Why teal and orange is like sugar

Teal and Orange is a quick way to sweeten up imagery which has become omnipresent in modern industry of visual medias.
There are people that do not respond to it as they are supposed to, but they don't have the freedom for a choice, because it's grown to such extend that variability becomes diminished. Those are the people that suffer because their voices are suffocated under the weight of the masses. This is also a counteract to the ideal of freedom of speech, democracy and true emancipation for equality which should be the guiding ideal of a modern society. The variety and not the forceful limitation.
Medias is a huge part of culture and culture is a huge part of humankind itself. Of who you are and what the dreams and inspiration acting like a mirror of society.


Teal and Orange, luminose sharpening and overly defined pictures become easy gratification, but those ways show no compassion. Its like heavy compressed music, easily impressed without the sustaining weight. Of course its nice and gives you that quick reward, but it does not prevail.
Its like consuming media already digested, or fast food. You might want to enjoy a story, easy way is watching a movie- but if you really want a good story, take the time and read a book. It might be harder work, but the effect more compelling. Everyone should strife to strife for the highest level of compassion. If you get the quick route, you might be rewarded instantly but it might say something about your personality. You are shallow or unable to perceipt depth and complexity.
If your hungry or in the mood for something tasty, you might eat a burger or chocolate. But it can also make you addicted and it becomes a sickness. The body and brain unlearns to critizice and digest the information.

Critique is vital for longevity because it strenghtens the immunity to become addicted or easily seduced by the ruthless consumption of subjects.
Real art is basically hard work and constant re-evaluation of information for mind and body. That is why critique is so vital. If you unlearn to evaluate art on your own perception and understanding of the bases. Your mind starts to loosen the ability to criticize. And it will constantly lower the aspiration . That is why teal and orange and many other marketing tricks are acting like sugar. Decades of marketing have focused on how to manipulate consumers (you) the best and fastest. That is why the free market is dangerous. They want you as fast and quickly it gets. That is money, but also the need to impress. This world is dangerous and a constant exposition to threats. The critic is very important to help understanding and properly evaluate any information, because it helps you to stay alive.

Teal and Orange tones might look nice because they give you that instant warm and cozy feeling, add strong overall sharpness and the image gives you instantly, easy digestable information. Now this might be desirable but it gives the brain nothing to do. You loose the ability to interpret complex information. In the 70-90s people mightve been optimistic, needing bright colors and strong colors because of the war and all. Now movies are very subdued in colors and boosted in strong contrast and luminose sharpness. There is a constant warm orange going on in every single picture. Teal is a warm hue of blue. You get that sweet silky sugar of those warm colors thorough a movie.
But this is not a request or desire for warm and vibrant colors as in the 90s. It has become a sickness and urgent addiction to have those colors everywhere due to over-exposition. Its a simple question of marketing.

Additionally comes the need for very dark and depressing stories and developments. And you get a very dangerous or at least questionable mix for the brain to process.
Now you can go watch a movie that does strife off and offers all those requirements, expect you cant! Because its everywhere! Those are mainstream movies costing billions of valuable material and ressources. Those mainstream movies are a giant part of humans and society, of who and how your friends are and to what things they are exposed to. Those movies are mighty important for culture. I dont want to live in a society populated by people that are basically all addicted to sugar. But then you can also say "it's just a movie"...

Regrading Film Classics

This is a concept of how would The Blues Brothers (1980) look if it was made today?

Obviously it is slightly exaggerated. But considering that this movie would probably be regarded as a kind of independent movie (being musical and all), it would receive such color-treatment.
Independent movies are often very bold in their super imposed color-grading. Often tending to an extreme green/yellow look. Just like modern Blockbusters, but just a tad more the green spectrum and more extreme. As if trying to say: "look I'm special. Not one of those mainstream mediums".
I can assure that the conception is not that far off from reality.

Upper images are as they appear originally.

Lower are regraded to a modern independent mainstream look.

Weekly rant about teal and orange

Here is a short opinion and explanation of why teal and orange, or the modern sense of visual aesthetics is so completely off.

You often hear about modern-blockbuster-color grading supporters:

But those are two complimentary colors!

Don't give me that BS.
First. those are two contrasting colors, I know they go well with each other thorough the color-spectrum. But don't call that psycho-BS "complimentary" on me.
Second. In nature the two complimentary colors are actually RED and BLUE and continuously wonder myself, what happened to those two primary colors?
Because of the in-decisiveness? We want to be special! We want to give this movie a really special look!
With teal we can have green and blue at the same time, while having orange which is red and yellow the same time. How convenient! You can have the whole color-spectrum on the screen simultaneously, all-the-time!
But in the end it does look just like that. Completely de-graded, lack of direction, an undefined mess of homogeneity and ultimate visual diffusion.
It's like black and white all over again, but instead with teal and orange.

The extension of color-palette or visual tools is a giant BIG, FAT LIE!

Here are two examples of movies which pushed the look of teal orange to it's respective extreme end. They did it exactly of those reasons and the only they came up with, is pushing the modern color grading to either extreme end.
Completely lack of color-variety or "visual extension" as they like to call it.
In opposition it's the complete degradation and extreme restriction of any variety of color:

 (TEAL)     In the Heart of the Sea:

(ORANGE)     Mad Max - Fury Road:

What if Jurassic World was not color graded that heavily?
Here is a screencap from the Tv-Spot Trailer regraded to have more natural colors.

The upper is at it originally appears (in the movie).
The lower is re-graded to represent a more natural color-palette.

Notice how it clearly enhances the artificial look of the cgi-made dinosaurs.
There you have it, the color-grading tint and the hazy look, is primarily there to mask the bad cgi. Yes, BAD cgi, because look at it!
It makes the image look like one of those Dinosaur documentaries from the nineties.
And this is a BAD thing, because there is no excuse to sacrifice solid visuals to just have another movie, because it forcefully MUST show things which are hard to project naturally, at all costs.
Here we are talking about the godfather that practically invented cgi-graphics.

Decide which one you like better.

What if Terminator: Genisys was not color-graded that heavily?
Here's a Trailer Screencap regraded to have more natural colors.

The upper is as it originally appeared in the Trailer.
The lower is re-graded to have more natural colors (at least more in the vein of the 90s).
Decide yourself which you like the best.


I think if a movie gets a sequel, one thing I could never stand, is when they completely depart from the original and look like they belong to a different universe. If you want a sequel, there should always be continuity and integrity in it's makeup. That does not only conform to the overall visual aesthetics, but also the soundtrack.
Some movies live so strongly on their soundtracks that are part of the whole film as a piece of united artwork.
Then comes a composer that does something completely different, NO, you can't do this!
This same happens for visuals and audio. If you want to try something out, or bring in your own personality, a long beloved pop-cultural series is NOT the place to do so!

There goes another Mad Max - Fury Road re-grade of a picture in a promotional image-set.

The upper is as it appeared originally.
The lower is re-graded to have a more natural color-palette.
Decide yourself which you like best.

Here is another screencap from Mad Max - Fury Road regraded to have more natural colors

The upper is original-color as it appears in the movie.
The lower one is regraded to represent a more natural color-palette.
Decide yourself which one you like best.

Just a little rant about how Mad Max - Fury Road would look if it wasn't color-graded that heavily.

The upper one is how it originally appears. The lower one is corrected to more natural colors.
Decide which one you like the best.