Eastmancolor is a trade name used by Eastman Kodak for a number of related film and processing technologies associated with color motion picture production and referring to George Eastman, founder of Kodak.
80-438: Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950, was one of the first widely successful "single-strip colour" processes, and eventually displaced the more cumbersome Technicolor . Eastmancolor was known by a variety of names, such as DeLuxe Color , Warnercolor, Metrocolor , Pathécolor , Columbiacolor, and others. For more information on Eastmancolor, see Eastman Color Negative (ECN) is a photographic processing system created by Kodak in
160-524: A Radio Picture entitled The Runaround (1931). The new process not only improved the color but also removed specks (that looked like bugs) from the screen, which had previously blurred outlines and lowered visibility. This new improvement along with a reduction in cost (from 8.85 cents to 7 cents per foot) led to a new color revival. Warner Bros. took the lead once again by producing three features (out of an announced plan for six features): Manhattan Parade (1932), Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of
240-424: A beam splitter consisting of a partially reflecting surface inside a split-cube prism , color filters , and three separate rolls of black-and-white film (hence the "three-strip" designation). The beam splitter allowed one-third of the light coming through the camera lens to pass through the reflector and a green filter and form an image on one of the strips, which therefore recorded only the green-dominated third of
320-477: A mordant solution and then brought into contact with each of the three dye-loaded matrix films in turn, building up the complete color image. Each dye was absorbed, or imbibed, by the gelatin coating on the receiving strip rather than simply deposited onto its surface, hence the term "dye imbibition". Strictly speaking, this is a mechanical printing process most closely related to Woodburytype and very loosely comparable to offset printing or lithography , and not
400-404: A Technicolor cartoon sequence "Hot Choc-late Soldiers" produced by Walt Disney. On July 28 of that year, Warner Bros. released Service with a Smile , followed by Good Morning, Eve! on September 22, both being comedy short films starring Leon Errol and filmed in three-strip Technicolor. Pioneer Pictures , a movie company formed by Technicolor investors, produced the film usually credited as
480-546: A black-and-white picture again." Although Disney's first 60 or so Technicolor cartoons used the three-strip camera, an improved "successive exposure" ("SE") process was adopted c. 1937 . This variation of the three-strip process was designed primarily for cartoon work: the camera would contain one strip of black-and-white negative film, and each animation cel would be photographed three times, on three sequential frames, behind alternating red, green, and blue filters (the so-called "Technicolor Color Wheel", then an option of
560-486: A clear base) on all films processed by ECP. The original process, known as ECP-1, was used from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, and involved development at approximately 25°C for around 7–9 minutes. Later research enabled faster development and more environmentally friendly film and process (and thus quicker photo lab turnaround time). This process allowed a higher development temperature of 41.1°C for around three minutes. This new environmentally friendly development process
640-450: A green filter and one behind a red filter. The difference was that the two-component negative was now used to produce a subtractive color print. Because the colors were physically present in the print, no special projection equipment was required and the correct registration of the two images did not depend on the skill of the projectionist. The frames exposed behind the green filter were printed on one strip of black-and-white film, and
720-454: A higher development temperature of 41.1 °C for around three minutes. This new environmentally friendly development process is known as ECN-2. It is the standard development process for all modern motion picture color negative developing, including Fujifilm and other non-Kodak film manufacturers. All film stocks are specifically created for a particular development process, thus ECN-1 film could not be put into an ECN-2 development bath since
800-445: A photographic one, as the actual printing does not involve a chemical change caused by exposure to light. During the early years of the process, the receiver film was preprinted with a 50% black-and-white image derived from the green strip, the so-called Key, or K, record. This procedure was used largely to cover up fine edges in the picture where colors would mix unrealistically (also known as fringing ). This additional black increased
880-601: A possible shot-in-the-arm for the ailing industry. In November 1933, Technicolor's Herbert Kalmus and RKO announced plans to produce three-strip Technicolor films in 1934, beginning with Ann Harding starring in a projected film The World Outside . Live-action use of three-strip Technicolor was first seen in a musical number of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature The Cat and the Fiddle , released February 16, 1934. On July 1, MGM released Hollywood Party with
