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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: enquiry about GONE WITH THE WIND
Message-ID: <4651@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 3-Apr-85 18:36:17 EST
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.4651
Posted: Wed Apr  3 18:36:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Apr-85 03:09:29 EST
References: <556@cornell.UUCP> <1315@yale.ARPA>
Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher)
Distribution: net
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 30
Summary: 

In article <1315@yale.ARPA> freeman@yale-comix.UUCP (Ace) writes:
>    GWTW was not originally filmed in black and white but it was
>    one of the first motion pictures made in color, so at the
>    time of its release most pictures were still in B&W.  

Whether or not GWTW was one of the "first" color films depends on how loosely
you define "first".  Since "Becky Sharpe" in 1935 (5 years before GWTW),
three strip Techicolor had been in use.  Two strip Technicolor had been in
use even longer.  Lon Chaney's "Phantom of the Opera" (1926) had a short 
Technicolor sequence, and an Anna Mae Wong movie in the early twenties is
reputed to be the first Technicolor feature.  Generally, the larger studios 
produced only two or three films per year in Technicolor, since both filming and
striking prints were very expensive in this process.  

>						...There
>    was some experimentation with filming in black and white
>    and then manually coloring the frames. This process generally
>    resulted in color that looked very artificial to say the least.

I've seen some very early (1910s-1920s) experiments in color.  None
were really satisfactory, but some of them were fairly good looking.  Manual
coloring was rarely done, but silent films were frequently hand-tinted, which
is a little different: each frame is completely tinted with one color, so that
it is, for instance, black and red instead of black and white.  In some cases,
it's moderately more effective than black and white, but I've never really
cared for it myself.
-- 
        			Peter Reiher
        			reiher@ucla-cs.arpa
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher