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behind-the-screen-of-bangtan · 6 years ago

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The colors in BTS’ works - a noob study

I tried to see if there was anything worth analyzing about the colors and here’s what I came up with. As the title implies, I have no knowledge in color theory nor any observation skill so take it with a grain of salt and don’t hesitate to correct me if you see something wrong^^

When I talk about the main color of a video, I don’t mean it’s the only color used, I just mean that it’s the color that appears the most. It’s obviously completely subjective. Same goes with the identification of the colors: whether it’s a greyish blue or a bluish grey is up to everyone. Again if you disagree, don’t hesitate to tell me!

I’ll mainly focus on the MVs Lumpens worked on since they did the majority of the videos, including the BU ones. GDW did almost all the other MVs, they are usually a bit darker and more action-focused, think “Dope,” “Not Today,” or “Mic Drop”.

I also won’t talk about the Japanese MVs but usually, they have the same color pattern as the Korean version.

There’ll be five parts:

The creation of the world

The red string of fate

The Butterfly dream

The temptation of the Green Fairy

Finding New Neverland, namely accepting the world

The creation of the world

If there’s one dominant color in 2 Cool 4 Skool, it’s black. Be it the boys’ outfits, the background or the lighting, everything is mainly black. And it’s the case in the MVs and the photo concept. They just wear some gold accessories.

In O!RUL8,2? it’s the white that dominates. Interestingly, the two comeback trailers announcing this album start with black as the main color but end with white, like to make the transition between the two albums.

We can consider the boys are associated with the black color (2 Cool 4 Skool and their black uniform in O!RUL8,2?) while the outside world is white. They rebel against this world in “N.O” and win.

However, against all odds, they don’t turn the world in black, they themselves turn in white but with hip-hop outfits and gold accessories, like a white version of their 2 Cool 4 Skool selves. Where the black uniform seems to represent the world trying to force its ideal on the boys, to mold them to its convenience, the white hip-hop outfit could be the boys accepting the outside world without losing their soul, the white cover them like a second skin without hurting their core, namely hip-hop.

Now that black and white are at peace, they can coexist in Skool Luv Affair and Dark & Wild. Other colors will also start appearing, but everything remains quite monochromatic. The only notable color is the light/greyish-yellow, coming mostly from the lighting. Skool Luv Affair also has hints of green in reference to the chalkboard.

While we’re here, doesn’t “Danger” feels like the night version of “Just One Day”? In both, the boy is asking for the girl’s company but one is all black and the other is all white.

In parallel to those albums, we got two concerts: The Red Bullet and BTS Begins. The VCRs follow the aesthetic of an almost monochromatic world with low luminosity and a lot of black. The only exception is the outside scenes in BTS Begins when they all go to school and that have slightly more vivid colors - possibly because it is the outside world that they haven’t explored yet (but they will during 화양연화).

The concept photos also follow this idea. First black, then white, then the two together, then colors. From 2 Cool 4 Skool to 화양연화 Pt.2 we have:

The world stopped being a blinding white for the boy in black who’s now standing in a yellow desert.

The red string of fate

There’s one color I haven’t mentioned until now but that still appeared in a significant way: red.

Since this part is a bit long, I’ll rather redirect you toward A study in red, an old post I rewrote for the occasion.

To make it short, the theme the boys question during an era (happiness, love temptation...) has often a red color.

The boys alone in the desert finds a red string. He starts to follow it, hoping it will lead him to the sea.

The butterfly dream

They finished school and are ready to discover the other colors existing in the world. This way Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa doesn’t have a dominant hue but rather a more or less bright color palette.

What retained my attention was the green and the blue.

Note that I’m probably influenced by the Peter Pan references making me associate green with Peter himself and Neverland and “Sea” where the lyrics explain that the boys are searching for a sea in the desert.

So let’s rather just say the boys explore the outside world and so there are many colors.

One exception to this explosion of colors is “Save Me” with its grey tone. However, in the Concept Book, there’s a note saying “Save Me 화양연화 Pt.0.” And indeed the videos before 화양연화 had also a grey tone so it would actually connect well.

As You Never Walk Alone is the events between 화양연화 and WINGS, I’ll put it here. We still have a palette of colors, maybe slightly paler.

But the MVs have a dominant tone this time: green for “Spring Day,” pink for “Not Today.” I won’t detail “Not Today,” but you can consider its color like the pink of AWAKE or the purple of “Boy Meets Evil”

Interestingly, this green color is associated with the motel Omelas. And I just said we had a green Neverland in 화양연화. We could thus consider that the Omelas the boys are about to leave is the Neverland from 화양연화, the paradise where they thought they could stay young forever.

Where it gets beautiful is that the scenes outside have two main colors, yellow and blue, which mixed make green and that can also be connected with the yellow of the desert and the blue of the sea.