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#1732772956674960-474: A special camera (3-strip Technicolor or Process 4) started in the early 1930s and continued through to the mid-1950s, when the 3-strip camera was replaced by a standard camera loaded with single-strip "monopack" color negative film. Technicolor Laboratories were still able to produce Technicolor prints by creating three black-and-white matrices from the Eastmancolor negative (Process 5). Process 4
1040-750: A synchronized score and sound effects. Redskin (1929), with a synchronized score, and The Mysterious Island (1929), a part-talkie, were photographed almost entirely in this process also but included some sequences in black and white. The following talkies were made entirely – or almost entirely – in Technicolor Process 3: On with the Show! (1929) (the first all-talking color feature), Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), The Show of Shows (1929), Sally (1929), The Vagabond King (1930), Follow Thru (1930), Golden Dawn (1930), Hold Everything (1930), The Rogue Song (1930), Song of
1120-879: Is known as ECP-2. It is the standard development process for all modern motion picture color print developing, including Fuji and other non-Kodak film manufacturers. All film stocks are specifically created for a particular development process, thus ECP-1 film could not be put into an ECP-2 development bath since the designs are incompatible. Originally, all Eastman Color films, ECN and ECP alike, were on triacetate base (no Eastman Color films were ever made on nitrate base), but recent practice has been for ECN elements to be on triacetate base, so these may be easily spliceable (using lap -type cemented splices, also called "negative assembly" splices), and for ECP elements to be on polyester base, so these are not spliceable (except by using butt -type splices with polyester splicing tapes). The 1959 British satirical comedy film The Mouse That Roared
1200-399: Is so geared that exposures are made alternately through the red gelatine and the green gelatine. Panchromatic film is used, and the negative is printed from in the ordinary way, and it will be understood that there is no colour in the film itself. To shoot Kinemacolor films, cameramen had to choose between a variety of red/orange and blue/green filters depending on the subject. Despite this,
1280-740: The French Riviera . On 6 July 1909, George Albert Smith presented a programme of 11 Kinemacolor films at Knowsley Hall before King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra . The films included military subjects as well as a party at Knowsley Hall and the King himself. Edward was pleased with the films. The process was first seen in the United States on 11 December 1909, at an exhibition staged by Smith and Urban at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In 1909, Urban, who had acquired
1360-746: The Fukuhōdō film studio in 1910 and were passed on to Toyo Shokai. Emperor Taishō was presented with a three-hour long Kinemacolor programme in August 1913. Two months later, the first Kinemacolor programme was shown in Tokyo . Toyo Shokai reformed itself to Tenkatsu in March 1914 and produced primarily fiction films. With World War I film stock became more expensive, so the company limited production of Kinemacolor films. The last Japanese film produced in Kinemacolor
1440-783: The Kinemacolor Company of America was formed, which initially relied on showing British Kinemacolor films. They filmed The Clansman in 1911, based on the controversial novel of the same name by Thomas Dixon . The film was finished and never released or left unfinished, and inspired D. W. Griffith to produce The Birth of a Nation (1915). The Kinemacolor Company of America produced several narrative and documentary films, such as Making of The Panama Canal (1912) and The Scarlet Letter (1913). The company had studios in Hollywood from 1912 until 1913 and ceased production in 1915. The Japanese Kinemacolor rights were acquired by
1520-604: The Royal Society of Arts on 9 December 1908. On 26 February 1909, the general public first saw Kinemacolor in a programme at the Palace Theatre in London. By this time, the process was known as Kinemacolor, a suggestion from Arthur Binstead, a journalist at Sporting Life , after Urban offered a £5 prize to anyone who could come up with a name. The programme consisted of 21 films mainly shot around Brighton and
1600-583: The documentary films With Our King and Queen Through India (1912) and the notable recovery of £750,000 worth of gold and silver bullion from the wreck of P&O's SS Oceana in the Strait of Dover (1912). The dramas The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1914), and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1914) were among the last feature films released in Kinemacolor. Kinemacolor enjoyed the most commercial success in
1680-404: The spectrum . The other two-thirds was reflected sideways by the mirror and passed through a magenta filter, which absorbed green light and allowed only the red and blue thirds of the spectrum to pass. Behind this filter were the other two strips of film, their emulsions pressed into contact face to face. The front film was a red-blind orthochromatic type that recorded only the blue light. On
