Coloring: Struzan Part 1

The Struzan coloring series begins! I wanted to start to delve into just what strategies Struzan uses. Not every montage uses the same strategy. One I noticed used often is what I’m calling the Primary Warm Secondary Cool strategy. In the example below, we can see the the primary color for the characters is neutral/warm orange, and the secondary color is a blue. In this color strategy, Struzan moves the colors to either the Warm or Cool spectrum.

In the most stark example of this color strategy, along with strengthening the shadowing on the Emperor, Struzan colors the shadows and neutral cloth to be Secondary Cool to flow with the overall composition:

Because Vader is a neutral color, he falls in the Secondary Cool category:

If the Emperor and Vader retained their original colors, we can see in the image on the left below that it begins to feel less integrated and harmonized in the composition:

This is how Struzan brings harmony to his compositions. Images from different lighting scenarios, different colors are brought into unity with similar key and shadow fill light colors. Below we see the Primary Warm is yellow and the Secondary Cool is pink/purple:

In the poster below, we can see more of this strategy at work. The Primary Warm is Yellow and the Primary Cool is purple. Purple fills in most to the shadows, and is added to the highlights of Quigon Jin and Padmae, and is added to the highlights and shadows of Darth Maul’s eyes. Even Anakin’s shadow side had hints of desaturated purple.

To wrap it up, this strategy is always most present in neutral objects in Struzan’s works, like the ship: yellow key, purple shadow fill:

And on the Falcon: yellow key, blue shadow fill to flow with the rest of the poster: