Color Wheel

 A circular arrangement of colours. The colour wheel used in this software follows the approach of Johannes Itten and consists of three orders of colours. The first order encompasses the so-called primary colours – yellow, red and blue – that all other colours can be mixed from. The second order is made up of the secondary colours, i.e. those that are mixed from the primaries and includes orange, purple and green. The third order, the tertiary colours, are those that are mixed from one primary and one secondary colour and include yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green and yellow-green. Together with his colour theory, Itten developed a group of seven colour contrasts based on the colours of his colour wheel that describe varying subjective effects that different colour contrasts and combinations have on the viewer. A systematical analysis of an excerpt regarding its colour contrasts can be very useful for an artistic analysis of the colour composition. The colour contrasts that are particularly relevant for film analysis are the contrast of pure hue, the complementary contrast, the light-dark contrast, the cool-warm contrast and the contrast of saturation.