Taking a step back from the unsurprisingly controversial sentiment of the previous article, here’s something everyone can enjoy!
That’s a lie, but it is something that I doubt anyone will feel very strongly about (famous last words) although I am hoping that someone with a bit more expertise on the subject will be kind enough to chime in. Also, taking an unexpected foray into the realm of the 3D today, but bear with me. At least this one has pictures.
I was in the process of calibrating my fancy new TV (Samsung LN46A650 if any of you were curious, or even if you weren’t, I’ll take this opportunity to be a little shameless) and as I was trying to optimize my picture settings for all possibly scenarios, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a phenomenon that’s been in the back of my mind for some time. Specifically, why is it that movies from This Country look one way, while movies from the Other Country look completely different?
I’m not talking about visual motifs or themes, or directorial styles, here. I’m speaking to a more basic level of a movie, the actual colors, the sharpness and contrast. Sure, no two movies have quite the same “look”, which is why setting up a shiny new TV is more art than science, but I reckon that a great many Japanese movies have such a distinctive look that a skilled viewer could be able to identify them as being from Japan simply by looking at any arbitrary shot or frame, devoid of context. Within my experience, this is not nearly as true for the films of any other country in the world. This strange quality, unique among all types of film, I would call “The Toei Color”. So named because although it does not appear to be unique to the films of Toei, it’s certainly as visible there as it is anywhere. And those bastards make some damn good movies.
Now, I suspect that some of you already know what I’m talking about, but for everyone else, just what is the Toei Color? Well, honestly it’s a kind of grainy yellow-green. Marked by low contrast and pale, yellowed colors. It’s the sort of thing that’s a lot easier to show than to describe, so here:
Screen caps courtesy of Shion Sono’s wackadoo horror film Exte. Have a quick look. Notice how grainy everything looks (which is paradoxically both more visible and less noticeable seeing in in motion) but more importantly notice how peculiar the colors are. The whites are not really whites, they’re off-whites tending toward green/yellow. Reds and blues are muted and tinted in a strange fashion. If you look at it for too long, it begins to look normal, so as a comparison, look at this:
Here we have the same shot after it has been manually (and crudely) color shifted to a more “natural” pallette. Notice that some of the whites actually resemble the color white. Notice how the blue tabletop and fan blades actually look blue instead of some bizarre jaundice color not found in nature. In contrast, the Toei Color comes into sharp relief. One of these pictures looks like an Other Country movie, the other one does not.
This begs the question, where does the Toei Color come from? Is this an artifact of some odd lighting rig that has become standard in Other Country films but never quite caught on elsewhere? Could it be that the film stock that is being used is somehow chemically or compositionally different from the film used elsewhere, resulting in a different “look”? Or are these shots just accurately representing objects that actually are these unexpected colors, for reasons unknown?
Ok, that last one is a bit unlikely, but we’re being scientific here. As this is something that has played on my mind for some time, the up until the very first time I personally set foot in Tokyo, there remained a nagging suspicion that something about the air or light in the Other Country simply turned everything yellow, and for some reason no one ever talked about it. I can now vouch that this is, most definitely, not the case. Kind of like the old joke about the virgin otaku who finally gets to see a real-life naked 3D woman and is shocked that her private bits are not covered by a mosaic.
But don’t take my word for it. In the interests of science, we need to come up with real evidence that these images are not accurately representing their subjects. As a start, we can perform a side by side comparison of images consiting of the same object which has been filmed both with the Toei Color and without.
For example, Chiaki Kuriyama.
Here we see Ms. Kuriyama as she appears in Kill Bill, circa 2003. Despite Tarantino’s efforts at accuracy and general attention to detail, no Toei Color.
Here, again from Exte, we see Ms. Kuriyama as she appears with the Toei Color.
Now, I’ll be blunt. What the fuck happened here? Now, granted these were filmed years appart, in different places and under different lighting and makeup requirements, but seriously. What happened? These two pictures look absolutely nothing alike. Clearly something is wrong here. Of course, I have (sadly) never met Chiaki Kuriyama but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that she probably looks a lot more like the first screen cap than the second. This is fairly compelling evidence that the Toei Color is introduced somewhere in either the lighting or filming stages.
To narrow it down further, let’s remove a couple more variables. Next we have a shot from the helpful making-of documentary for Exte, which I am reasonably sure was shot on video. Video, by its very nature, has a radically different “look” compared to film, due to differences in framerate and gamma amongst other things. Have a lookat the floor in this image:
And now, the very same floor viewed again through the magic of Toei Color.
Not the same scene, alas, but clearly the same set. Looking at that floor, it’s pretty obvious that whatever is going in has nothing to do with lights or makeup. It’s the film. Something was done to that poor floor that robbed it of all its real colors, leaving it to look as though it’s being viewed through day-old dishwater.
Sadly, this is about as far as I can take this analysis. Although I pride myself on knowing a thing or two about video, that begins and ends at the consumer end of the spectrum. Actual, professional cinematography is a complete mystery to me. If anyone out there has any idea what could be causing this phenomenon, and furthermore why it only seems to affect movies from the Other Country. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
As much as this effect does seem to change the picture for the worse, I am loathe to consider it an out and out flaw, and it would be a sad day indeed if it were ever “fixed”. The Toei Color is an integral part of these films, every bit as much as practical FX are an integral part of the tokusatsu experience. I don’t want it to go away, I just want to understand why.
According to my colleague, an expert in the film industry, the factor at play is not likely to be the film stock, since most of the film used for movies (be it in Japan or internationally) are manufactured by big players in Japan like Fuji.
