An Examination of the Prevalent Use of Yellow and Blue in the First Two Seasons of ‘House of Cards’

On a recent episode of The Go Creative Show podcast, host Ben Consoli interviewed the very talented Igor Martinovic, the Director of Photography (DP) for the Netflix original political drama House of Cards. During the interview, the two discussed how Martinovic used a set camera to create a mood of stillness throughout the first two seasons.

Chris Wade of Slate also noticed Martinovic’s prevalent use of the colors blue (foreground) and yellow (background) in each season, a simple but powerful technique that also helps to portray the series’ signature sense of (dis)quiet.

Almost every single frame of this show is composed to place a pale blue object in the foreground with a pale yellow light in the background. Now, sometimes the foreground object is more black than blue, sometimes the background veers toward a sickly green, sometimes they’re outside and the background is necessarily blue or black sky, but once you begin noticing this particular habit of the House of Cards color palette, it is hard to unsee.

via Slate