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Hi, John Hess here from FilmmakerIQ.com and today we're going to dive into the world
of color, looking at the science and history that allows us to experience color in film.
Our Journey begins with the simplest of questions. What is this phenomenon called "color"
This question baffled people for ages. Aristotle had theories based on the four elements Earth
Wind, Fire and water. But it wasn't until 1666 when a young Isaac Newton first began
experimenting with optics that we began to think of color as a function of light. Color
is really our pyschological reaction to a very narrow band of electromagnetic radiation
which we call light - from the red on the low end of the spectrum through orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo and violet at the high end.
Through his experiments Isaac Newton discovered that you could combine all the colors light
together to create what looked like white light. From his experiments he created the
world's first color circle, using seven colors to like the seven notes of a musical scale.
But you didn't need all the colors to create white light or any color light. It turns out
you only need three primary colors. This trichromatic theory was first put forward by Thomas Young
and Herman vonn Helmholtz in 1802 - they postulated that human retina was made of cones that were
responsive to only three colors of light - red, yellow and blue. Every color that we perceive
is the brain's reaction to the combination of stimuli of those three primary colors.
But the Young-Helmholtz Theory (though mostly correct) was based on scientific reasoning
not experimental evidence. Their theory would be refined in 1850s by one of the greatest
scientists of all time James Clerk Maxwell. Held in close stature to the great Isaac Newton
in the world of physics, Maxwell unified electricity, magnetism and light into one field of study
- one branch of science which would set the stage for Albert Einstein and his Theories
of Relativity in the 20th century.
But before he did that, Maxwell was interested in color. In his 1855 paper, Experiments on
Colour, Maxwell used spinning tops to demonstrate that validity of the Young Helmholtz theory,
refining the primary colors to Red, Green and Blue which he could mix in various amounts
to achieve all the perceivable colors.
In 1861, with the help of Thomas Sutton, the inventor of the Single Lens Reflex camera
or SLR, Maxwell applied his theory to photography, shooting a tartan ribbon with a black and
white camera three times, once using a red filter, a green filter, and a blue filter.
Combining the color separations back together, Maxwell and Sutton created the world's very
first permanent color photograph and the basis for all color photography to come.
Though Maxwell had demonstrated the principles of color photography in 1861, it would take
a long time before capturing naturalistic colors could be employed in the motion picture
industry. Part of the problem was film stock was more sensitive to parts of the spectrum
then others... But that didn't stop the early filmmakers from adding color back in after the fact.
Hand Tinting was a widely practiced technique of painting color onto the film itself. During
the early days of motion pictures, where features lasted only 10 minutes or so, it was economically
viable - in fact Georges Melies employed 21 women to hand tint his films frame by frame.
As the demand for film became greater and greater, Charles Pathe mechanized the process
of coloring film in France using a stencil process he called Pathecolor. By 1910, Pathe
employed 400 women in his factory and the process was used throughout Europe.
Coming into 1920s, as film became an international mass media industry, even stencils could not
meet the demands of production. Filmmakers began using bath processes to tint and tone
their films. Tinting involved putting the black and white film in a bath of dye - this
would turn the entire frame a particular color. Toning on the other hand only colored the
dark parts of the frame by chemically converting the silver in the film to colored silver salts/
Some filmmakers like D.W. Griffith used the tinting and toning to enhance emotional elements
of the film but often times, labs would just apply colored dyes based on the scene location
or even just randomly. In 1920s, 80 to 90 percent of all American films were using some
form of tinting or toning in at least some scenes.
But tinting and toning caused problems once sound was introduced in 1927. Sound was recorded
as an optical track that ran along side the film, tints and tones would mess up the this
track. Pre tinted film stock was created to solve this problem but it saw little use as
more naturalistic ways of creating color were starting to become popular.
There are two methods of creating color: The Additive system is where primary colored lights
are added together - when equally mixed, they create white light. This is the process used
right now as you are watching this video - your screen is made up of tiny red green and blue
pixels that when seen from afar, combine to create color. The other system is the Subtractive
system where primary colors are subtracted from white light to create colors and when
all added together create black.. Both additive and subtractive color were used to create
color photography.
The first major venture into capturing color naturally in motion picture came in 1908 with
Charles Urban and the Natural Color Kine-MATograph Company in England to produce and distribute
Kinemacolor films. The Kinemacolor system, invented by George Albert Smith was a sequential
two color additive process that came about after years of experimentation,
In the camera, one frame would be captured with a red filter and the next frame with
a green filter and back and forth. When played back with a projector with a red green filter
fly wheel, the projected red and green image sequentially would "add" together because
of our persistence of vision. The result was a surprising good color image despite being
only a two color system.
