Hero (2002) makes astonishing use of its vivid colour palette, with costumes and locations changing in hue with each altered telling of Jet Li's Nameless Hero's victor.
The Red recount is pure fantasy, whilst the calming blue represents the supposed reality whilst the actual reality is denoted in the white hue scenes, with the green hue being a contemplative and epiphanic version of the story. These colours also have elemental qualities that parallel the variations on choreography in each fight scene.
http://attrition.org/movies/hero.html
The uprise of the ORANGE AND TEAL TREND
As the internet has been quick to Point out, (on more than one occasion), there has been a rapid increase in the lazy use of a contrasting colour system in Hollywood blockbusters, as evidenced by these posters to name but a few...
The trend doesn't stop with the posters however. The digital age ushered in a whole new film making process to replace the previous mechanised practices that were much more time consuming and delicate to master. Post production colour correction is now an easily available to anyone where-as before the colours on screen would have to be pre-determined by lens filters and art direction. Contrast was key for creating mood in black and white films but more easily achieved when there are only two tones to work with. With the advent of colour however creating contrast could be a little more difficult, and it seems that in recent years colourists have looked at opposing hues on a colour wheel and decided that as orange is the closest match to human skin colour than blue is the obvious go to create contrast.
The associated connotations with each colour are also at odds, blue being cool and calming whilst orange is bright and energetic, creating further connoted clashes on screen. The result of this tends to be an overly ambient blue location or background set against characters that look like they've had a tanning accident.
Shia Labouf laments his rejection from Jersey Shore to the Transformers
Although no colour correction would be required, thankfully people from Jersey are seldom cast in films.
The recent trailer for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) perfectly demonstrates the use of this palette, with the dystopian slums shrouded in cold desaturated blues and greys whilst the elite enjoy their luxuries surrounded by a warm orange hue that gives Donald Sutherland and Philip Seymour-Hoffman an un-natural glow almost akin to the titular flames on display.
