Simplicity best with TV colour

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33370, 31 October 1973, Page 1

Simplicity best with TV colour

Last Monday, a group of television set designers, make -up artists, production secretaries, producers, graphic artists and others were brought together under the direction of the N.Z.B.C.’s senior producer responsible for the change to colour (Mr Eric Price), and using “any old bits of tat” they built themselves some stage sets.

The results were not always attractive or effective on the colour television screen but they were oresumably instructive. The exercise was one part of a

.series of courses Mr Price has been running in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch to illustrate the principles of colour television and to give the people concerned a little experience in it. Colour, it appears, comes in two forms—“subtractive,” which is the colour of surfaces, objects, virtually everything that can be put in front of a camera; and “additive,” which is the colour of coloured light. In black-and-white television the most important matter is the amount of light available. In colour, the quality of the light is all important. For instance on a 'bright sunny day light is blue; later in the day it gets ireddish; and indoors it is usually yellow—-all of which

has a crucial effect on the colour TV picture. “We want to develop in the production staff an awareness of colour,” says Mr Price. “The average person forgets how much colour is all around him. On television the cameras ■ tend to reproduce colour at full strength without the softening brought about by haze and distance and so on that occurs in real life.” Directors have to resist the temptation to exaggerate, said Mr Price. “A director who tries to be bold may well end up being garish. The need is to present things simply, because coljour tends to exaggerate by I itself. I “Sometimes people get so i hooked on the colour they

forget what the programme is about. One of the things we are constantly saying is that a programme done in colour must look at least as good in black and white.” Mr Price’s experience in television—colour, and black and white—is considerable. He left the Ardmore Teachers’ College where he taught physical education (he has a doctorate in the subject) to go to England on a drama bursary 18 years ago. He has worked since then as a freelance producer and director in England and the United States and was for a time a professor of communications at the University of North Carolina. For local producers Mr Price has prepared some advice for guests appearing on’

colour television. Reds and blues, because they are exaggerated on the colour screen, are to be avoided. Men should wear midtoned suits of any colour,offwhite or pastel shirts and muted ties. A shave shortly before going to the studio minimises the risk of a blue jowl. Women look nicest in muted tones, with a minimum of jewellery. Smooth, very shiny fabrics, especially in light colours, are unflattering, and may cause technical difficulties, but fur, wool, cotton, linen, tweed, suede and leather are all good. Neither men nor women should drifik before going on camera — it makes their noses glow.