Computer scientists paint a picture of six decades of movies

(Image: Pixabay CC0) Researchers say data science may eventually help predict a film's success From the sepia tones of a Coen brothers film set in the Dust Bowl to a child's red coat in Schindler's List, filmmakers have long known the power of colour in movies. Now, computer scientists have analyzed 60 years of films to paint a picture of the past six decades in film. Researchers at the University of Waterloo used a technique called k-means clustering to analyze the trailers for more than 29,000 North American movies released between 1960 and 2019. "We chose to analyze trailers because they typically include many key moments from a film while also being short and accessible to the public," said Andreea Pocol, a PhD candidate in computer science at Waterloo and co-author of the study. "Trailers give us a reliable snapshot of a film, so we can extract a lot of data efficiently." Their technique produced both more general eight-colour palettes and more detailed 15-colour palettes, demonstrating the dominant colours for different data sets, which included specific films, genres and decades. They used the method to generate palettes for individual films-The Shining or The Matrix, for example-as well as groups of films, such as science fiction films or those released between certain dates. Eightand 15-colour palettes from various films of different genres and eras.