The Film That Brought Colour To The World: Technicolor

INTRODUCTION

When you think of the early days of film black and white images will likely come to mind. With cinematic worlds exclusively portrayed in monochromatic shades of grey. 

But then, like a flash of color itself, Technicolor arrived - revolutionising the very way we experience storytelling on the big screen. From the lush, saturated landscapes of The Wizard of Oz to the exquisite palettes in The Red Shoes, it became more than just a tool. It became a symbol of cinematic magic.

Let’s explore the technical evolution and history of Technicolor, and look at how this groundbreaking process brought hues to life, transforming filmmaking forever.

2-COLOUR ADDITIVE PROCESS

At the start of the 1900s when filmmaking was still in its infancy - a few technical innovators, such as Edward Turner, began toying with the idea of creating a 35mm colour print. 

However these early experiments were few and far between. Until around 1909 where the first major colour cinematography process called Kinemacolor was invented in Britain. After commercial use faded in 1915 it was followed by Technicolor.

 But how exactly did this technology work?

Technicolor sought to almost magically create a colour image while using the black and white film which was available at the time. The first iteration, which was called Process 1, used a two-colour system.

Basically it recorded each frame twice on one roll of 35mm black and white film behind a green filter and a red filter.

This was done by a specialist Technicolor camera, which was initially manufactured by the Waltham Machine company before it was taken over by Mitchell - who dominated early camera manufacturing.  

To record these two moving images at the same time this technicolor camera used a beam splitter - where light entered through the lens and was then diverted into two areas through different gates using optics. This allowed two images to be individually exposed to light and recorded next to each other on the same strip of film.

Later, a film print could be played back by a special projector with two lenses - one with an aperture which created a red tinted image and the other with a green aperture. When these two different coloured images were correctly positioned so that they overlapped each other on the projection screen, they produced very rudimentary moving colour footage. 

Because just two colours were combined, early Technicolor could only produce a very limited range of colours. They chose red and green because they wanted to prioritise skin tone colours and greener foliage, however at the expense of not capturing other hues like blues or purples.  

Combining these two projected images was called the additive colour process. However, it came with many technical glitches, such as the projector technician needing to very frequently re-calibrate and re-position the alignment of the projector lenses. 

This first process never really took off. However, it did send Technicolor back to the drawing board to develop Process number 2.  

2-COLOUR SUBTRACTIVE PROCESS

Rather than changing the two colour camera system, Technicolor Process 2 decided to alter how the film projection happened. Instead of the first process’ additive colour, this new process used subtractive colour.

What this meant was that rather than projecting two separate red and green images, subtractive colour combined them into one 35mm colour print which could be run through an ordinary projector.

Once the 35mm black and white film rolls that were shot with a red and green filter by the Technicolor camera were developed and printed, they were stuck together then colour toned in a film lab using different dyes. 

The black and white film from the green side was given a complementary, or opposite, red-orange tint, while the film from the red side was given a green-cyan tint. 

When combined these produced a basic colour print which could be projected in cinemas. 

Although this vastly simplified the projection process and increased the quality control of the product in cinemas, it still came with a number of downsides. 

Some of these issues were addressed in the updated 1928 Technicolor Process 3, which made the print more hardy, durable, less prone to scratching and able to play in cinemas for longer without getting damaged.

Despite the improvement in the technology Technicolor was still not entirely happy and sought to invent a new, final process which would be able to present a full, saturated spectrum of vivid colour to audiences.

3-STRIP PROCESS

Apart from the technical downsides of the two colour process, the main negative was an aesthetic one. Recording and toning film with only two colours severely limited the spectrum of colours it could reproduce.

To overcome this they decided to bump up the colours they could record from two to three. This required manufacturing a whole new camera in collaboration with Mitchell.

Once the light passed through the lens, it was again optically divided into two different streams by the beam splitter. However this time, instead of recording to one roll of film, each frame was recorded onto three different rolls of 35mm black and white film simultaneously. 

One stream of light was split, passed through a filter and exposed one film roll to only green light. The other split beam was first recorded onto an orthochromatic film which absorbed only blue light, before then passing through to a third panchromatic film which captured only red light. 

These three rolls of black and white negative film were later sent to a lab where they were developed into a black and white positive, and then, like in the earlier subtractive colour process they were toned with a dye - that was on the opposite end of the colour spectrum.

So the black and white film exposed to red light was given a cyan dye, the image recorded with blue light given a yellow dye and the green light image toned a magenta colour. 

When these cyan, yellow and magenta toned images were combined into one - they produced a much more accurate reproduction of colour - closer to what the human eye sees. Being able to capture tones which before weren’t possible such as blues, and many other colours in between.

The first notable use of this three colour process which showed off its broad range of colour capture was on the Disney animated short Flowers And Trees.

This combination of dyes created a unique Technicolor look that came to represent colour cinema from the early 30s to the 50s. It had vivid, rich, saturated colours, with reds, oranges and yellows being particularly punchy and brightly lit paler skin tones having a creamy, bronze, pastel warmth.

This boosted saturation and contrast meant that darker shadows were often crushed to pure black and lacked detail. Suits became dark blobs without texture. 

The bright, punchy quality of this colour meant it was often used in Hollywood for lighter, entertaining genres - such as musicals, animation, adventure or comedies. While black and white was often preserved for darker, more dramatic films such as in the noir genre. However, certain filmmakers did opt for Technicolor to create a visual spectacle for some dramatic epics.

DISADVANTAGES

Even though this three colour process vastly improved both the look and the projection limitations of the earlier processes - it wasn’t without some flaws.

Firstly, shooting in this three colour Technicolor Process was expensive. With their three film rolls, they used at least triple the amount of 35mm film compared to movies shot in black and white. Additionally, this process required more complex processing work in the lab to develop the film and to make the colour projection print.

Film studios also couldn’t buy their own three-color Mitchell cameras, but were instead forced to rent them from Technicolor along with one of their camera technicians and colour supervisors - who made sure that the hues of the costumes and sets in front of the camera didn’t push the camera’s limitations.

Technicolor was therefore often reserved for higher budget films, or occasionally, only used for a few select set piece scenes, with the rest of the movie shot in black and white. 

Apart from the cost, cinematographers and crews were also challenged. Due to the prism system that split the light beam, along with the low speeds of the black and white film stock of the time they had to rate the film incredibly low at around a mere 5 ASA. This required an enormous amount of light - especially when lighting large sets. 

This light usually came from carbon arc sources, which ran so hot, that they would smoke - raising the temperatures on sets to extreme heights.

Another practical downside was sound. When 35mm film runs through a camera it makes a whirring sound. Having three times the amount of film pass through the camera made these cameras very noisy - so much so that you couldn’t record sync sound with them without using what was called a blimp - a cover that dampens the camera noise.

The blimps for these Technicolor Mitchell cameras were outrageously big. And made moving this hunk of machinery around much more difficult than with a standard Mitchell camera.

THE DEATH OF TECHNICOLOR

Three colour Technicolor had a great run from the early 30s to the mid 50s - shooting many iconic Hollywood films.

However, the death of Technicolor was inflicted by Kodak in the early 50s - with the invention of 35mm motion picture colour negative film. This Eastman Colour Negative or ECN film process meant that instead of needing an enormous camera, 3 rolls of black and white film and a complex laboratory dying process - all you needed was any 35mm motion picture camera and a single roll of film, which when processed, would give an immediate colour image. 

Although the look of ECN was less saturated and more muted than Technicolor. The ease, ergonomics and economics of colour negative film ultimately won out. Leaving behind Technicolor and its beautiful collection of saturated, rich, joyful films.