Contrast and Affinity

“Contrast of tone means two shades of grey that are as different in terms of brightness as possible” (Block 2008:10)

“Any grey tones next to each other on the grey scale have affinity” (Block 2008:10)

“The greater the contrast in a visual component, the more the visual intensity or dynamics increases. The greater the affinity in a visual component, the more the visual intensity or dynamics decreases” (2008:10)

In the films screened so far, how does visual structure use contrast and affinity?

Here is a scene from ‘Barefoot Gen. This is the scene where the audience is first introduced to Gen’s family, here they have been in hiding from the air raids and it is just being announced that the air raid is clear and it is okay to come out of hiding. The contrast in this scene is very high, all the characters are black silhouettes with a white outline and the light from the sun is bright white and has a sharp effect, this could be to emphasise that the characters may have been in hiding for a long time, the same effect when you turn the light on in the middle of the night, your eyes are not used to the light and it causes you to squint until you get used to it, this could be used to show that the characters have not been used to be out in broad sunlight for a while due to the air raids.

In this scene Gen and Shinji are helping their father on the wheat fields, they are having fun, and we see Shinji and Gen’s relationship with their father, they are playing around and an having fun, we can see that they have a happy and healthy family life.  This scene is calm; there is greater affinity than the scene shown above, there is no sharpness to this image, we see two boys laughing, running having fun, the weather is a sunny, and there is a soft blue sky. This scene looks child-like, as if it had been made for the specific audience of young children, this style is not carried out throughout the whole film, the style changes when dealing with more sinister subjects.

This is the scene were the atomic bomb hits the town of Hiroshima we can see that there is a lot of contrast in this scene, the land is all white with a black outline and the red is the atomic bomb going off. The red contrasts the almost white background. Using the colour red as the colour of the bomb going off could be to indicate blood, and the death of the many many people that the atomic bomb will murder and leave the city devastated.

Here are the images of when the bomb hits Hiroshima, the colour fades out of the images and we see the black and white harsh images. This effect adds intensity to the scene, and the audience is aware that something terrible is happening.