Vision: Colour and Composition for Films

A world-renowned production designer shares his wisdom on colour and composition in this superlative instruction guide

A world-renowned production designer shares his wisdom on colour and composition in this in-depth guide.

Production designer Hans P Bacher is best known for creating the iconic looks of Disney classics such as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. In this book, he shows how to use colour and composition to evoke an emotional response.

Of course, just because an artist is famous doesn’t mean they write good books. But in this case, Hans and his co-author Sanatan Suryavanshi pull it out of the bag. This 242-page hardback is as elegantly designed and illustrated as it is useful and informative.

There’s an almost imposing amount of content inside, and it would probably take you weeks to plough through it all properly. Yet everything is concisely written and easy to follow. And while this book is grounded in the world of animation, the principles it explains – from using lines, shapes, colour and light to creating characters and understanding the psychology of imagery – can be applied to all methods of creating art.

In short, this is an excellent resource that every artist should consider adding to their collection.

As Hans explains, different lighting schemes help to create mood and enhance aspects of a scene.

The book contains exercises for putting your new-found knowledge into practice, such as identifying different colour strategies.