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#17327729566741760-508: The 1950s for the development of monopack color negative motion picture film stock . It is part of the Eastmancolor family of products sold by Eastman Kodak. The original process, known as ECN-1, was used from the mid to late-1950s to the early to mid-1970s, and involved development at approximately 25 °C for around 7–9 minutes. Later research enabled faster development and more environmentally friendly film and process (and thus quicker photo lab turnaround time ). This process allowed
1840-518: The Acme, Producers Service and Photo-Sonics animation cameras). Three separate dye transfer printing matrices would be created from the red, green, and blue records in their respective complementary colors, cyan, magenta and yellow. Successive exposure was also employed in Disney's "True Life Adventure" live-action series, wherein the original 16mm low-contrast Kodachrome Commercial live action footage
1920-459: The Bell Tolls : Kinemacolor Kinemacolor was the first successful colour motion picture process . Used commercially from 1909 to 1915, it was invented by George Albert Smith in 1906. It was a two-colour additive colour process, photographing a black-and-white film behind alternating red/orange and blue/green filters and projecting them through red and green filters. It
2000-759: The Flame (1930), Song of the West (1930), The Life of the Party (1930), Sweet Kitty Bellairs (1930), Bride of the Regiment (1930), Mamba (1930), Whoopee! (1930), King of Jazz (1930), Under a Texas Moon (1930), Bright Lights (1930), Viennese Nights (1930), Woman Hungry (1931), Kiss Me Again (1931) and Fifty Million Frenchmen (1931). In addition, many feature films were released with Technicolor sequences. Numerous short subjects were also photographed in Technicolor Process 3, including
2080-733: The Kinemacolor patent from Smith, formed the Natural Color Kinematograph Company , which produced most Kinemacolor films. Urban sold Kinemacolor licences around the world through the Natural Color Kinematograph Company. Outside of the United Kingdom, the only successful Kinemacolor companies were located in Japan and the United States. The Natural Color Kinematograph Company produced The Funeral of King Edward VII (1910),
2160-627: The Natural Color Kinematograph Company in order to protect the shareholders. He took the case to the House of Lords and continued the company as Color Films Ltd., which produced the documentary With The Fighting Forces of Europe during World War I . In April 1915, the House of Lords upheld the Court of Appeal's decision and the patent was revoked. Charles Urban filmed the British fleet in Kinemacolor for
2240-798: The UK where, between 1909 and 1918, it was shown at more than 250 entertainment venues. Kinemacolor was popular with members of the British royal family . Pope Pius X saw Kinemacolor films in 1913. The Natural Color Kinematograph Company re-purchased the French rights for Kinemacolor. In 1913, Urban built the Théâtre Edouard VII in Paris for the purpose of showing Kinemacolor, but the process remained commercially unsuccessful in France. In April 1910,
2320-515: The Wasteland , was released in 1924. Process 2 was also used for color sequences in such major motion pictures as The Ten Commandments (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), and Ben-Hur (1925). Douglas Fairbanks ' The Black Pirate (1926) was the third all-color Process 2 feature. Although successful commercially, Process 2 was plagued with technical problems. Because the images on
2400-487: The Wax Museum (1933). Radio Pictures followed by announcing plans to make four more features in the new process. Only one of these, Fanny Foley Herself (1931), was actually produced. Although Paramount Pictures announced plans to make eight features and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promised two color features, these never materialized. This may have been the result of the lukewarm reception to these new color pictures by
2480-631: The Wind (1939), the film Blue Lagoon (1949), and animated films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Gulliver's Travels (1939), Pinocchio (1940), and Fantasia (1940). As the technology matured, it was also used for less spectacular dramas and comedies. Occasionally, even a film noir – such as Leave Her to Heaven (1945) or Niagara (1953) – was filmed in Technicolor. The "Tech" in
Eastmancolor - Misplaced Pages Continue
2560-544: The additive Kinemacolor and Chronochrome processes, Technicolor prints did not require any special projection equipment. Unlike the additive Dufaycolor process, the projected image was not dimmed by a light-absorbing and obtrusive mosaic color filter layer. Very importantly, compared to competing subtractive systems, Technicolor offered the best balance between high image quality and speed of printing. The Technicolor Process 4 camera, manufactured to Technicolor's detailed specifications by Mitchell Camera Corporation, contained
2640-460: The areas corresponding to the clearest, least-exposed areas of the negative. To make each final color print, the matrix films were soaked in dye baths of colors nominally complementary to those of the camera filters: the strip made from red-filtered frames was dyed cyan-green and the strip made from green-filtered frames was dyed orange-red. The thicker the gelatin in each area of a frame, the more dye it absorbed. Subtle scene-to-scene colour control
2720-645: The company's name was inspired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where Herbert Kalmus and Daniel Frost Comstock received their undergraduate degrees in 1904 and were later instructors. The term "Technicolor" has been used historically for at least five concepts: Both Kalmus and Comstock went to Switzerland to earn PhD degrees; Kalmus at University of Zurich , and Comstock at Basel in 1906. In 1912, Kalmus, Comstock, and mechanic W. Burton Wescott formed Kalmus, Comstock, and Wescott, an industrial research and development firm. Most of
2800-459: The company, and Technicolor Inc. was chartered in Delaware. Technicolor originally existed in a two-color (red and green) system . In Process 1 (1916), a prism beam-splitter behind the camera lens exposed two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white negative film simultaneously, one behind a red filter, the other behind a green filter. Because two frames were being exposed at
2880-535: The contrast of the final print and concealed any fringing. However, overall colorfulness was compromised as a result. In 1944, Technicolor had improved the process to make up for these shortcomings and the K record was eliminated. Kalmus convinced Walt Disney to shoot one of his Silly Symphony cartoons, Flowers and Trees (1932), in Process 4, the new "three-strip" process. Seeing the potential in full-color Technicolor, Disney negotiated an exclusive contract for
2960-413: The cupped ones could be shipped to their Boston laboratory for flattening, after which they could be put back into service, at least for a while. The presence of image layers on both surfaces made the prints especially vulnerable to scratching, and because the scratches were vividly colored they were very noticeable. Splicing a Process 2 print without special attention to its unusual laminated construction
3040-402: The designs are incompatible. The ECN-2 process has normally been reserved for high volume labs involving hundreds or thousands of feet of film in a linear processor. With companies like QWD that have made this available in a kit form for home use, this process now can be done on a small scale. Eastman Color Positive (ECP) is a photographic processing system created by Kodak in the 1950s for
3120-518: The development of monopack color positive print for direct projection motion picture film stock . It is part of the Eastmancolor family of products sold by Kodak. ECP is not used for positive intermediate films because these are "pre-print" elements (e.g. archival or "protection" elements) and are never used for direct projection. One essential difference is the presence of an orange "mask" (i.e., effectively an orange base) on all films processed by Eastman Color Negative, and no "mask" (i.e., effectively
3200-789: The documentary film Britain Prepared in late 1915. Most Kinemacolor films are now considered lost . With his associate Henry W. Joy, Charles Urban continued his research in colour cinematography and developed a process called Kinekrom, an improved version of Kinemacolor. Kinekrom was shown to the public in New York in November 1916. The process was intended to enable Urban to continue showing his vast library of old Kinemacolor films. However, public interest for Kinemacolor had faded and there were few screenings. The first (additive) version of Prizma Color , developed by William Van Doren Kelley in
3280-560: The early patents were taken out by Comstock and Wescott, while Kalmus served primarily as the company's president and chief executive officer. When the firm was hired to analyze an inventor's flicker-free motion picture system, they became intrigued with the art and science of filmmaking, particularly color motion picture processes, leading to the founding of Technicolor in Boston in 1914 and incorporation in Maine in 1915. In 1921, Wescott left
Eastmancolor - Misplaced Pages Continue
3360-495: The feature film industry would soon be turning out color films exclusively. By 1931, however, the Great Depression had taken its toll on the film industry, which began to cut back on expenses. The production of color films had decreased dramatically by 1932, when Burton Wescott and Joseph A. Ball completed work on a new three-color movie camera. Technicolor could now promise studios a full range of colors, as opposed to
3440-464: The film had an extremely slow speed of ASA 5. That, and the bulk of the cameras and a lack of experience with three-color cinematography made for skepticism in the studio boardrooms. An October 1934 article in Fortune magazine stressed that Technicolor, as a corporation, was rather remarkable in that it kept its investors quite happy despite the fact that it had only been in profit twice in all of
3520-443: The films were projected through a single set of red and green filters. Modern research has matched the red projection filter to 25 Sunset Red (with a peak transmission above 610 nm ) and the green projection filter to 122 Fern Green (with a peak of around 510 to 540 nm). Projected frame rate was also confirmed to be between 30 and 32 frames per second. Kinemacolor faced several issues, including its inability to reproduce
3600-412: The first color sound cartoons by producers such as Ub Iwerks and Walter Lantz . Song of the Flame became the first color movie to use a widescreen process (using a system known as Vitascope , which used 65mm film). In 1931, an improvement of Technicolor Process 3 was developed that removed grain from the Technicolor film, resulting in more vivid and vibrant colors. This process was first used on
