Blog Six: Animation Deconstruction

Image One

Image Two

For this assignment, I chose two still images from the animated movie, Despicable Me.  The two topics I focused on within these images were color and lighting.

Within image one, the colors are completely split, giving it two different focuses.  As for image two, the colors are more evenly distributed, even though there are many.  Image one has dark, gloomy colors on the left, while on the right everything is bright and stands out.  The hue within image one is darker shades of gray and purple along with the yellow shade of grass, along with less saturation.  These colors are complimentary to one another.  On the other side of the yard, the hue is a split analogous color scheme.  This is because the yellow, red and green all manage to blend very well.  Also, the saturation is very high.  While looking at image two in regard to hue, saturation and value…there is a lot more to look at with a more even distribution.  Purple is prominent throughout the image.  Some of the purple stands out and some is dark and gloomy like normal, representing the villain.  The yellow wall compliments the purple distributed throughout the picture.  There are other complimentary colors like red and blue on one of the woman as well.  Between image one and image two, I noticed complimentary colors like purple and yellow were used in both.  Purple is also a very common hue used.  The value of the purple is used in a similar way with the darker shades in both images.  Both images have use of high saturation in some areas.

As for lighting within these images, the largest difference would be the natural lighting in image one versus the fluorescent lighting in image two.  You’ll notice harsher shadows in image one contrasting with image two where the shadows are more subtle.  In regard to the direction of the light, that is also different between these images.  The sun in image one creates a vertical direction of light, while the lights in the second image are going in a horizontal direction.  Both images have a nice, even diffusion of light for the most part.  Even though in image one, the shadows are harsher, the light is still quite even because of the sun.  Each image tries to create a happy emotion mixed with a gloomy emotion through use of darker colors and brighter colors.

Overall, I noticed that Despicable Me did a nice job of sticking to a certain color palette and using it affectively.  It is an enjoyable animation that I would suggest to watch.