Kinemacolor was a big hit in England, and the film that brought it to stardom was The
Dehli Durbar - a 2 and a half hour documentary on the coronation held in Dehli for the newly
crowned King George V as the imperial emperor of India.
But there were problems. Notice the registration issues in the marching soldiers legs - recording
color sequentially meant not all color frames would be the same so you would see this mis
alignment in fast moving object. And since only red and green filters were used, blue
skies were impossible to reproduce. In fact it would be this inability to create blue
which would spell the downfall of Kinemacolor.
Charles Urban, like any good industrialist, wanted to monopolize color film and color
film exhibition. This made an enemy in William Friese-Greene, producer of a rival red-green
color system, Biocolour which was prohibited from exhibition because Kinemacolor held the
patent on two color projection. Friese-Greene sued Urban's Kinemacolor to invalidate the
patent. The first court upheld the Kinemacolor patent, but on appeal, the judge sided with
Friese-Green basing his decision on fact that Kinemacolor's patent claimed it would reproduce
natural colors and yet it failed to produce blue. Because of vague wording and technological
limitations - Kinemacolor's patent was revoked and Urban's company was liquidated soon after.
But Kinemacolor proved there was a market color film. Other additive techniques including
Chronochrome, Cinechrome and British Raycol tried to take the place of Kinemacolor but
additive color systems for film proved to be too technically challenging to implement.
The first truly successful color system would have to be a subtractive system and it would
come in the two-strip subtractive Technicolor.
The Technicolor Company was founded by Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, Dr. Daniel F. Comstock
and W. Burton Wescott in 1915 to exploit a two-color additive process. Their first film
was an utter failure- so they changed direction and started working on a two color subtractive
process. The new process patented in 1922 used a beam splitting camera that split the
light coming into the camera onto two film stocks - one which was ultimately dyed red
orange and the other which was dyed blue-green. The resulting positive color images would
be cemented together for a final color positive image which could be played back in the same projector as black and white film.
The first Technicolor 2 strip subtractive feature film was The Toll of the Sea in 1922
The Toll of the Sear grossed over $250,000. Two strip technicolor was a hit. In 1928,
Technicolor refined the process with a step called Imbibtion or IB - combining the color
separations onto a third black gelatin coated film which gave technicoor a richer look.
Technicolor was in the right place at the right time. As films evolved from the silent
era to sound era, musicals were a big genre and perfectly suited to the color. In 1930
Technicolor was under contract for thirty six major releases. But just two years later
in 1932, the production of Technicolor films had all but ended. Audiences were tired of
seeing the poor registration of the two color process -which was not a flaw of the process
but caused of untrained cameramen. Also Eastman's panchromatic film stock, black and white film
which was sensitive to a much wider part of the visible spectrum, produced beautiful looking
black and white images under normal incandescent light. This was much cheaper to use than the
arc lights needed for Technicolor two strip.
But Technicolor had an ace up their sleeve. In 1932, they perfected the three strip Technicolor
system. Using a beam splitter they captured light on to three pieces of film - Green on
to it's own strip and blue and red onto a bipacked strip. This three strip process
was technically superior to anything that had come before it but it was really expensive
- the cameras costing upwards of $30,000 a piece. Technicolor learned a valuable lesson
from the boom and bust of two strip process and maintained an iron fist over quality control
on the production of Technicolor film. In order to make a Technicolor film, you needed
a Technicolor cameraman, use Technicolor makeup, have the film processed and printed by Technicolor
and accept a technicolor consultant who would make sure your art direction had an acceptable color palette.
Hollywood majors were hesitant to jump on board with this expensive process especially
after the failure of the two strip. So Technicolor offered the process to a small upstart - Walt
Disney for his "Silly Symphony" cartoon series. Flowers and Trees (1932) and The Three
Little Pigs (1933) -were both huge successes and even going on to winning Oscars for best
animated short. For live action, small upstart Pioneer Films produced Technicolor's first
feature film: Beck Sharp which had great buzz but was ultimately a failure. Throughout the
30s the studios cautiously tested the Technicolor waters - David O. Selznick's independent
studio produced the first successful Technicolor feature with Garden of Allah in 1936. In 1938,
Warner Bros. would release one of the best showcases Technicolor's capability with
The Adventures of Robin Hood in 1938 which won three Academy Awards for it's aesthetic use of color.