3680-406: The first live-action short film shot in the three-strip process, La Cucaracha released August 31, 1934. La Cucaracha is a two-reel musical comedy that cost $ 65,000, approximately four times what an equivalent black-and-white two-reeler would cost. Released by RKO , the short was a success in introducing the new Technicolor as a viable medium for live-action films. The three-strip process also
3760-613: The first notable Kinemacolor film which proved to be a financial success. That year, the company released the first dramatic film made in the process, By The Order of Napoleon . In 1911, the Scala Theatre became Urban's flagship venue for showing Kinemacolor films, which included From Bud to Blossom (1910), Unveiling of the Queen Victoria Memorial (1911), Coronation of George V (1911), The Investiture of The Prince of Wales (1911). The company also produced
3840-422: The frames exposed behind the red filter were printed on another strip. After development, each print was toned to a color nearly complementary to that of the filter: orange-red for the green-filtered images, cyan-green for the red-filtered ones. Unlike tinting, which adds a uniform veil of color to the entire image, toning chemically replaces the black-and-white silver image with transparent coloring matter, so that
3920-494: The full color spectrum due to being a two-colour process. Other issues included eye strain and frame parallax because it used a successive frame process, as well as the need for a special projector. The color filters absorbed so much light that studios had to be built open-air. At the press opening of the Urbanora House in London on 1 May 1908, Charles Urban presented Kinemacolor films which he stated were not taken with
4000-442: The gate, it cooled and the bulge subsided, but not quite completely. It was found that the cemented prints were not only very prone to cupping, but that the direction of cupping would suddenly and randomly change from back to front or vice versa, so that even the most attentive projectionist could not prevent the image from temporarily popping out of focus whenever the cupping direction changed. Technicolor had to supply new prints so
4080-413: The greatest amount of attention so far has been attracted by a system invented by George Albert Smith, and commercially developed by Charles Urban under the name of "Kinemacolor." In this system (to quote from Cassell's Cyclopædia of Photography , edited by the editor of this present book), only two colour filters are used in taking the negatives and only two in projecting the positives. The camera resembles
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#17327729566744160-523: The highlights remain clear (or nearly so), dark areas are strongly colored, and intermediate tones are colored proportionally. The two prints, made on film stock half the thickness of regular film, were then cemented together back to back to create a projection print. The Toll of the Sea , which debuted on November 26, 1922, used Process 2 and was the first general-release film in Technicolor. The second all-color feature in Process 2 Technicolor, Wanderer of
4240-707: The intention to be shown in front of an audience. A second demonstration in England took place once again in the Urbanora House on 23 July 1908, in front of the Lord Mayor of London as well as 60 other guests. Kinemacolor was shown in Paris on 8 July 1908, featuring a film of the Grand Prix motor race taken the previous day. Among the guests were the Lumière brothers , inventors of the autochrome color photography process. George Albert Smith presented Kinemacolor before
4320-447: The introduction of color did not increase the number of moviegoers to the point where it was economical. This and the Great Depression severely strained the finances of the movie studios and spelled the end of Technicolor's first financial successes. Technicolor envisioned a full-color process as early as 1924, and was actively developing such a process by 1929. Hollywood made so much use of Technicolor in 1929 and 1930 that many believed
4400-418: The limited red–green spectrum of previous films. The new camera simultaneously exposed three strips of black-and-white film, each of which recorded a different color of the spectrum. The new process would last until the last Technicolor feature film was produced in 1955. Technicolor's advantage over most early natural-color processes was that it was a subtractive synthesis rather than an additive one: unlike
4480-629: The materials. Original Technicolor prints that survived into the 1950s were often used to make black-and-white prints for television and simply discarded thereafter. This explains why so many early color films exist today solely in black and white. Warner Bros., which had vaulted from a minor exhibitor to a major studio with its introduction of the talkies , incorporated Technicolor's printing to enhance its films. Other producers followed Warner Bros.' example by making features in color, with either Technicolor, or one of its competitors, such as Brewster Color and Multicolor (later Cinecolor ). Consequently,
4560-464: The only movie made in Process 1, The Gulf Between , which had a limited tour of Eastern cities, beginning with Boston and New York on September 13, 1917, primarily to interest motion picture producers and exhibitors in color. The near-constant need for a technician to adjust the projection alignment doomed this additive color process. Only a few frames of The Gulf Between , showing star Grace Darmond , are known to exist today. Convinced that there
