david fischer’s use of colour with a focus on the film Seven

In this video I will be talking about The way in which David Fincher uses colour in his films. For starters David Fincher is an esteemed American director, famous for movies such as fight club, zodiac and seven. Fincher Uses desaturation as a guiding principle of his overall colour palette, this is because he believes desaturated colours support the underlying themes of a text; for example murky grey themes are supported by tones that match the meaning of the location or the emotions of the characters are trying to convey. For example Fincher used a very dull and desaturated colour palette in the movie 7 to demonstrate the type of reality he was trying to represent, in seven the world was supposed to be very depressed and heavy and saturated colours were supposed to be reserved for the use of blood as a prop. Fincher doesn’t often utilise the colour red this is because he believes it can easily be abused and overpower the colour palette and general look of an environment in a scene. Another example of finches approach to colour would be in the film girl with the dragon tattoo, throughout the movie the overpowering colour seen is blue to Present a cold isolated reality in which the leading protagonist exists in. Another point on colour which I found very interesting when reading further into the subject was how in scenes when the focus is centred around characters talking a green light is intentionally created; this is done by utilising natural light from a window or door and contrasting it with the surrounding artificial light, for example from a lamp being used as a back light. This combination of colder more blue tones mixed with the warmer yellow tones from the lamp creates a green light which meets in the middle isolating the characters, this technique is used to also display the characters as separate from their surroundings, elevating them from their environment pinning the focus on them.