Special interest group:
Colour and Film

Convenors:  

• Sarah Street (University of Bristol)
  
• Liz Watkins (University of Leeds)

Overview

The BAFTSS Colour and Film Special Interest Group is an international forum of scholars, filmmakers, archivists and film conservation specialists.
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The Colour and Film SIG offers a space in which to discuss questions that arise through the study of colour, its technologies, theories, philosophies and their historical contexts in cinema. Utilising the opportunities offered by seminars, screenings, conferences, research projects and publications the group aims to facilitate discussion and collaboration on Colour and Film.​

Areas of research and interest range from the materials and processes that facilitate its use – such as tinting, toning, hand painting, Kinemacolor, Pathécolor, Dufaycolour, Gasparcolor, Agfacolor, Eastmancolor – to the colour designs advocated by companies such as Technicolor, to the history of experimentation in the making, circulation and exhibition of film.

Concepts explored in different contexts and texts include that of ‘natural colour’, realism and spectacle in travel films; the association of colour with cosmetic, ornamentation and all that is trivial despite forming a vital aspect of meaning in film; theories colour perception, subjectivity, affect and sexuality; colour and genre (science fiction, melodrama, horror), through to the conservation, restoration and exhibition of archival film.​

The Colour and Film SIG has organised conference panels and symposiums on colour, realism and artifice in 1930s travel films, and was linked to the Spaces of Imagination conference on intermediality, film archives and their exhibition.

Announcements/CFPs details symposiums, screenings and conference panels organised by the BAFTSS Colour and Film SIG and a list of CFPs and events of interest to the group.​

Notes on Colour blog, projects and publications about colour and film.​

BAFTSS is affiliated with the Colour Group GB who organise an annual International Conference on Colour in Film.

The BAFTSS Special Interest Group on Colour and Film is convened by Professor Sarah Street (University of Bristol) and Dr Liz Watkins (University of Leeds) and continues to welcome new members.

Reports on activities

Annual report

• Colour and Film SIG Annual Report 2019

Funding reports

• Colour in Context Symposium
• Journeys Through Colour Symposium

Founding members

• Birgit Beumers (Aberystwyth University)​
• Erica Carter (King’s College London) 
• Samantha Colling (Manchester Metropolitan University)
• Jan Faull (Royal Holloway University of London)
• Paul Frith (University of East Anglia)
• Jeffrey Geiger (University of Essex)
• Sonia Genaitay (British Film Institute National Archive)​
• Victoria Jackson (University of Bristol)
• Keith M Johnston (University of East Anglia)
• Gaurika Kapoor (University of Sheffield)
• Stephen McBurney (University of Glasgow)
• Gillian McIver (University of Roehampton)
• Ranjani Mazumdar (Jawaharlal Nehru University)
• Kathryn Millard (Macquarie University,)​
• Richard Misek (University of Kent)
• Carolyn Rickards (University of Bristol)
• Steven Roberts (University of Bristol)​
• Kamalika Sanyal (KU Leuven)
• Sanghita Sen (University of St. Andrews)
• Kirsty Sinclair Dootson (Yale University)
• Dominic Topp (University of Kent)
• Kieron Webbn (British Film Institute National Archive)
• Zhaoyu Zhu (Kings College London)