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Life in Color
Have you ever wondered what your life would be like in black and white? Ella Choe explores how colors affect our lives
Color psychology is the study of different shades and how our brain processes those shades and affects the behavior of an individual. We all have different eyes which means we all acknowledge light differently. Each shade has a particular wavelength because light moves in waves. Every color that we see has a particular wavelength that has a distinct effect on the human eye. They generate electrical currents that travel to the hypothalamus. This is a part of the brain that controls a variety of functions in the body, such as social behaviors, hunger, and temperature. Different colors have qualities that can connect to certain behavior that we have, while also affecting one's choices/decisions. This is all just due to the color of an object. (Color Theory, 2022)
Colors have a significant impact on our life in ways in which we may not be aware. They have the ability to influence our emotions, actions, and perceptions of objects and other people. Various people may have different interpretations of what a color represents when they see it. Warmer colors on the scale, for example, may indicate happiness and comfort to some people while indicating danger and wrath to others. In this essay, I'll discuss how colors can affect one's mood as well as the science behind it.
Mood and Memory
According to The University of British Columbia, colors can do lots of different things to help you improve your mood or how well you may retain information. Studies in this University concluded that red and blue are best for enhancing different abilities and improving brain function. These are very intense colors that are very easy to spot if you were to be reading a large paragraph of text. (Olesen, 2022)
Sometimes our mood can vary depending on the colors that we can see. But most of the time, it just depends on who we are as an individual, our cultures, or our personality. Smithsonian states that our mood can depend on our favorite colors. If you like the color red and don't like yellow, and you see a nice red sweater, then the probability of you buying the red sweater over the yellow is higher, also influencing how you feel at that moment. According to another study by WebMD, the color that most positively influences your mood is green. Green is a color of optimism which means that it gives off productive positive vibes. (Pichardo, 2022)
Opinion and Perceptions
Colors can reveal things that are obvious like the color of a wall or the color of a fruit, but how might color affect our opinions of different objects or even people? According to a color study done with the Heinz Ketchup Brand, to sell more of their product, they switched their original red color for purple, green and blue. This did not sound appealing to most adults but when kids saw this, they immediately associated these colors as bright and happy. This resulted in Heinz Ketchup Brand selling 25 million bottles.
This bump in sales can be explained by many color psychology studies. These studies found that it takes the average human around 90 seconds to decide whether or not they like the item that they see. So around 90% of your decision-making is mostly based on the colors you can see. Based on the information from this study, it is proven that color psychology matters.
While you might decide to buy something just because it's your favorite color, a lot of the time, it can be your culture too! Different cultures have a variety of opinions on what the colors of the color wheel mean. For example, in western culture, the color blue means depression and sadness whilst in the far eastern culture, this color means relaxation or healing. This also proves that your opinion of color can depend on where you used to live, currently live, or memory or personal connection that reminds you of a certain color. (Jordan, 2022)
The Experiment
Upon researching color psychology and how it affects people's perceptions, I wanted to find out how color affects the lives of people around me. I created a survey using a Google form and I sent it to 10 people I know. Out of the ten, eight responded. These 8 people (four adults and four 6th-graders aged 11-12) were asked ten questions. Each question had a picture and they had to answer how the picture affected their appetite, mood, and feelings about wearing certain colors, as well as being in a room with certain colors. Here are the results of my survey.
Questions 1 and 2: What is your favorite color? What do you think of when you see it?
Out of all of the responses, red was the most popular color, then blue, purple, and green. All of the participants related their favorite color to something that they liked or had a connection to.
Questions 3 and 4: What is the color that you like the least? What do you think of when you see it?
Out of these responses, the color that was picked most was orange. Then it was more yellow pink than green. When associating with these colors, the results were basically the same as the first question but instead, they related this color to things that they did not like.
Questions 5 and 6:
For these questions, the students and adults were asked if they would eat what the image was showing and why they would or wouldn’t eat it. When shown a picture of some colorful bagels, the adults thought of this picture more realistically with an answer like, “It looks beautiful, but when I think of colorful food I think of dyes & things that should not be in good condition. So I probably would not trust it enough to buy it.” On other hand, the students thought of this question based on their personal experiences with answers like, “I would have these because they look colorful and fun. Also I've never had rainbow bagels before.” This shows that when given the opportunity to choose something that you can only base on the color, adults and children think in very different ways which could not only affect their choices of food but what they buy, too.