4640-413: The ordinary cinematographic camera except that it runs at twice the speed, taking thirty-two images per second instead of sixteen, and it is fitted with a rotating colour filter in addition to the ordinary shutter. This filter is an aluminium skeleton wheel... having four segments, two open ones, G and H; one filled in with red-dyed gelatine, E F; and the fourth containing green-dyed gelatine, A B. The camera
4720-432: The projection print made of double-cemented prints in favor of a print created by dye imbibition . The Technicolor camera for Process 3 was identical to that for Process 2, simultaneously photographing two consecutive frames of a black-and-white film behind red and green filters. In the lab, skip-frame printing was used to sort the alternating color-record frames on the camera negative into two series of contiguous frames,
4800-510: The public. Two independently produced features were also made with this improved Technicolor process: Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1934) and Kliou the Tiger (1935). Very few of the original camera negatives of movies made in Technicolor Process 2 or 3 survive. In the late 1940s, most were discarded from storage at Technicolor in a space-clearing move, after the studios declined to reclaim
4880-441: The red-filtered frames being printed onto one strip of specially prepared "matrix" film and the green-filtered frames onto another. After processing, the gelatin of the matrix film's emulsion was left proportionally hardened, being hardest and least soluble where it had been most strongly exposed to light. The unhardened fraction was then washed away. The result was two strips of relief images consisting of hardened gelatin, thickest in
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#17327729566744960-517: The same time, the film had to be photographed and projected at twice the normal speed. Exhibition required a special projector with two apertures (one with a red filter and the other with a green filter), two lenses, and an adjustable prism that aligned the two images on the screen. The results were first demonstrated to members of the American Institute of Mining Engineers in New York on February 21, 1917. Technicolor itself produced
5040-480: The surface of its emulsion was a red-orange coating that prevented blue light from continuing on to the red-sensitive panchromatic emulsion of the film behind it, which therefore recorded only the red-dominated third of the spectrum. Each of the three resulting negatives was printed onto a special matrix film. After processing, each matrix was a nearly invisible representation of the series of film frames as gelatin reliefs, thickest (and most absorbent) where each image
5120-494: The three-strip process. One Silly Symphony , Three Little Pigs (1933), engendered such a positive audience response that it overshadowed the feature films with which it was shown. Hollywood was buzzing about color film again. According to Fortune magazine, " Merian C. Cooper , producer for RKO Radio Pictures and director of King Kong (1933), saw one of the Silly Symphonies and said he never wanted to make
5200-475: The two sides of the print were not in the same plane, both could not be perfectly in focus at the same time. The significance of this depended on the depth of focus of the projection optics. Much more serious was a problem with cupping. Films in general tended to become somewhat cupped after repeated use: every time a film was projected, each frame in turn was heated by the intense light in the projection gate, causing it to bulge slightly; after it had passed through
5280-608: The use of the process in animated films that extended to September 1935. Other animation producers, such as the Fleischer Studios and the Ub Iwerks studio, were shut out – they had to settle for either the two-color Technicolor systems or use a competing process such as Cinecolor . Flowers and Trees was a success with audiences and critics alike, and won the first Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film . All subsequent Silly Symphonies from 1933 on were shot with
5360-405: The years of its existence, during the early boom at the turn of the decade. A well-managed company, half of whose stock was controlled by a clique loyal to Kalmus, Technicolor never had to cede any control to its bankers or unfriendly stockholders. In the mid-'30s, all the major studios except MGM were in the financial doldrums, and a color process that truly reproduced the visual spectrum was seen as
5440-488: Was Saiyûki Zokuhen (1917). In 1913, after years of dispute, William Friese-Greene , inventor of the rival Biocolour system, challenged Smith's Kinemacolor patent at the Royal Courts of Justice . Although the court initially favoured Kinemacolor, the original verdict was overturned in March 1914. Consequently, Kinemacolor lost not only its patent protection but its commercial value and exclusivity. Urban liquidated
5520-399: Was adapted by George Albert Smith after Turner's sudden death in 1903 into Kinemacolor. Smith was also influenced by the work of William Norman Lascelles Davidson . He was granted a patent for the Kinemacolor process in 1907. "How to Make and Operate Moving Pictures" published by Funk & Wagnalls in 1917 notes the following: Of the many attempts to produce cinematograph pictures...
