Telling the Story - The Art and Technique of Digital Color Correction - page 359

Fig. 8.57
Story Epilogue
For me, the thing that stands out in this discussion of color correcting to
help promote story is that the colorist really needs a strong sense of the
story to focus the direction of the corrections. Without context, as David
Mullen mentioned, the creative choices are unlimited. Context helps to
focus those creative decisions.
There are several topics that attempt to deine the emotional clues
that color delivers. Patti Bellantoni's If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die
(Focal Press, 2005) is a prime example of this school of thought. Another
excellent example is Bruce Block's The Visual Story (Focal Press, 2001).
I don't believe that defining hard-and-fast rules about what specific
colors always say is valid, due to cultural differences and trends and fash-
ion, but the colorist definitely has a strong storytelling capability through
the use of color and contrast in the collaboration with the other storytell-
ing artists on a film as they attempt to influence and engage the audience.
As an exercise, watch a few films and try to determine whether there
is a story-based reason why the director, DP, art director, and colorist are
using certain colors and how they are using contrast and tonality to help
tell the story.