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Post by snsurone on Dec 25, 2017 2:17:39 GMT
The very first "color" films were hand-tinted cels from the early 20th century, like some of Georges Melies' fantasies (which tend to give me a headache, LOL).
Color was used sporadically in the silent film era, usually for certain scenes.
This was 2-strip Technicolor, where everything was in shades of red or green.
3-strip Technicolor was developed in the mid-1930's, and that was quite a feat!
David Selznick embraced this new technology, and used it in a number of his movies: THE GARDEN OF ALLAH, THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, and--of course--GONE WITH THE WIND.
Of course, making color films was very expensive, and so not used that often.
This is not to disparage B&W movies: most of them are superb, especially in dramatic films like CITIZEN KANE, CASABLANCA, and the film noir genre.
During WWII, color was used more, especially in those splashy musical comedies made mainly to entertain the troops overseas.
IMHO, some of them went a bit overboard, like those Betty Grable pix from 20th-Century Fox.
IMHO, the best color films are those musicals from the Freed Unit of MGM.
Technicolor was later replaced by the cheaper Eastmancolor.
Those movies tended to fade quicker than the older ones.
Today, color is pretty much taken for granted, and, IMHO, is quite drab, adding nothing to the movies.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 25, 2017 5:09:36 GMT
Hi, snsurone. The development of color photography is a favorite topic of mine. Care for some technobabble?* "2-strip Technicolor" is actually a misnomer. "Two-Color Technicolor" existed in three different versions: System 1, an "additive" one in use from 1917-22; System 2, a "subtractive" one used from 1922-27; System 3, another "subtractive" one, from 1927-33 (don't ask me the difference between "additive" and "subtractive" systems; I've read it dozens of times and still can't get it through my head). But all three systems used a single negative. It wasn't until the perfection of "3-strip" in 1932 that multiple negatives - or film "strips" - were used. And here's a mind-blower: in all of them - 3-strip and the three earlier two-color systems - it was B&W negative that was exposed in the camera! What they all did was use a prism behind the camera lens to split the light entering into two or three primary colors, with the B&W negative recording only the corresponding spectrum of the primary color. 3-strip did so with three B&W negatives; the two-color systems with alternating frames on a single one. The color magic happened in the lab with the printing process, where dyes corresponding to the primary colors recorded on the B&W negative were transferred to the positive stock; this was known as either the "dye transfer" or "imbibition" ("IB" around the lab) process. Since the actual color is applied only when a positive print is manufactured, it's for this reason that original Technicolor negatives aren't prone to the fading that plagues Eastman "monopack" negatives, on which the colors are recorded in the chemical emulsion on single reels of stock. And there you are: more than you ever wanted to know about "Two-color" and "3-strip" Technicolor, and about Eastman fading. *Or maybe you'd prefer some eggnog or a stiff scotch-and-water. |
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Post by nausea on Dec 25, 2017 5:58:48 GMT
I am so old I have a sined copy of teh bible.
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Post by snsurone on Dec 25, 2017 14:53:36 GMT
Thank you for the info, Dog.
Now, pass that eggnog!
To hell with dieting, LOL!
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 25, 2017 16:47:55 GMT
Now, pass that eggnog! To hell with dieting, LOL! That's what holidays are for, right? To say, "To hell with dieting!"  |
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Post by snsurone on Dec 25, 2017 17:15:49 GMT
I'm about to enjoy a nice piece of chocolate mousse pie with (another) glass of red wine.
Back on topic: Technicolor was also used extensively in those "Arabian Nights" escapist films from the 1940's with Jon Hall, Maria Montez, and Turhan Bey, and later in the "sword and sandal" epics of the 1950's that are such fun to watch, as long as you don't take them too seriously, LOL.
I believe that it was sometime in the 1960's/1970's that color became commonplace (and when the cheaper Eastmancolor replaced the brilliant Technicolor) and filmmakers tended to take for granted the physical quality of their output, more concerned about the "bottom line".
Yes, there were some great movies from that time, but IMHO, the quality of most films greatly deteriorated, and have been doing so ever since then.
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Post by politicidal on Dec 25, 2017 17:46:13 GMT
I am so old I have a sined copy of teh bible. Which one? Moses? Solomon? Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? |
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Post by teleadm on Dec 25, 2017 18:01:12 GMT
 Technicolor Color Diretor. Natalie Kalmus, according to a DVD extra movie they had included in my The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938, about the birth of Technicolor, said that Natalia Kalmus was a very powerfull woman that used to drive producers nuts with her rules. John Huston had lots of fights with her, sometimes changing it when she wasn't around. Eastman sent her to England, mostly so she would stay away from Hollywood.  Natalie Kalmus.  Jane Russell in Foxfire 1955, that was mentioned in the above mentioned documentary was the last three-strip Technicolor ever done, at least in America.  The cast of The Ladykillers 1955, then must be the last tree-stip Technicolor movie made outside America.  As mentioned by snsurone Universal who at that point didn't had that rooster of stars as the other studios had, created their own, very much thanks to Technicolor, like Jon Hall and Maria Montez, as seen here in Arabian Nights 1942 |
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Post by Doghouse6 on Dec 26, 2017 3:57:50 GMT
Technicolor Color Diretor. Natalie Kalmus, according to a DVD extra movie they had included in my The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938, about the birth of Technicolor, said that Natalia Kalmus was a very powerfull woman that used to drive producers nuts with her rules. John Huston had lots of fights with her, sometimes changing it when she wasn't around. Eastman sent her to England, mostly so she would stay away from Hollywood. The once-and-former Mrs. Kalmas (she and Technicolor founder Herbert divorced in 1922) was indeed a colorful (what else?) figure that alienated many a producer, director, DP, art director and costume designer, and who was described by some as opinionated, abrasive, meddling and/or dictatorial. She was a woman on a mission. Three, in fact: one technical; one artistic; one commercial. Aware of the exacting demands of the Technicolor process in the lab, she strove for photographic standards that would best advantage the manufacture of product; with her own ideas about the aesthetics and "psychology of color," she advocated for realism of "life and nature as it really is," but "molded according to the basic principles of art" and avoiding "a super-abundance of color" that she found "unnatural;" behind both of these were the prestige and marketability of the Technicolor name. It's easy enough to see, then, where friction might arise with the makers of any given film, when considerations of artistic vision and freedom are taken into account against contractual obligations imposed by the company owning the process, the name and even the cameras. One could say it represents in microcosm the eternally adversarial relationships between art, commerce and technology that have colored (there I go again) the history of motion pictures. |
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Post by nausea on Dec 26, 2017 11:28:08 GMT
I am so old I have a sined copy of teh bible. Which one? Moses? Solomon? Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? God himself |
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