Why do British TV shows and movies always have such a gray, washed-out look to them?

Answer 1

It's really funny, but - they look like that because they use BETTER film than we do. I'm not making this up! My best friend is a filmmaker, and we had an argument about this very topic a few years back. The british have always, on average, used better film than American studios. This film tends to be higher resolution and thus has Lower Contrast than what we are used to. As a result, you actually SEE more, but the picture itself tends to focus your eyes on less. Since your eyes are focused on less in the foreground, the picture tends to be perceived by Americans as poorer quality. Which, now that I understand it, has really allowed me to appreciate foreign films a little better.

Answer 2

Purely the Camera Types And The Editing Equipment.

-These days Editing Equipment is more important Cause It's Heavily Digital.

Don't Know If Your Just Talking About Older Ones.

Also the British Like The Picture A Bit Softer and More "English Country side Looking" And A The Low contrasted And Possibly undersaturated Film/Video Gets Older It Gets Worse.

Answer 3

maybe its time for you to get a colour tv, ps spiker87 you obviously dont have much between the ears on that head of yours,british comedy is the best by far in the world,they dont have to resort to canned laughter to create that live show feeling because they actually have live audiance's,american comedy is the pits ,no quality or taste,

Answer 4

A gray washed out budget!

Answer 5

It's the natural lighting of the country...usually moderate temperature and overcast, combined with the fact that the British usually don't get enough sunlight to tan....so the flesh tones of the actors have less color than in American films...where tans are usually mandatory for the ideals of 'beauty'.

Answer 6

They are filmed in a different format than American systems, it is called Pal, while ours is called NTSC, the color difference occurs in the conversion between the two.

Wikipedia, defined answer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntsc

Answer 7

I have no idea, but I swear you can always tell when a movie has been filmed in Europe somewhere. You're right, the film doesn't look clear.

Answer 8

Proberly coz all us Brits have a grey washed-out look about us!
It's all that acid rain, it also does terrible things 2 UR hair.

Answer 9

yeah it dosnt make sense the brits dont wash anything it should look more dirty and dingy with a foul odor and bad teeth. j/k

Answer 10

i just want to know why british comedies are not even close to being funny? very dry unfunny sense of humour