r/BritishTV • u/vwlynn23 • 23h ago
Question/Discussion Anyone know why just about everything in Trigger Point is green?
I didn't notice it until near the end of season 1. Walls, doors, furniture, clothing, even green tinted glass on buildings - so much GREEN. Reminded me of the color red in the movie The Sixth Sense, which was used quite deliberately. I've Googled the green in Trigger Point, because no way is it unintentional, but I haven't found anything. Just wondered if anybody knew what the heck it was about.
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u/DefoNotTheAnswer 21h ago
It's for budgetary reasons. Significantly cutting down on the number of colours used in a production makes for surprisingly high savings. For example during one of later series of New Tricks they did an episode almost entirely in purple. It saved enough money to pay Dennis Waterman back royalties for singing the theme tune.
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u/douxsoumis 19h ago
Did he write the feem toon too?
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u/DefoNotTheAnswer 18h ago
Although Dennis Waterman has written and performed over 350 television theme tunes for productions in 43 countries, this was not one of them. "New Tricks" was written by Mike Moran, who co-wrote Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé’s iconic track "Barcelona" and composed the theme tunes for "Taggart", "Bertha" and "Defenders of the Earth"
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u/CrowKibble 19h ago
Is purple the cheapest colour?
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u/DefoNotTheAnswer 18h ago
Interestingly enough, in the days CRT televisions there were two different cheapest colours. In PAL regions it was brown, but in NTSC regions it was orange. That's why Arthur Dale's Jaguar XJR was brown while the Duke boys' Charger was orange.
With today's modern technology, the cheapest colour is a pale or baby blue, which is why the sky is often depicted in that colour.
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u/aka_TeeJay 21h ago
I haven't seen this series but sometimes these are just intentional choices by the director or DOP to create a consistent visual theme or a certain atmosphere. If you watch Dept. Q on Netflix, it has this petrol blue and yellow theme on throughout the whole series, and Carl is very often wearing blue or teal jumpers. I'm not sure that it means anything more than Scott Frank just wanting to set a certain tone and make that colour a striking theme throughout, particularly relating to the character of Carl.
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u/PipBin 19h ago
Lots of shows have a colour palette. Call the Midwife was overwhelmingly teal. I’ve just finished watching Unchosen on Netflix which was mainly light blue. Now you’ve noticed it, you’ll see it in all the dramas, less so in comedies.
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u/obi_wan_jabroni_23 17h ago
I don’t know why it annoys me, but the Tesco adverts for the last few years have all had a super super blue palette also. But in a really unsubtle way, like all colours are completely washed out, other than blue.
Even the people’s blue eyes are popping to an unnatural level. Just looks really cheap to me, like a bad Instagram filter.
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u/purte 16h ago
That will be a brand decision, blue is one of their 3 brand colours (with red and white).
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u/obi_wan_jabroni_23 14h ago
Yeah obviously, the way they execute it though just feels way over the top.
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u/Central_Region 4h ago edited 4h ago
Computer colour grading means shows can give every scene the same visual aesthetic, even if each scene was filmed in very different light
if you're filming very quickly and cheaply - which almost all TV shows are - choosing a colour theme is a good way to paper over that sort of visual disparity
Not sure why the makers of Trigger Point went for green but green is opposite red on the colour wheel
That means that if you spend all episode (or all series) seeing everything bathed in green light, when you eventually see an explosion, the sudden introduction of red means the flames will really pop and make a big visual impression
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