Question 7 and 8:
In these two questions, I showed a picture of one yellow and one red shirt and asked the participants what they thought about the people who would wear those colored shirts. The answers were mostly personality-based. For the red shirt, a majority of people thought that this person was confident. For the yellow shirt, the participants thought that this person was happy and someone who likes attention.
Question 9:
In this question, the adults and students were asked if they would stay in the red, blue, green, or purple room. Almost all of them voted for the blue room because it looked calm and soothing.
Question 10:
In the last question, the participants were asked what a majority of the clothes in their closet were. All my participants chose black or white saying that they liked it because it wouldn’t draw too much attention toward them. From this question, we can tell that this group of adults and students don’t like to be the center of attention!
To conclude, colors have been proven to be a strong influence in people's lives. It can tell you a lot about a person's personality and how it affects how people of different ages think. Color indeed is a very important part of how we live our lives - how we feel, what we buy and sometimes how we perceive other people or places. Now that we see how color impacts us, we can better understand ourselves and perhaps become more knowledgeable and mindful of how companies may use color as a powerful marketing tool.
Filmmaking: Is it Worth Learning?
Julie Mok looks into the benefits of studying filmmaking and why professionals recommend it
Have you ever thought about learning how to make a movie?
If not, then it might be because the task seems very challenging. However, many professionals in the filmmaking industry say that it’s a good skill to learn, with many benefits throughout.
Collaboration and teamwork can be extremely helpful in projects, but can also be very hard to manage. This is an example of a life lesson learnt from learning filmmaking, and an example of a possible benefit from learning this skill. There are also many more skills that can be learnt, such as time management and communication skills.
Our Media Tech teacher, Mr. Michelson agrees. “We want students to be able to express themselves in many various ways as well as be able to approach assignments with different mindsets,” he tells us. This is only one reason why it’s useful for students, and even adults to learn movie making, and there are plenty of other benefits.
Movie making is a very useful skill to learn, however, that doesn’t only teach you lessons within technology and production skills, but also lessons that can apply to real life situations. According to Charlotte Weiss, who is an assignment helper in the UK who helps filmmaking students, an example of a skill that can be learnt from producing movies is learning how to read people’s expressions and body language better. “In the world of cinema and theater, you need to study people carefully. You need to pay attention to their mannerisms, expressions, how they talk and walk, and how they will react to a given situation. This is essential to develop your characters appropriately,” she says. This implies that while making a movie, it makes you better at paying attention to small details and emotions, since you have to know the character well so that you can help actors/actress’ portray their roles well.
According to an article written by MIT Art, Design, and Technology University based in India, filmmaking can also help you learn project management, communication skills, time management, and leadership skills. Clarissa Leung, a student in Grade 6 who learnt filmmaking, also shares that through learning this skill, she was able to learn more about teamwork. “I have learnt an important lesson, it is don’t fight about what you want or what your teammates want. Decide it as a group.”
Through making your own movies, you can also inspire others. Valerie Wong, Grade 6 student shares with us that “The Matrix has overall changed my point of view on movie making, because of how interesting it was shot…It inspired me.”
Other than movies with impressive techniques and visuals, movies can also help viewers feel emotion, and help them feel more comforted. Encanto and Luca, both recent animated Disney/Pixar movies are a great example of this. Encanto, a story about a magical family in Colombia, talks about pressure, specifically from family, and also about feeling like an outcast since the main character, Mirabel, has been given no magical powers, unlike her family. Luca helps tell us a moving story on how two characters are afraid to reveal their identity as sea monsters for how they imagine others in the human town will treat them. These types of movies are great because to some, they are relatable and help them feel less alone in their situation, as well as being able to make audiences of these movies inspired. These are only two movies, though, and there are plenty more that can help have similar purposes. These movies could also be considered inspiring, whether because of the actor or actress’ talent, or the amazing technique of some sort used, such as filming techniques and stunts. On the other hand, there are also movies that can be simply for enjoyment. However, overall, It really depends on the audience who are watching to decide if it makes them feel inspired or not.
According to askwonder.com, there are 2-9 million movie producers globally, which is a very little amount, compared to our world population of 7.9 billion. But have you ever thought about increasing this number by learning how to make movies, and joining the film industry? You don’t have to necessarily become a professional to create your own movie, however, and it’s a skill that can be self-taught if your goal is simple enough.
To conclude, filmmaking is a recommended skill to learn, because it can teach you skills as well as life lessons that are beneficial in real life situations, and can also help others by making them feel a certain way or a certain emotion, whether it be inspired, happy, and even sad or angry. We hope that in the future, you will consider studying filmmaking if you haven’t yet, because of all its benefits.