That's an old technique going back to silent movies. Blue conveys nighttime in our minds. Many night scenes back in the early days and going into color were shot during the daytime.
It's because they shoot in digital and don't bother to do the proper color grading. This was really bothering me as I had a chance to see the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films again recently, and was taken aback by how vibrant and lively they looked compared to modern movies, not just superhero flicks.
The use of blue to symbolize moonlight predates cinema — magic lantern slides would sometimes tint night illustrations blue. Silent Era movies also sometimes tinted exterior night scenes blue since they were usually shot in the daytime and it was one way of telling the audience this was a night scene.
Why are Hollywood movies blue-ish? Great question. This is a modern trend in films to create a color cast on the scene that is opposite to human skin tone. If you look at a color wheel you will see natural skin tones are on the brown red side of the wheel.
Generally, cool or blue light gives the audience a sense of calm during the film. But it can also be used to create a somber or suspenseful scene. Warm lighting, on the other hand, is more comforting. It can conjure up feelings of joy and ease. Or, it can be used to depict anger and hostility.
In fact, both projectors and TVs emit blue light. However, since you do not look at the light source of the projector directly, all the blue light you receive is reflected from the projector screen. This is in contrast to TVs, whose emitted blue light goes straight into your eyes.
These blue marks are actually areas of over-exposure. What has happened here is that the chemical opacification layer (which protects your film from light after ejection from the camera) did not have enough time to mix and spread before the photo was exposed to the ambient light in your environment.
If you watch a lot of movies and TV shows, you might have noticed that over the last few decades everything has gotten a lot more ... gray. No matter the kind of story being told, a sheen of cool blue or gray would wash over everything, muting the colors and providing an overall veneer of serious business.
Blue film is a term used for pornographic films. A film that contains graphic sexual content. The use of "blue" to mean lewd or indecent dates from the mid-1800s, though the origin is unclear. A lot of kids at school got in trouble for trading blue films.
Because blue screens have lower luminance, there's less chance of color spill around the edges of your actors. If you're filming a shot where the actor and the chroma key background are close together, use a blue screen as it will help ensure the color spill will be much less.
Blue Tint (variations: Azure, Nocturne) - For night scenes that had no visible light source other than the moon. Blue tone (processed in Ferric ferrocyanide solution) was also somewhat common and usually an amber tint were used for scenes well lit by lamps, candles, etc.
Blue tends to represent competence, loyalty, productivity and high quality. You're probably also aware that blue represents masculinity – both consciously and subconsciously – for many, just as pink represents femininity.
The lower the VLT, the darker the tint, where 5% is the darkest window tint on the market and used to “blackout” windows for privacy or security tinting. 50 VLT is common for the everyday luxury car owner looking to reduce sunlight and enhance the appearance of their high-end vehicles.
There are many technical reasons why films can appear "darker" than they used to be – from the way we film them, to the way we watch them. But it's important to remember this trend of "darkness" in media is also sometimes an intentional creative choice – from directors, to DPs, to studio executives, and more.
Explanation n°1: digital color grading. Movies take multiple weeks or months to film. During the editing stage, the footage that is assembled may have been shot over multiple days. The light might be different, affecting the decor (leaves on the trees, sky…) with hues that don't match across the various scenes.
Since human skin tones are generally in the orange spectrum, it can be aesthetically pleasing to compliment this with the colour that sits opposite that, which is, well… Well, I'm sure you've figured it out. It's blue.
Generally, the oranges are used to highlight explosions, bright skies and boost skin tones towards the hyper-real end whilst the contrasting blues (opposite orange on the colour wheel) exaggerate stormy skies/seas and help create mood and tension.
WIth movie technology ever-growing, a similar trend in cinematic quality would be expected to follow, and for a time it did. But huge studios, like Marvel and Disney, have been showcasing a notable decline in quality.
In 2019, people bought about 1.2 billion movie tickets. By the time 2023 is done, a little over 800 million tickets will have been sold. That's an improvement over the COVID years. But it's still about a third less — and that's with the gloriously bizarro phenomenon that was Barbenheimer.
In 2020, researchers at the UK's Science Museum Group analyzed the colors in over 7,000 photographs of everyday objects in their collection dating from 1800 to the present day. The results were striking as beginning around 1900, the color palette of these objects grew progressively more gray and less diverse over time.
Hollywood films use a yellowish tint to portray countries like India or Mexico in order to depict them as a bygone era of lawlessness and poverty. Blue tinting is associated with progress and technology, but was not used due to technological limitations making actors look unnatural.
The specific issue of a blue cast is likely caused by your camera being set to “Tungsten Light” when your image is actually lit by white/natural light. Change your White Balance setting to “Daylight” when white/natural light is your source of illumination.
Most flat-panel LCD TVs have an LED backlight. An LED backlight is bright, slim, and efficient, but LED lighting often has a cool color temperature, which casts a slight blue tint. This quality is most noticeable when viewing a white image and much less noticeable when viewing other colors.
