Why I used the color red in my music video
“Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.” These are the connotations of the color red, and I felt that both sides of the connotations, the intense but also passionate sides of the color fit in very well with my music video.
The danger connotation fits in well with my music video, because there is a certain sense of what the characters in my music video are doing is not allowed, because they are having to meet in a hotel room to be with each other, rather than for example going to one another houses or just meeting in public. The determination connotation also fits in with my music video concept, for the same reason as with the danger connotation, because they are having to meet somewhere in secret, and if they are doing this, it must mean that they are very determined to be together, and spend the night together.
As for the other side of the connotations, passion fits in very well with the concept of my music video because it is clear that both characters, (especially the female character) are passionate for each other which can be seen most prominently in the scene where our male character is on the chair and the female character is dancing around/on him, her dance is sexy and provocative and is clearly being done to “entertain” our male character through sensuality. The connotation of desire is also a good connotation to go with our plot, the characters obviously desire each other, firstly because they went out of their way to meet up in a hotel room, secondly the female character clearly desires to please the male character because she put on a sexy outfit as to impress him, and she does the same by dancing for him. Finally the connotation of love is also a fitting connotation for the plot of our music video, especially during the kiss scene, because you can see that the two characters clearly have a connection, and using red lighting through out the music video emphasises this.
 |
| Light Red |
 |
| Dark Red |
“Light red: represents joy, passion, sensitivity, and love.
Pinky red: signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.
Dark red: is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath. It is often used to evoke erotic feelings (red lips, red nails, red-light districts, 'Lady in Red', etc).
Reddish-brown: suggests stability and denotes masculine qualities and is associated with harvest and fall.”
The exact color HTML code (HTML Codes format: Each HTML code contains symbol "#" and 6 letters or numbers. Meaning of symbols: The first two symbols in HTML color code represents the intensity of red color. 00 is the least and FF is the most intense. The third and fourth represents intensity of green and fifth and sixth represents the intensity of blue. So with combining the intensity of red, green and blue we can mix almost any color that we want. Example: #FF0000 - With this HTML code we tell browser to show maximum of red and no green and no blue. The result is of course pure red color.) for our red is: #a0140f, this means that the red which used as a base color in our music video editing is a rather darkish red which is perfect because as described above on of the connotations of dark red in particular is that it “is often used to evoke erotic feelings (red lips, red nails, red-light districts, 'Lady in Red', etc).” which is what I am trying to portray in my music video, through for example the female characters costume, her dance, the kiss between the two characters, etc.
“Red is a very emotionally intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure.” I also chose the color read for the lighting of my music video because it enhances the viewers experience of the music video. I wanted my music video to be unique, and I also wanted the experience of my viewers to be unique to my music video. I wanted my audience to feel things in my music video that they had not felt with other music video’s from my school. According to certain psychological testings such as the ones mentioned in Gregory Ciotti’s article called Color Psychology: How Colors Influence the Mind which was published in PsychologyToday , when it comes to human reactions to the color red, it provokes excitement, increases the viewers respirations rate and blood pressure, as well as makes the viewer focus and not loose concentration, which is what I wanted my viewer to experience, as to tighten his experience of the entire music video.
“Red brings text and images to the foreground. Use it as an accent color to stimulate people to make quick decisions; it is a perfect color for 'Buy Now' or 'Click Here' buttons on Internet banners and websites.” I also decided to use red for my music video, because at the end of the day the purpose of a music video is to promote the artist. As explained above the color red makes the viewer focus on the thing that is in red, in my case that is my artist. By having my artist lit in red it attracts the viewers eyes to him and not anything else, I want all eyes on my artist especially because he is an emerging artist so I want the audience to see as much of him as possible.
