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I love blues mixed with oranges. I have ever since I watched Jawbreaker for the first time, and was desperately jealous of Julie and her funky bedding. And, lucky me, I’ve been able to enjoy this combination all over the place these days. It’s a popular modern color combination, and has become a beloved contrast in Hollywood’s world of film-tweaking. However, as blogger Into the Abyss points out, it’s overtaking Hollywood.
Abyss writer Todd Miro has shared a pretty excellent account of how this teal-orange phenomenon came to be, and some of mainstream cinema’s worst offenders. He explains how Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?](O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2001) - Movie | Moviefone) was the first feature to get scanned into a computer and put through a Digital Intermediary (DI) process, which allows filmmakers to control the color of every element in a film. This lead to complimentary color theory (where flesh tones thrive with teal) being implemented in many big-screen flicks, no genre being safe – the horror and gloom of Wolfman, the superhero ways of Iron Man 2, the digital wonder of Tron 2, the retro laughs of Hot Tub Time Machine, and the prize for “one of the worst examples of unchecked teal and orange stupidity” – Transformers 2](Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) - Movie | Moviefone).
So, keep an eye out next time you pop a disc into a player or hit the cineplex, you may just find yourself drowning in a sea of teal and orange. If you’ve noticed the phenomenon before, what flicks do you find to be the worst offenders?