5600-412: Was apt to result in a weak splice that would fail as it passed through the projector. Even before these problems became apparent, Technicolor regarded this cemented print approach as a stopgap and was already at work developing an improved process. Based on the same dye-transfer technique first applied to motion pictures in 1916 by Max Handschiegl, Technicolor Process 3 (1928) was developed to eliminate
5680-412: Was darkest and thinnest where it was lightest. Each matrix was soaked in a dye complementary to the color of light recorded by the negative printed on it: cyan for red, magenta for green, and yellow for blue (see also: CMYK color model for a technical discussion of color printing). A single clear strip of black-and-white film with the soundtrack and frame lines printed in advance was first treated with
5760-488: Was demonstrated several times in 1908 and first shown to the public in 1909. From 1909 on, the process was known and trademarked as Kinemacolor and was marketed by Charles Urban ’ s Natural Color Kinematograph Company , which sold Kinemacolor licences around the world. Edward Raymond Turner produced the oldest surviving colour films around 1902. They were made through three-colour alternating-filters. Turner's process, for which Charles Urban had provided financial backing,
5840-477: Was filmed using the Eastmancolor process. Eastmancolor became very popular in the South Indian film industry during the early 1960s. Technicolor Technicolor is a family of color motion picture processes. The first version, Process 1, was introduced in 1916, and improved versions followed over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black-and-white films running through
5920-641: Was first duplicated onto a 35mm fine-grain SE negative element in one pass of the 16mm element, thereby reducing wear of the 16mm original, and also eliminating registration errors between colors. The live-action SE negative thereafter entered other Technicolor processes and were incorporated with SE animation and three-strip studio live-action, as required, thereby producing the combined result. The studios were willing to adopt three-color Technicolor for live-action feature production, if it could be proved viable. Shooting three-strip Technicolor required very bright lighting, as
6000-399: Was managed by partial wash-back of the dyes from each matrix. Each matrix in turn was pressed into contact with a plain gelatin-coated strip of film known as the "blank" and the gelatin "imbibed" the dye from the matrix. A mordant made from deacetylated chitin was applied to the blank before printing, to prevent the dyes from migrating or "bleeding" after they were absorbed. Dye imbibition
6080-433: Was no future in additive color processes, Comstock, Wescott, and Kalmus focused their attention on subtractive color processes. This culminated in what would eventually be known as Process 2 (1922) (often referred to today by the misnomer "two-strip Technicolor"). As before, the special Technicolor camera used a beam-splitter that simultaneously exposed two consecutive frames of a single strip of black-and-white film, one behind
6160-423: Was not suitable for printing optical soundtracks, which required very high resolution, so when making prints for sound-on-film systems the "blank" film was a conventional black-and-white film stock on which the soundtrack, as well as frame lines, had been printed in the ordinary way prior to the dye transfer operation. The first feature made entirely in the Technicolor Process 3 was The Viking (1928), which had
6240-530: Was only used indoors. In 1936, The Trail of the Lonesome Pine became the first color production to have outdoor sequences, with impressive results. The spectacular success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which was released in December 1937 and became the top-grossing film of 1938, attracted the attention of the studios. Film critic Manny Farber on the 1943 Technicolor film For Whom
6320-686: Was the second major color process, after Britain's Kinemacolor (used between 1909 and 1915), and the most widely used color process in Hollywood during the Golden Age of Hollywood . Technicolor's three-color process became known and celebrated for its highly saturated color, and was initially most commonly used for filming musicals such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Down Argentine Way (1940), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), costume pictures such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with
6400-432: Was used in some short sequences filmed for several movies made during 1934, including the final sequences of The House of Rothschild ( Twentieth Century Pictures / United Artists ) with George Arliss and Kid Millions ( Samuel Goldwyn Studios ) with Eddie Cantor . Pioneer/RKO's Becky Sharp (1935) became the first feature film photographed entirely in three-strip Technicolor. Initially, three-strip Technicolor
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