Audio jumpscares are also very popular in horror movies, an audio jumpscare is when a very loud noise or scream is played suddenly for a fear factor. Fast-paced ascending notes are often used to create an anxious buildup in a movie or a mood of uneasiness. Long, deep, and heavy notes are often used to create a mood of despair, sadness, or mindfulness. EIE also uses different songs in each edit to create a different mood because of the tempo, range, and connotations each song brings. Even the lack of music in certain contexts can create different moods!
Timing in this context goes hand in hand with the other two stimuli. If you time the right emotional visuals with an emotional piano progression you have the recipe for sobbing! Horror movies use timing a lot to get you really scared and anxious. Comedy requires good knowledge of timing as well because we all know if you tell the punchline a bit too early or too late the joke won't be funny anymore. Timing in editing is very important because the timing of certain scenes are what make the feelings happen! So if you mess with the timing, you mess with the emotions. If you manipulate all three of these stimuli you can make someone perceive whatever you want!
How about I give it a go!?
Here is the original trailer for comparison:
I chose to bend the truth on a Disney film, Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast. It's a heartwarming fantasy adventure movie for kids, so the obvious route was to turn it into a horror movie. Here are some of the main changes I made:
For light, I desaturated a lot of the colors and at times darkened the clips. What is very interesting if you examine Disney films is that often lime green is associated with evil/bad people such as villans even though green is not commonly known as an 'evil color.'
For sound, I added in a suspenseful track that had a fast tempo and used a lot of anxiety-inducing notes, I moved certain pieces of dialogue to fit the narrative I wanted to tell, and I added extra sound effects (like the thunder) for 'realism' and spookiness.
Now timing played a HUGE role in making this movie spooky! I had the power to choose when to play a certain clip or sound at any point in time and to be effective you have to time everything down to the frames! I am very proud of how the timing in this edit came out because I tried to be very thoughtful about it. I actually watched some horror movie trailers (like The Shining) for groundwork and inspiration. What I ended up implementing were short bursts of action along with dialogue or longer visuals to soften up the fear factor. I also tried to match up the visuals and sounds at certain times to emphasize them and create an even bigger reaction!
PHEW, when people told me editing was a tedious job I did not believe them but editing a full 70-minute movie into a 2 and a half minute trailer in 2 days was hellish! I had a lot of fun making the video though don't get me wrong! The psychology of color has always fascinated me so learning more about it and about the influences of sound and time has been a fascinating endeavor! I am sad to see my class Light, Sound, and Time come to an end, but I know I can always learn more about each one like how I've done here! I hope you enjoyed my exploration into light, sound, and time, next post I'll try time traveling!
Citations
Cherry, Kendra. "Color Psychology: Does It Affect How You Feel?"
verywellmind.com. July 17, 2019.
Cousins. Carrie. "The Science Behind Color and Emotion."
designshack.net. June 30, 2014.
Koeing, Mike. "Perfect Thunder Storm Sound." soundbible.com. n/d
Nakarada, Alexander. "Cockroaches." freepd.com. n/d
Yarbrough, Devon. "Sound the alarm: how sounds affect our memory
and emotions." Voxmagazine.com. Nov. 1, 2017.
Treasure, Julian. "The 4 ways sound affects us." youtube.com. Oct.
16, 2009
Cherry, Kendra. "Color Psychology: Does It Affect How You Feel?"
verywellmind.com. July 17, 2019.
Cousins. Carrie. "The Science Behind Color and Emotion."
designshack.net. June 30, 2014.
Koeing, Mike. "Perfect Thunder Storm Sound." soundbible.com. n/d
Nakarada, Alexander. "Cockroaches." freepd.com. n/d
Yarbrough, Devon. "Sound the alarm: how sounds affect our memory
and emotions." Voxmagazine.com. Nov. 1, 2017.
Treasure, Julian. "The 4 ways sound affects us." youtube.com. Oct.
16, 2009
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