Color Blinded

DanielChesler · April 23, 2004

Hi,

I am Red-Green color blind and I have always wondered if that would ever get in the way of being a cinematographer. My deficiency isn't too great but my light darks appear darker than they should be which makes it difficult to see certain colors.

I am just curious if there are any other cinematographers with the same condition.

Daniel

stijnbarbe · April 23, 2004

well, red and green are two of the three main colors in film and video...

So it won't be easy, and if your color-blindness doens't worsen over years I guess you should be able to get your very own impression of what looks good and what doesn't. You'll need help comparing what looks good to you with someone that sees 'normally'.

I giess I don't know what you see in stead of green for instance. Is it grey compared to blue? can you judge the color's quality?

good luck!

Mitch Gross · April 23, 2004

Don't ever share this in a job interview.

Phil Rhodes · April 23, 2004

Hi,

I'm not sure how big a deal this is, practically speaking. My father can't tell the difference between some types of green and red LEDs, mainly because the green is crappy, but he's perfectly capable of setting up monitors and suchlike. Obviously don't tell the client, but if nobody else notices, you probably won't either.

Phil

Adam Frisch FSF · April 23, 2004

It might even be an advantage: you'll mix colors like no one else! I can hear

them now: "He's so creative with colors that DP!"

mrbill762 · April 24, 2004

Daniel,

Colorblind huh?

Back in the early 70s, I worked at a custom motorcycle shop.

We won tons of awards Best Bike, Best Paint and Best of Show etc.

We had feature articles in Chopper magazine and cover articles in other mags.

Parts were shipped in from all over the country for us to customize and paint.

So what does this have to do with a colorblind cinematographer?

The artist was colorblind. He over came it and so can you.

I am not saying it will be easy, you will need to work harder and persevere, but you can do it.

Good luck.

Mr. Bill

Nate Downes · April 25, 2004

I'm colorblind myself. It takes work, but you can overcome it with practice. (I cheated early on and used a lot of B&W shooting)

DanielChesler · April 26, 2004

thanks, guys. Feeling a lot better.

Nelson Rogers · May 2, 2004

I wouldn't get too stressed about it. I am colourblind as well (red-green) and have been exposing film for over 10years. I started out in photography and the only time I have ever had a problem was printing colour prints and doing the colour correcting for them. Since I have been involved in shooting film (past 5 years) I have not had a problem. It depends how colorblind you are, but as for myself I have become able to tell what a colour is that I might not be too sure of by it's density. No one has ever questioned me. But like Mitch Gross and Phil Rhodes mention, Don't ever tell the client or people that are not color blind. If your not colourblind, most people assume that you don't see colour. But that is a misrepresention of colourblindness. I can see red and green, it is just that sometimes when the density of the two colours are close that they look similar.

But at the sametime, more severe cases of colourblindness do have a lack of some colours and are replaced by grey tones.

Good Luck!