The Blue & Orange Film Still dilemma

My brother, Nathaniel, and I were talking about color correction, specifically within movies. He mentioned an article he read (very similar to this one at Into the Abyss), about cinematographer's lighting the subjects with an orange light and the background with blue light and how it is used quite often. We agreed that it was a pleasing look, but also that it was a somewhat lazy approach to lighting because it works so well.

Disturbia with Shia Labeouf

Disturbia

Disturbia

Eagle Eye with Shia Labeouf and Michelle Monaghan

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
with Dan Radcliffe and Bonnie Wright

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
with Robert Downey Jr.

Isn't there some sort of drive in all creatives to create something original

For some cases, it make absolute perfect sense, like combining natural lighting with indoor lighting. The two temperatures create blue and orange lighting respectively. I've seen blogs mention teal/orange "offenders" where this is the case. Right now I'm sitting in a room with a window and tungston light: blue and orange. The first two Disturbia images I posted above pass with this exception.


I'm going to say this and then retract my statement a little, but just bear with me. Generally, if everybody is doing something, then suddenly I don't want to do it at all. But really, that's not entirely true, because I don't want what somebody else is doing to limit what I am doing, so on those terms I do what I want. I am inspired by what other people are doing, and I consider what other people are doing, and if I feel what I am doing is exactly the same, then more often than not I don't want to do it anymore. That's not always the case, because perhaps teal and orange is exactly the right choice to create some sort of mood. If I don't use teal and orange, suddenly I am losing because my pride got the better of me.

And to be honest, I like the look. Not all the time, but complimentary colors are nice looking, and just because it's prevalent doesn't mean it's gross. Teal is a beautiful color, and it looks great in movies and posters (which also suffer from a lot of teal/orange designs).

With that said, orange lighting makes everyone looks like they got a really bad tan, and that's not cool.