Abstract:

(School of FilmTelevision Arts and Technologies, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200072, China)Abstract： As a symbol of unique medium and emotion expression, colors in filmtelevision works have their own ways to transmit information. First, there is a universally accepted bonding between colors and conceptions. Secondly, just as ordinary language does, color language obeys aggregation and combination relations. But different from ordinary language, it possesses the double features of simulation and performance codes. Actually, the code systems of color language and image language are different. On the one hand, image language, due to the difference of color and brightness, and, under the circumstance of the same signifier (image), can form such a big contrast in the level of the signified, even transmitting such an exact opposite meaning that it can not cover completely with color language; and on the other hand, color language can use pigment to create some expressions capable to communicate with audience, which, in general, are limited by these two restrictions of cultural custom and mental suggestion. While different influences of cultural custom make color language characteristic of nationalities, psychological meaning produced by color suggestion is a universal consensus. What' s more, color language can shape image to give an impetus to the development of stories. Different combination of color elements, whether being within a single picture or between scenes, can constitute a specific "sentence" of connotation, forming the statements of characters' traits such as goodness, evilness, beauty and ugliness. And the conversion and linkup between scenes also make colors characteristic of the "linear" combination, more inclined to complete the meaning communication of a complicated event. Colors can be considered as a language, not only because it features signifying, aggregation and combination, but also because these connotations are all by reallife. Some color forms already influence peoples' awareness. The color language that becomes a kind of expressional pattern or formulaic mark often starts audience' s life experience or knowledge reserve, thus being able to form an acquiescent bonding between colors and conceptions. Since people are easy to accept the implied meaning in it, color language possesses an ideographic function.

Key words: color language, cultural custom, mental suggestion, pigment combinations, ideographic function