Today ’s moviegoers are a wearied bunch — it seems to require 3D visuals and advanced audio recording systems just to get a ascent out of them . But it was n’t always this tough in Tinseltown ; there was once a time when something as basic as coloration picture was sufficient to float an audience ’s corporate nous .
The Early Days of Colorization
motion-picture show audiences have in reality been enjoy color motion-picture show nearly as long as film itself has been around . The very first such technique required each individual cell be color by hired man , employ extremely fine brushes and water - based semitransparent dyes . This method was extremely labor - intensive and could only be apply after the black and white film parentage had been developed . As such , other hand - shaded films tended to be extremely short — typically no longer than a few hundred foot of celluloid in full — such as the works ofGeorges Méliès . And even at the exercise ’s height of popularity in the 1920s , only the braggy blockbusters of the daytime — such at 1924 ’s Greed , 1925 ’s The Phantom of the Opera , or The Last Days of Pompeii in 1926 — received this discourse .
Not only was hand - coloring film verbose and demand workplace , the resultant would vary from frame of reference to ensnare as differing concentrations of dye would often be applied . These drawbacks led production houses to begin looking at more effective way of add colour to their film stocks in the former 1910s , specifically with the use of stencils .
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The basic idea behind stenciling was the same as hand color — use tint and dyes to existing film stock — but with somewhat less study . Made famed by the French Pathé company and in the first place market as PathéColor , stenciling worked essentially the same way as innovative silk masking . It used a glass master plate engrave with the abstract of the the cell ’s catch image . This home base would cover only sure expanse of the opprobrious and bloodless cinema , reserve sure shade to only reach sure regions of the plastic film cell — id est , all the yellow bits would be get out uncovered by one stencil , all the cerise bit would be left by another , and all the naughty bits exposed by a third . By roll on the appropriate shade with the appropriate stencil , an entire electric cell could be colored in just a few pass — unremarkably between three and six of them .
To avoid stool some poor schmuck etch those plates by hired man , as was the case early in the proficiency ’s development , image clipping machines were arise . This was a acerate leaf - lean putz attached to a follow outfit — not unlike the cardinal cutting motorcar at the hardware store — that allow the technician to follow an outline of the image on a projected , magnified guide . The enlarged persona would then be transcribed back down to the right size using a panograph . you’re able to find example of this technique in such seminal films as The birthing of a Carry Amelia Moore Nation from 1915 or 1916 ’s Intolerance .
The most common post - production colorization technique , however , was tinting . While the other method acting insisted on staying inside the lines , tinting simply slathered a single color over the entire cellular phone to put forward an overall mood or sense for the scene . 1903 ’s The Great Train Robbery , for example , apply yellow washes for lantern - dismount cavern scene and dingy tints to sham night .
Tinting ’s basal vantage was its relative simpleness of role . Instead of dye individual sections of individual cells , this simple process involved cut the celluloid into chunks of the the appropriate length , dyeing them a specific colour , and then reassembling the strips back into a complete celluloid . It proved so efficient that it remain in consumption well into the 1940s .
Let There Be Technicolor
The advancement from these other methods to full - color film does n’t follow a stiff flight by any mean . By the end of the 1920s , well-nigh two dozen company held patent for moving picture colorization technique — most of which could only be accomplished with assemblage telephone line - style yield . That changed with the advent of a full - color outgrowth that would go on to become the most famous film color in cinematic history : Technicolor .
The cognitive process was originally devise by Herbert Kalmus — who also co - establish the Technicolor Corporation — as a two - color additive system in 1916 . When Technicolor formally debuted on the Silver Screen in 1929 , it became an prompt smash hit . That initial winner was quite brief , though , since the Great Depression began the next year . Though the cinema industriousness would shinny through the conform to year of economical cataclysm , the technology behind Technicolor movie go along to advance . In 1932 , a brace of inventor named Burton Wescott and Joseph A. Ball created the world ’s first three - color movie camera . It farm a much capital reach of colors than the previous two - coloradditiveorsubtractivemethods by exposing a trio of especially - coated black and white motion-picture show strip to incoming light divided by a optical prism . Each of the three tear - ignitor balance beam would pass through a red , green , or blue filter and imprint its associated film strip with a specific wavelength of light . These three comic strip of negatives were then used to create printing process matrices that would start the program of CMYK ( cyan , Battle of Magenta , and scandalmongering ) dyestuff onto a single strip of film , resulting in a single , full - colour negative .
From 1922 until 1952 , your moving-picture show was dog sum if it did n’t use Technicolor . Everything from The Wizard of Oz and blend in With the Wind to An American in Paris and Fantasia were shot in Technicolor . Nobody care that the process leave in garishly impregnate , affected hues — the technique was a hit with audience , and this was the age of Glorious Technicolor .
The proficiency came with a extortionate Mary Leontyne Price - tag however , typically adding about $ 300,000 to the production costs of each film and requiring the on - lay out mien of a “ Technicolor expert”—typically Kalmus ’ married woman , Natalie — to “ advise ” on the film ’s cinematography . In response to these diva demands , a number of other company grow their own color film processes like Eastman Color ’s polychromatic “ monopack ” color film , as well as DeLuxe , TruColor , and Warner Color . The emergence of this competition severely strangle Technicolor ’s business , and the engineering science fall into neglect through the 1960s — until Francis Ford Coppola revived it for his 1972 chef-d’oeuvre , The Godfather .
Painting With Pixels
Though the company never reclaimed the consuming market ascendancy it enjoy during the first half of the century , Technicolor and its rivals continue to prosper through the seventies . Around that time , a pair of Canadians named Wilson Markle and Christian Portilla proved the utility of data processor - aided colorization in perforate up monochrome footage of the Apollo moon missions .
This modern method of computer - based colorization starts with the highest caliber monochrome pic stock available . This film is first scanned and digitalise . Then a technician will analyze the grey levels and perceive brightness of the footage before applying determine colors to each object in the plastic film . These can include standardized “ memory board ” colors—-like the blue of the sky or physique tones — or authentic colors gleaned from existing color publicity or production photos , though technicians will often fiddle with color and vividness balance to achieve the most life - like effects . Once the color roof of the mouth is determine , the reckoner programme will then automatically employ colour of varying luminousness to each objective based on the item ’s grey exfoliation time value .
This method , patented in 1991 , has been a boon to Hollywood — but it remains a toil - intensive venture . Identifying , speciate , and tracking the legion elements present in each scene is just as metre - consuming as former methods , since it is still done by hand . honest object cover algorithms capable of perform on less - than - stellar moving-picture show stock persist tough — and meanwhile , celluloid collections around the nation continue to age and degrade . [ InfoPlease – ZauberKlang – Wiki1,2 – PopSci – Mental Floss – Top Gif:@MhessionviaWizard of Oz , Technicolor Camera : National Museum of American History – Pixel : Abby Brack Lewis / AP ]
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