What Do Stripes Have to Say About Your Character?
From the rebels to the outcasts to the villainous schemers, stripes have a lot to say about your characters.
Stripes are one of the most noticeable patterns in existence, standing out because of their immediate and repetitive change from one color to another. The human eye and mind are unable to distinguish the foreground from the background, making the pattern hypnotic and visually confusing.
There is even an evolutionary theory that zebras wear stripes to confuse predators about their number and distance, a tactic used by the U.S. military in WWII for battleships.
Stripes have proven themselves to be powerful symbols, so why is it significant for characters to be wearing them? What a character wears often reveals a lot about their character traits and foreshadows what could happen later in the film. Now You See It explains how stripes in cinema must mean something, since the pattern is used to draw the viewer in closer and closer to the screen.
Check out the full video below.