This video essay is most effective in communicating some fascinating and essential aspects of 1950s and 60s colour design in Hollywood. Huene’s work is relatively unknown, and the manuscript quotations are very effective in giving the essay the context it needs in order for the key issues to come across strongly to the viewer. The written, contextualizing part of the submission is well researched and presented. The key film example of Let’s Make Love works very well as a means of communicating the complexities of the work achieved by the so-called ‘neutral’ colours. The design elements of the essay are a wonderful way to illustrate the importance of charts and planning of colour in films from this period, and as a reminder of Technicolor’s foundational methods (Natalie Kalmus, Technicolor’s first ‘color consultant’ warned against ‘super abundance’ and pioneered the use of colour charts). These often receive less analytical attention in discussions about film colour, and foregrounding them visually in this way provides ample evidence as to why they ought to receive as much attention to, and in their relationship with, more saturated colours.

An interesting area the essay is intriguingly suggestive about is what motivates the close-up of the background in the dancing number scene. It’s a perfect way to introduce the essay’s theme in detail as a means of illustrating the infinite and complex textures commented upon in the essay. Thoughts on its narrative motivation might have been possible in a longer work.

The essay made me think, without this being particularly foregrounded, how greys, browns and beiges can be used to contrast with black and white. Marilyn Monroe’s black beret in the sequence analysed, for example, leaps out as a visual marker for her around whiteness and all that that signifies. This is all the more striking with the beret’s stark contrast with her blonde hair and lighter beige coat. A figure passing the couple as they walk down the street is dressed entirely in black and white and while the woman is only an extra in the film her presence is an important aspect of the scene’s chromatic design and draws the eye.

I really enjoyed the video essay; it’s a great way of making the point most clearly about how analysing films through their colours can be so instructive. The essay demonstrates most persuasively how the form is an excellent means of communicating ideas and information about the fascinating details of how film colour design worked in practice.