http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OrangeBlueContrast

Egoraptor, Sequelitis "All of Castlevania 's level palettes incorporated orange in some way. And often incorporated shades of blue, which is orange's complement. A.k.a., it makes orange 'pop out'. It made everything really pop in general, and the game felt alive."

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We'll start off with a little warning. After you have read this, the color combination will be everywhere you look. It will follow you around, haunting you. Thankfully, for most people this effect fades after a few days.

Basic complementary color theory states that when two contrasting colors are put together, they "pop", so the natural technique is to color films to have a strong, contrasting palette.

The one thing you will almost always have in a film is people. Human skin runs from pale pinkish yellow to dark brown, all of which are shades of orange. The color that contrasts best with orange is blue. So you turn up the shadows to the cyan end and the highlights to the orange.

While other pairs of complementary colors are associated with specific concepts, fiery orange and cool blue are strongly associated with opposing concepts  fire and ice, earth and sky, land and sea, dawn and dusk, invested humanism vs. elegant indifference, good old fashioned explosions vs. futuristic science stuff (and the obligatory Good Colors, Evil Colors contrast). It's a trope because it's used on purpose, and it does something. Especially in theater, orange and blue are sometimes referred to as amber and teal in this context.

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In the modern context, this trope has gone beyond simple colour grading and into set and costume design for the grading later. For example, a room might have blue walls and a brown cabinet with an amber lamp while the female lead is in a yellow dress, all of which can be color-graded to create the Orange/Blue Contrast. If the female lead has orange hair, expect the male lead to often wear blue clothing to contrast with it. If you wish to die of alcohol poisoning, take a shot every time the set and costume design dovetail to force the contrast.

Games have also picked up on this trend. A discussion of the coloring trends  especially in orange as they pertain to comics  can be read here .

Subtrope of Mood Lighting and sister trope to Unnaturally Blue Lighting, as well a very specific and common form of Color Contrast and Color Wash. Not to be confused with Blue-and-Orange Morality (even when it overlaps with Good Colors, Evil Colors, as in TRON: Legacy). Ties in with Hollywood Darkness, which is usually blue or teal, and often accompanies a Fire/Ice Duo.

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Has a vague resemblance to the Loudness War common in music; in both cases, something is pushed Up to Eleven in post-production, removing all subtlety from the sound or picture. Can be a factor in Digital Destruction. See also Red/Green Contrast and Yellow/Purple Contrast.

Examples:

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In a 2018 Australian fashion promo video, the female model's attire is an orange dress and an orange hat, whereas the two male models (Trekkies would recognize the black-haired one as Evan Evagora, the model-turned-actor who portrayed Elnor on Star Trek: Picard) are garbed in blue suits.

Anime & Manga

Arts

The Czech photographer and traveller Jiří Kolbaba took an amazing series of photographs in Namibia, some of which illustrate this trope wonderfully. See one of his gorgeous pictures from a part of the Namib desert called Sossusvlei here ◊ .

Asian Animation

Lamput: Lamput, the main character, is orange while Fat Doc and Slim Doc, the villains, are a dark shade of gray-blue.

Done with some of the Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf logos. For example, the Flying Island: The Sky Adventure logo has the title in orange and the subtitle in blue.

Comic Books

Fan Works

The author of Old West has made a cover that features downwards from above an orange sunsetting sky over the town of Mud, a blue lake situated next to the town and a dark cave.

that features downwards from above an orange sunsetting sky over the town of Mud, a blue lake situated next to the town and a dark cave. In Powdered Gold And Pottery, Shouto's hero costume incorporates soft blue and orange colors to symbolize his ice and fire powers. Its pastel shades are also meant to contrast sharply with how Endeavor wears dark, bold colors.

Films  Animation

Films  Live-Action

Literature

The book cover website Good Show Sir started using the tag "once you see it" for blue and orange covers in spring 2013. Because once you see it, you see it everywhere.

