In The Winter of Love (formerly ‘A Quiet Desperation’), the use of colour and choices were paramount to establishing character and the mood of the story.By choosing to make the film primarily in winter and parts of it shot in early summer, the colour and mood were set. Locating the film in Southall also meant a deep influence in the colour tones – ranging from bright pinks through to rustic colours of autumn and winter.

The art direction by Amarjeet Kaur Nandhra meant bringing in her sensibility for the interior scenes of the film. Preeti’s bedroom became a key scene where a particular orange and yellow were used to create a golden light around the character.

Using Vermeer’s work, the Dutch painter as a starting point, the colours came together very easily – warm lights highlighting the character and not the scene meant that the focus of the story was maintained and enhanced. In both the bedroom scenes and the bath scenes, warm tones were used to help with developing sympathy for Preeti’s character.

Working on low budget meant accepting locations as they were – white walls!! These became a nightmare for the DOP along with the Art Department – adding colour to such spaces became a challenge but we gradually learnt to work with white walls using them to our advantage and at times creating an austere and melancholic mood. This of course was developed into a major theme and became a central character thread throughout the film.

Originally published in the About Film Blog.