If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Are you looking to buy If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling? Here is the right place to find the great deals. we can offer discounts of up to 90% on If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling. Check out the link below:

>> Click Here to See Compare Prices and Get the Best Offers

If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling ReviewI really wanted what this book promised, what it held out to me in the "search inside" feature - but the deficiencies in style, content, and format are severe enough to warrant a serious warning against purchasing this book, or at the very least, this edition.
The text is written like new-age spiritual guidance lit - there are gaps in logic everywhere, and every argument is based off of a story instead of a fact. Providing some acuity on a color or its psychological effects would be what I would expect from a book that costs as much as a textbook, instead, the reader is put in the mood for the upcoming chapter with descriptions of color that read like horoscopes. Reds are divided up into "Powerful, lusty, and defiant reds," & "Anxious, angry, and romantic reds." Why not start off with cool reds and warm reds? Because you're being sold on the words, not on the colors, and not on some sort of proof.
Which leads me to the fact that there are 28 stills from films in this 243 page book. To reiterate: 243 page book on visual storytelling, 28 examples. Oh, there are some nice pictures of road signs and various other stock photos, and - no joke - some paintings the author's students made. 12 of those inside. They're kind of nice. But they are nothing more than a cheap magician's misdirection - these students come up again and again as proof that people "see" a color a certain way. Yeah, red's "anger" or "passion." I don't need a book, or someone else's experience to tell me this - I bump my head, or rub my eyes, and I see red. I want to be told how red communicates anger and passion to an audience. Simply stating that it does so is not providing me with a fact, it's providing a tautology.
Now let's look past the medium and to the message: as long as we take the emotional cues we're told to, we have a little interesting analysis underscored with flecks of color theory, but this is in fact still a problem - the text ought to be centered around the color theory; instead, the sections read like some films were screened, the author wrote down a couple obvious ideas, then filed them by color - and missed the best films and points entirely. Where is Kieslowski's COLORS trilogy? Three top-shelf films, each based around a color, ignored. Talking about the color orange in "The Godfather?" How about, I don't know, mentioning the ORANGES present when main characters are killed? No sir. How about a chapter for black, and a chapter for white? Not technically colors, sure, but we use them as and/or with colors. A lot.
If you're really considering purchasing this book, try very hard to find it at a library first. Or look up a color on wikipedia. If you're set on spending money, buy a color wheel, or simply look further for color theory.
I'm going to donate my copy to the library.
If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling Overview

Want to learn more information about If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die: The Power of Color in Visual Storytelling?

>> Click Here to See All Customer Reviews & Ratings Now