Animation Practice: Aesthetic Style in Movies

Aesthetic Style in Movies

Aesthetic styles in movies exist for many reasons. In some movies it is to give the film a unique, interesting look, and in the case of adaptations of pre-existing media, such as comic books and graphic novels, it is done to capture the style of the source material. An example of the latter is the movie 'Sin City', directed by Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller.

Sin City is the movie adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name. The graphic novel is notoriously for it's incredibly unique and gritty art style and the movie attempts to replicate the aesthetics of the novel to some degree.

Frank Miller's Sin City was notable for being very detailed at times while only using a black/white colour scheme.

The movie attempts to recapture the art style of the graphic novel. While there is a noticeably softer look to the style due to being a filmed movie and not an illustration, the only colour present besides the gradient of white to black is the colour red.

The graphic novel's art style is heavily influenced by film noir, as seen by the use of high contrast colouring and shading. Other colours are featured occasionally as a way to draw attention to specific characters, or to illustrate their importance.

Heavy, sharp shadows were a major part of film noir movies, whether it simply be a character's shadow as a result of the high contrast lighting, or a deliberate use of lighting to show a character who is currently off-screen with only their shadow. 

Film Noir was notorious for it's use of high contrast lighting. Characters or objects becoming silhouettes against a white background was common.

Film Noir is known for it's depressing, dark and gritty atmosphere, and Sin City is no exception. Perfectly capturing the tone of film noir, Sin City, and it's film adaptation, have become widely regarded as the most aesthetically unique media to date.