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From: davew@shark.UUCP (Dave Williams)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: First Color Films
Message-ID: <1361@shark.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 13:13:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: shark.1361
Posted: Mon Apr 29 13:13:48 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 1-May-85 03:20:48 EDT
References: <4882@ucla-cs.ARPA> <1117@hou5e.UUCP> <130@plx.UUCP> <2197@usceast.UUCP>
Reply-To: davew@shark.UUCP (Dave Williams)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Engineering Computing Systems
Lines: 40
Summary: 

In article <2197@usceast.UUCP> ted@usceast.UUCP (System Programmer) writes:
>One thing I have always wondered about early color films is why we dont't
>get color like that today.  I saw Eroll Flyn's Robin Hood movie several
>times in the last 4 or 5 years, and remember being impressed with how
>vivid the color was in comparison to recent movies; I recall making  the same
>observation about other old color films too.

As has been stated earlier, the original Technicolor process involved
a 3 film negative. The camera used was a special unit owned by Technicolor
and was rented to the film company. In addition, Technicolor insisted
that one of their color consultants be present for all shoting. Further,
all film had to be processed by Technicolor. Because of the optical
splitters and filters used in the camera a much greater amount of lighting
had to be used on the sets. All this drove the cost of production up, so
during the 30's and 40's only the big budget productions that were felt
to benefit from color were shot in Technicolor. If you look at screen
credits for these films you will see Technicolor Consultant mentioned.
The name that appears the most is Natalie Kalmus, who was the wife of
Technicolors president Dr. Kalmus.
All this changed around 1953 when Eastman developed a good single film
color negative. They also licensed film labs to process the film.
Many of the studios set up their own color film labs and used names such
as Metrocolor, Warnercolor and Deluxe(Twentieth Century Fox). Technicolor
finally bought in to the Eastman process so as to be competitive.
There were several competing processes before the entry of Eastman.
Cinecolor was a two film process of inferior quality. Several Roy
Rogers movies were shot with this process. Blue jeans appeared torquise
green. Another process was by CCOA (Color Corp. of America), it was
worse than Cinecolor, the colors were off and it appeared faded.

-- 


                                    Dave Williams
                                    Tektronix, Inc.
                                    Engineering Computing Systems

    "The 6000 Family"
"The workstations that made
Wilsonville famous."