Get Into Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix

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Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix is the fifth movie among eight movies in Harry
Potter series. This movie was directed by David Yates—who soon will be directing the last three
movies and released on 2007. This movie is adapting the novel with the same title and written by
J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix tells the story about Harry Potter’s
struggle to convince people in wizarding world that the greatest villain, Voldemort is awaken.
Unfortunately, people don’t believe him and even make him such a mockery in wizarding world.
That’s not his only struggle, he also has to face his cruel new The Defense Against The Dark Art
teacher, Dolores Umbridge. Through this movie, we are brought by David Yates to feel and live
in Harry Potter’s miserably live. By watching the movie, we will feel many kinds of emotion that
Harry Potter felt—such emotion as sadness, fear, anger, isolated, even calmness. Those emotions
are summed up by David Yates in one colour : blue.

The most interesting aspect found in this movie is the color. Yet, before talking more about
the significant function of color in this movie, one thing that must be explained first is the general
function of color. According to Danielle Feinberg, director of photography at Pixar, who describes
herself as “color obsessed”, lighting and color are part of the backbone of emotion. Indeed, colour
is used to set the tone of a scene before any of the actors have even uttered a word. Photographers
and cinematographers are trying a certain feel and aesthetic to a particular image. It means that
color is one of the apects in movie that influences audience’s feeling. It does evoke emotion in
audience's brains. However, the function of color is not only to building up a mood but also help
the audiences to understand the plot more.

Next, there are three aspects in color that are needed to know. Those three aspects are Hue,
Saturation, and Brightness. Hue is the actual color itself. Saturation helps audiences to know the
deep of color. Brightness to how much white (or black) is mixed in the color and it helps us to
decide whether the color is too bright or too dark. These three aspects are really important because
a certain color in a certain scene is sometimes ambiguous. It cannot be easily defined as simple as
it is since it can have so many meanings. Hue-Saturation-Brightness are the tools that are used to
have a complex penerjemahan. It still depends too the taste of the filmmaker. The color blue itself
can have a lot of meaning. For example, dark blue mostly means isolation or light-blue means
calmness.

It is such a success of David Yates to sum up many emotions in one monochromatic color.
By manipulating three aspects of colors, HSB or Hue, Saturation, and Brightness he can prove that
one particular hue or color can represent and portray many feelings. By adding the level of
saturation or reducing the brightness, a certain feeling can be pointed. Not only succeeded in doing
an experiment with color palette, David Yates is also succeeded in portraying the emotion of Harry
Potter and also bring us the audiences to feel the emotion.

The use of color effect still won’t be seen in the first few minutes of the movie, but instead
we will be showed how lonely and isolated Harry Potter is. The loneliness and isolation can be
seen in a scenes where Harry Potter is walking alone and being shot from above using aerial shot
type. Harry Potter was so small compared from his neighborhood. Another scene that shows
loneliness is where Harry Potter was shown walking from the left side of the camera to the right,
meanwhile from the opposite direction there are children riding bikes go pass him. In this part, the
director decide to use yellow with low level of saturation. Usually yellow is used to show the bright
situation or happiness, but in this case, it seems that David Yates using pale yellow to represent
the dryness of summer—which is the actual time setting—and the dullness of the neighborhood
where Harry Potter lives.

Then the pale yellow change into blue as the dementors come to attack Harry Potter and
his cousin, Dudley. According to the story, dementors are creature who “eats” happiness from its
victims. People who are attacked by dementors won’t be able to feel happiness and will feel
nothing but sadness. It is also told that dementors will create the cold in the surroundings. David
Yates is doing it right by using many kinds of blue in this scene for blue is universally used to
portray those feelings : fear, sadness, and in this case, danger. Not only the use of color to represent
the fear and danger, the portrayal of those emotions are also supported by the right use of camera
shot. There is a scene when Harry Potter and his cousin Dudley are shot from above. This kind of
shot is used to show the effect that makes certain character looks intimidated by something. The
fear is also showed as the camera start moving in a shaky way following Harry Potter and Dudley
running away from the danger.
 Another part where isolation and intimidation can be easily felt—and seen—is in the court
scene. In the movie, it is told that Harry Potter is being charged for doing magic—in wizarding
world, a magic that is done by underage wizard is considered as illegal. Harry Potter who is doing
magic to defeat dementor is charged by ministry of magic. In that scene, Harry Potter was sitting
alone, facing the others people. Harry Potter himself was mostly shot from above, which
sometimes make him look smaller. The space between Harry Potter and the judges shows how
isolated he is, while the way Harry Potter is shot from above shows that he is intimidated.
Meanwhile, minister of magic, Cornelius Fudge is always shot from below, mostly in a type of
medium shot. This kind of shot is used to point out that he has the power over the person he is
talking with. This kind of shot is still used when Cornelius Fudge talking with Harry Potter—
which in this scene, can be intimidated by him. The shot changes when it comes to the conversation
between Cornelius Fudge and Dumbledore—headmaster of Harry Potter’s school, Hogwarts, who
come to the court in order to help Harry Potter. Cornelius Fudge is no longer shot from below and
shows that he is intimidating. He is hot in an eye level shot to show that he is in the same level
with Dumbledore.

