True Colors: Compressed Movie Prints Show Film Moods

When you watch your favorite movies over and over, you might start to acquire the ability to recite every line. Every frame of the movie looks familiar and you can predict how the light will change with every scene. But would you recognize your favorites if they were smooshed down into single pictures? (Above: Requiem for a Dream)

(Blade Runner)

(V for Vendetta)

These impressive works of art were created by MovieBarCode, a website that takes every single frame of your favorite movies and compresses them single-frame pictures.

(Se7en)

(Princess Mononoke)

The resulting images are surprisingly lovely, like colorful bar codes with hidden stories to tell. All of the colors of each movie are expressed in the thin vertical stripes, making for some truly impressive new pieces of art.

(The Lion King)

(The Matrix)

It is even possible to tell the mood and overall feel of each film just by the color scheme in these abbreviated representations. Some are predictable, like the cartoons with plenty of bright colors and the overly-green Matrix. Some exhibit long stretches of the same scenery, such as in The Big Lebowski.

(The Big Lebowski)

(The Fifth Element)

The website has an impressive number of movie bar codes posted already, but the artist behind the site also takes requests for any that haven’t yet been created. Prints of the amazing works of art can be purchased from the MovieBarCode website.