Live-Action TV

Music

Music Videos

The music video for "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor is between this and a green wash. While Mike Shinoda (yes, that Mike Shinoda) is rapping, it's more this, while Ryu (of Style of Beyond) gets the greenest parts.

The video for Zedd's "Clarity" is based on this concept; popping colors and contrast leads to clarity, get it?

The music video for Kvelertak's "Evig Vandrar" heavily uses this concept.

Peter Hollens' video of "Gollum's Song" from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies, starts with images of Peter singing in front of an orange backdrop. A glowing line appears on the right side of the screen and slowly moves from right to left, as though burning away the orange backdrop, replacing it with images of Peter singing in front of a dark blue backdrop, his face heavily shadowed. This is meant to illustrate Smeagol's personality slowly being overtaken by Gollum's evil.

from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies, starts with images of Peter singing in front of an orange backdrop. A glowing line appears on the right side of the screen and slowly moves from right to left, as though burning away the orange backdrop, replacing it with images of Peter singing in front of a dark blue backdrop, his face heavily shadowed. This is meant to illustrate Smeagol's personality slowly being overtaken by Gollum's evil. The video for "Dream All Day" by The Posies.

In the Darker and Edgier variant of Lights' "Ice", this is indicated by the Mortal Kombat-like energy bursts used by each character: orange for the heroine, blue for the villain.

Pro Wrestling

Unlike most wrestlers in WWE, Sin Cara has special lighting during his matches. Said lighting is orange and blue. Sin Cara's ring attire and entrance video are also orange and blue.

WrestleMania XXVIII utilizes this for their poster .

. The World Wrestling League's "Idol's of" Poster from April 21 2013. Though when Blue Demon Jr. and Mesias are on it, it's almost inevitable. Subverted when they were picked up by Mega TV and High Voltage became the main show. Scene transitions would switch between orange and blue.

Software

The Amiga originally used black, white, blue, and orange. In its four-color mode — the one used by boot screens and the Workbench UI.

One of the display palettes for the Apple II, though not as commonly used as black, white, green and purple/magenta.

The Firefox logo, of an orange fire/fox encircling the blue planet Earth, and the default color scheme of the browser.

A short-lived TV service attempted by several phone companies in the mid-90s called Tele-TV utilized this in their logo and on-screen graphics .

Theatre

In stage lighting, when a 'white' light is desired, it is common practice to use complementing colors from opposing angles, often amber and blue. This approach gives more 'depth' to actors on stage, resulting in cool blue shadows and warm amber highlights.

Theatre lights are colored by placing filters known as 'gels' in front of the lighting fixtures. The canonical gels for a basic warm/cool wash are R02 "Bastard Amber" and R60 "No Color Blue".

The poster for the musical of Rebecca is a giant R of bright orange fire on a deep blue background.

Toys

BIONICLE: The mainly blue Gahlok, Gahlok Va and Gahlok-Kal have orange eyes, with the regular Gahlok even having orange Krana "brains". Nokama in her Toa Metru and Toa Hordika forms also had orange eyes to contrast her blue body. The blue Vahki Bordakh had striking orange as its secondary color. The 2004 promo material likewise utilized this color-combo by lighting a portion of the background skyline orange to simulate the light and heat emanating from the industrial areas.

LEGO Ice Planet 2002, although white and black were important colors as well.

NERF Brand: The NERF Elite series has the blasters colored in blue, orange and white color scheme.

Video Games

Visual Novels

Digital: A Love Story: The Amie Workbench's color scheme (itself a sendup of the original Amiga Workbench) uses white, black, orange, and blue.

Web Comics

Bookcover of the webcomic Gifts of Wandering Ice. Yellowish candlelight of a lantern against the blue ice. Felix and Farah from Orange And Blue. Heck, it's even in the title. In Unit-M, Agent Orange is a waking embodiment of this trope, sporting orange body hair and blue skin.

Web Original

Western Animation

Real Life