And then came 1939 - considered the greatest year in the golden era of studio controlled
Hollywood, 1939 was also a great year for Technicolor. The Wizard of Oz demonstrated
the incredible richness of Technicolor in creating a magical land of Oz. But it was
Gone with the Wind that first put to use the company's new faster fine-grain film stock-
a major technological break through that reduced the light needed by 50%.
Two years later in 1941, Technicolor introduced the monopack - combining the three separations
into one single roll of film that could be loaded in conventional cameras - great for
location shooting. Technicolor had come back after the failure of 2 strip and now was on
top of their game and doing what Charles Urban could only hope to do with Kinemacolor...
hold a virtual monopoly over color film production. Eastmancolor Takes Over
Technicolor and it's supplier Eastman Kodak controlled 90% of the color film market. Even
though there were other rival processes like Cinecolor and Trucolor, the United States
Justice department saw this as a problem and filed an anti-trust civil suit in 1947. In
1950, a court decree forced Technicolor to make available a certain cameras to small
independent companies on a first come first serve basis. But this decree didn't bring
an end to Technicolor's power. What would break the monopoly was a new kind of film stock - Eastmancolor.
Eastmancolor was based on the German Agfacolor process developed in 1936. Similar to the
Technicolor monopack that sandwiched three color film separations in a single roll, Agfacolor
was used as a crown jewel in Nazi Propaganda Machine. After the end of World War II the
patents were released and the process was adopted all over the world, becoming Sovcolor
in the USSR and Fujicolor in Japan. But it was Eastman's refinement of Agfacolor that
really made it popular. Using automatic color masking and released in 1950, Eastmancolor
was relatively cheap, didn't require specialized lights or lab processes, and would work in
conventional motion film cameras. Eastmancolor would win an Academy Award in 1952 and within
two years, the three strip Technicolor process was all but dead.
Eastmancolor film stock took over and has since come to be known by the names of the
studios that paid to use it like Warnercolor and Metrocolor or by the labs that process
the film such as Deluxe and Movielab. Though the richness of technicolor had started the
move of film towards color, it was the ease and cost effectiveness of Eastmancolor that
sustained the growth of color so that by 1967 virtually all major features being made were
shot in color.
Even Technicolor ultimately switched over to the Eastmancolor process in 1975 selling
off their imbibtion dye process to the Chinese.
There was one major problem with Eastmancolor film and it would not rear it's ugly head
for at least a decade... Eastmancolor was not terribly stable and it tended to fade
and fade much faster than other techniques - as quickly as 5 years if not stored properly..
This would be a major issue in film preservation in the years to follow. In 1980 Martin Scorsese
lead a campaign to push Eastman to develop low fade archival film which they did, but
film preservation would continue to be an ongoing problem. Digital Color
Advancement to the color of films can come from all sorts of bizarre places. In 1985
media mogul Ted Turner set out to "colorize" a catalog of studio era black and white titles
he had acquired during his brief ownership of MGM/UA. Using digital manipulation, the
films were scanned and colored frame by frame in sort of the electronic version of George
Milies hand tinting shops. The colorization of old black and white films was a controversial
move with Turner himself half jokingly stating he would not stop until he colorized Citizen
Kane. Just three weeks before he died, Orson Welles who had a clause in his contract saying
Kane could not be edited without his permission, told a friend, "Don't let Ted Turner deface
my movie with his crayons" - Citizen Kane was spared.
But Turner's colorization got filmmakers thinking about the possibilities of selective
color manipulation. In the 1990s, many filmmakers explored different lab processes such as bleach
bypass to create unique film tones. In the 1990s and into the 2000s, computers had become
powerful enough to handle entire films. Digital intermediaries - a process of scanning a film
frame by frame into a computer to be digitally manipulated - open the doors to all sorts
of new color treatment possibilities. The first film to get the digital intermediary
treatment for the entire film was The Coen Brother's O Brother Where Art Thou - in
2001. Cinematographer Roger Deakins worked for 11 weeks toning down the lush green summer
foliage to achieve a dusty golden desaturated look.
As our filmmaking post production tools continue to move into the digital realm, the creative
possibilities for color manipulation are endless. But perhaps just as important, our modern
digital tools can also give us the ability to go back in history and restore the fading
prints of films past, preserving our cultural heritage for future generations.
From the moment when Dorothy first opens the door to that technicolor world of Oz, it is
clear that the use of color can move us and transport us - a tool to unlock a world that
can be as normal or as fantastically different as the one we live in. So use that tool - use
color! Go and make something great - I'm John Hess and I'll see you at filmmakeriq.com