As they have blue and yellow maybe they can try to mix them to find back the happiness from Omelas/Neverland? Sidenote: in the NOW 3 in Chicago Dreaming Days, there’s a part called New Neverland and shot in a park with lots of green and blue. It tends to validate the idea above.

The boy found a green oasis on his path, but it’s not the blue sea he’s searching for.

The temptation of the Green Fairy

So actually the outside world isn’t all that great. Black makes its comeback but it doesn’t represent the boys anymore, it could represent the hostile world, the bad sides of life.

The Short Films are a good example. Four are mainly black: BEGIN, STIGMA, FIRST LOVE, and REFLECTION. LIE and MAMA are white with a hint of blue (sidenote: J-Hope and Jimin are a 화양연화 pair). AWAKE is blue. If we consider each short film as a step in the Demian progression, we can find an explanation:

the four black ones (Suga, RM, V, Jungkook) are still wandering between youth and adulthood, lost

the blue one (Jin) has reached adulthood, namely the blue sea. Note that considering the light blue of the room and the possibility Jin is the bird from Demian, we could also see it as a blue sky, the one you fly through to reach Abraxas.

J-Hope has almost reached the AWAKE stage so he has a white background with a blue pajama. Jimin lies and pretends he’s also near the final stage when actually he’s not.

We have a possible epilogue to J-Hope’s progression in “Boy Meets Evil.”

“Boy Meets Evil” is neither red (temptation) nor blue (AWAKE stage), it’s purple, right between the two. In the same idea, the hallway Jin crosses in AWAKE is pale pink so it seems that before reaching the final stage, you have to go through this pink/purple/red path.

“Blood, Sweat & Tears” (and the concert trailer for The Wings Tour actually) seems to be the same thing, but for the remaining boys. The temptation appears in hues of red and purple. And we even have a blue room, like in AWAKE.

But now let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

There’s green in “Blood, Sweat & Tears”. Like a ton of green. So much green, Jungkook actually mentioned it in the Episode.

You may remember I named this part “The temptation of the Green Fairy”. Green Fairy is one of the names used to designate Absinthe, the green liquid RM drinks in the MV. Basically, it’s associated with decadence, death, and poets.

So it seems this time the green color isn’t related to Neverland/Omelas/Youth but to the theme of the album, namely temptation. But why the change then? Usually, they have the red color for the theme of the album.

It’s just my guess but since another theme of WINGS is the end of youth, it could be that the boys are too old for Neverland and so it becomes toxic for them: they have to let go of their childhood (and find the New Neverland/Blue Sea).

Red is the general idea of temptation - think about the red apple - while green would be the temptation to live in the past - funny for a time travel story, isn’t it?

The boy misses the green oasis, he wants to step back rather than searching for the sea.

Finding New Neverland, namely accepting the world

And finally, we reach Love Yourself era. While it’s pretty clear all the colors are brighter than in any other era, it’s hard to find dominant ones. Be it the Highlight Reels or Euphoria, we have a color palette like during HYYH, probably meaning the boys are exploring the outside world.

But it seems yellow and blue are slightly more present in the MVs for the main tracks. You can also think about the blue mold and the yellow blanket in “Serendipity”.

They accept to renounce to the green and to rather live in a world with yellow and blue, namely the desert and the sea. Like they accept to love themselves no matter how imperfect they are, they accept the world.

The last hints of green are in “Serendipity” and “Epiphany”. In the first one, it’s probably a remaining illusion. Tear proved Her is a lie:

the black “Singularity” invalidated the green “Serendipity”. They’re still trying to escape the world of temptations like in WINGS

“FAKE LOVE” going from the blue sea to the yellow desert invalidated the illusion from “DNA” where blue and yellow existed together

The green in “Epiphany” is most likely Jin's last attempt to change the past: the current time is grey, it turns green when Jin travels back in time and goes back to grey when he reaches the same future. I said it’s his last attempt because at the end when he goes out, the colors stay grey and it fits with the lyrics.

As this time they accepted their destiny, it seems the yellow and blue co-existing in “IDOL” is for real this time.

The boy found the blue sea. He doesn’t hate the yellow desert anymore. He has reached the New Neverland.

As a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll use an ugly one for my conclusion:

Nota Bene: it’s interesting to consider those colors based on the Teageuk. The red is associated with the negative cosmic energies and the Earth: it’s the dystopian world from where the boys started. The blue is associated with positive energies and Heaven: it’s the ocean the boys dream to reach. Yellow represents humanity: the boys are in the desert and eventually they realize it’s from this desert that the ocean comes from. Combining the yellow humanity with the blue hope gives green, which represents youth in Bangtan’s works according to the WINGS Concept Book.

#BTS #Love Yourself #Wings #Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa #Dark & Wild #School Trilogy #Color study

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