David Yates also shows the contradiction where Harry Potter can still feel lonely even
though he is in a crowd. School, a place where he should feel happy with his friend turns to a place
where he feels lonely instead. There is a scene that shows his friends even making a distance with
him. The type of shot where the camera is a bit shaky once again shown in the scene when Harry
Potter is arguing his friend, Seamus Finnegan. In that part, Harry Potter is still standing alone.
There are people around him but they are keeping the distance. In this scene, the director is using
the contrast color. Gryffindor common room, the place where people gather is colored with
dominant red and brown, but a space left, which become a way where Harry Potter decide to leave
is colored blue. It seems to show that Harry Potter is isolated and isn’t accepted with the society
around him, therefore he is feeling blue.

The director decides that aerial type shot may be effective to show the loneliness that Harry
Potter felt—and he is right. This shot is used again in a scene where Harry Potter wander around
alone. The camera was at first focusing and following Harry Potter’s pet, an owl named Hedwig
that flies on the sky with Harry Potter, still on camera sight but not as the main focus, walk in his
friend’s empty hut. Not only showing the loneliness through the shot, David Yates still using blue
in this scene to support the emotion. The sky above was colored blue, but in a low level of
saturation. Instead of typical summer’s clear blue sky, in this scene, the sky was cloudy and pale
which give the gloomy and isolated effect. The color changes as Harry Potter comes to his friend
in the big hall. Blue is replaced with brown—which usually associated with warmth. Harry Potter
happens to decide to go back to his friends instead of isolating himself. This scene is the opposite
from the previous scene, where Harry Potter leaves the warm common room to his blue own
bedroom—this scene instead, shows that Harry Potter leaves the blue landscape to the warmth
with his friend.

There is a special scene, when the director, David Yates uses a unique way to show
different dominance between two Hogwarts’ professors, McGonagal and Umbridge. Those two
women are in an argument about a Umbridge’s policy towards students in Hogwarts. This
conversation happened on stairs. When one of them felt that one’s argument wins against the other,
she takes one step up of stairs. In the other hand, there is also part when McGonagal accepted that
his argument is losing, thus she took a step back. As soon as Umbridge feels that his argument is
dominating, she climbs the stairs up and talk to students to show her dominance in Hogwarts.

Another shades of blue can be found in many scenes where Harry Potter starts the practice
with the Dumbledore Army—a student organization where they are studying many spells and
charm. With this organization, Harry Potter no longer feels lonely for he finds any other new
friends. This scene, even though it takes place in a hidden room, called room of requirement, looks
brighter compared to the scene where Harry Potter was outside and being alone. There, with his
many friends, Harry Potter was surrounded by light blue. This light blue doesn’t give any
loneliness or isolation effect, but gives the calm and light effect—according to the calmness that
Harry Potter felt when he is being with his friends. Then the shade changes as the danger comes.
The light blue is produced from students patronus—which lights are lighting the whole room, until
Umbridge comes then all those patronus lights disappear and making the room being so dark. This
shade changes as the danger comes.

By seeing those examples above, it can be seen that certain colors, set, proportion, and
camera shot technique can be done to help the increase and build the mood that meant to be showed
on the screen. In this movie, the director is using the right aspects to support the certain moods that
want to be portrayed to the audiences. In this movie the director is using aspects such colors and
camera shot technique to get the mood of being isolated, intimidated, and loneliness.