Colour through material

Colour lives in things and in light, never in a list.

Give colour a material, a light and a job; never list colours on their own. "A mustard wool coat going brown in the shade of the arcade." Tie each colour to a source in frame.

The palette is named and tied to material and light. The 60/30/10 split (a main, a secondary and an accent colour by share of the frame) is used only when you or the brief asks for it. A lighting ratio (the key's strength against the fill: 2:1 soft, 4:1 dramatic, 8:1 noir) is optional, written where it helps.

The hero colour leads. Option: use it when the plan names it for a product or brand film [single strong source]. Write the brand or hero colour as the most intense colour in the frame, once, in STYLE or POSITIVE LOCKS: "the tin's teal is the most intense colour in every shot; nothing else in frame is that teal". It carries the treatment's palette into video. A brand film may choose otherwise.

What failure looks like: colour drifts warm or cold. Fix it by saying which colour dominates and where another may appear, plus a failure sentence, a line saying what would make the clip wrong: "the clip is wrong if any warm light appears outside the candle flame".

Avoid the usual AI colour looks unless the treatment chose them (see Making it feel real → The usual AI defaults to avoid).

Sources

• Higgsfield's Red Flag (colour dominance and containment, with a failure sentence).