This leaves the decision solely with the director or cinematographer. I think directors (or companies) do make conscious decisions regarding the cinematic palette they are using for a film.
At risk of seeming like I am nit-picking or trying to poke holes (I’m not), there are of course exceptions to the yellow-shifted palettes you have pointed out here. For example, many of Kurosawa’s colour films like Ran or Dreams have very vibrant and “true” colours. (The whole point of this is that the Japanese are free to choose their palettes, rather than trying to disprove the widespread existence of “Toei Colours”.)
While I love vibrant colours, it does make sense, for example, even in Hollywood cinema, for Clint Eastwood to use a grainy desaturated palette in his war films. Of course, most films outside of Japan do not opt for the sickly yellow-green hue.
(If I didn’t know better, I’d think that yellow-green hue was because someone forgot to white balance when shooting a scene lit by fluorescents.)
One possible explanation is that some Japanese directors are trying to go for the “aged” look reminescent of older films, or perhaps as tribute for the look adopted by previous directors they respect.
>>icie
Thanks for your feedback!
I agree that there are plenty of exceptions, and that plenty of directors make conscious decisions about their colors, but this very specific look is so widespread and so uniform that I cannot believe it is intentional.
I will gladly produce examples from a wide range of directors with vastly different styles, spread across many years, once I have my DVD collection in front of me again.
Your comment about white-balance is interesting. It sounds like some stage of post-processing that might be omitted? If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear more about this.
If it isn’t the film stock, I have to assume it’s some part of the process.
I’m so freaking glad you brought this up as I’ve been thinking about this for years, and none of my friends seem to care/believe me. I’ve always thought that many Japanese movies have a weird yellow grain tinge to them and it’s nice to know I’m not alone.
Any number of factors :
- DOP/Director decided to shift color balance for creative reasons
- Dodgy telecine (a lot of transfers are crap : check the UK Tartan release of Battle Royale vs the standard NTSC one
My professional experience puts it at the above two, but I suspect it’s more for creative reasons than anything else.
For some reason the non-Toei pictures you posted seem a bit pinkish to me, but then again, color management is a pretty complicated science(art?)… By the way, according to http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp028.htm the standard color temperature of TVs (at least back when this page was written) was around 7100K for the US and 9300K for Japan. That’s a huge difference. Thus, the “yellow” image you see gets boosted by a good dose of extra “blue” in Japan.
I agree with Shipon, those two factors make up alot of how films look like. Another factor is the film that the Japanese tend to use.
It seems most Japanese films tend to like using Fuji film stock which tends to lean towards a more cooler temperature and has a bit of green in it.
Fluorescent lighting on tungsten stock. Or differing white balance settings.
Maybe the crews aren’t paying attention? It’s pretty simple to match the output in that last set.
Before I moved to Hell’s Armpit(aka Tucson) I used to watch a show regularly broadcast here in the city, that was(I believe) filmed in Japan. I never really got most of it, but one thing that did strike me was the color scheme, and how it ranged far more toward yellow/green than anything I’d been exposed to previously. Nice to have one of those lingering adolescent questions resolved. And even nicer to have a topic fairly safe from harsh debate!
Strange how different the colours are. But i find both not natural. One is too much green and yellow, the other one has too much red.
I also have been thinking about this for years. I called it the “french movie color palette wannabe” because reminds me the artificial colors of the movies of Luc Besson and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Until now nobody agreed with me.
These color tricks are used to give unity to the movies, and not hurt people´s eyes. It makes it more comfortable for the viewers and enables them a deeper thinking about the movie.
These yellow is also a remind of those japanese doors u can find in traditionnal houses.
I’m so freaking glad you brought this up as I’ve been thinking about this for years, and none of my friends seem to care/believe me. I’ve always thought that many Japanese movies have a weird yellow grain tinge to them and it’s nice to know I’m not alone.
well it doesnt really matter as long as its pleasing with the eyes. :)
“Strange how different the colours are. But i find both not natural. One is too much green and yellow, the other one has too much red.”
I agree, still my pick is the red one.
Very interesting and thought provoking article, its something I’ve always given thought about too.
I went through 2 years of film school in Japan and was involved in a couple of shoots, and when our rushes came back it looks just like what you’ve dubbed “Toei color”, although we were shooting only on 16mm and not 35mm, which is what most features are shot on. The final look of the footage is decided by the DP and director, so they have to work closely with the colorist or filmgrader during “one light”, the first print of the film. You can manipulate the colors later in post but alot of raw information is “burned in” during the One Light phase and locks the look of the footage.
That said, the Toei color you refer to is possibly the default color of the print with minimal creative intervention at One light. I’m not implying that Japanese filmmakers aren’t skilled enough to achieve different results from their shot footage, but major hollywood productions usually have more resources available ( ie using bleach bypass or requesting Kodak to develop special stocks ) to finetune and create a very specific look and color for the final print.
Well, my calculated guess, I can be woefully wrong.
This is veryyyyy funny. I was complaining about this a week ago to my freinds. I dono why this happens, but you might be right about the diff films that are used, as well as the advances hollywood on comparison to Japan.
Kill Bill, one of my favorite movies :), 1 not 2!
These color results remind me of some of the films made in the 70′s in Europe. (And U.S. for that matter.)
I think one factor to measure color quality in a production is the actual setting itself. In the pictures above, some may be filmed in a actual home or apartment setting as opposed to a studio. I say that, due to the presence of fluorescent lighting in the background. In this case the color quality was doomed from the beginning.