Three second bursts of previously lost Technicolor
April 27, 2018 11:51 AM Subscribe
The British Film Institute has recently discovered short, evocative snippets of lost early Technicolor films from the Twenties (including a brief, tantalizing glimpse of Louise Brooks from the lost film The American Venus).
Many of these short snippets were discovered in the head and tail leaders of another film (The Black Pirate) during routine inspection -- the discovered footage had essentially been discarded for its original purpose and simply used as filler. (BFI curator Bryony Dixon comments: "as they say in archaeology, all the best stuff is in the rubbish pile.")
Some of these color fragments are from otherwise completely lost films. Others are snippets from films which now only survive as black and white copies, so the BFI has put together some really neat sequences where the short color segments are reinserted into that surviving footage to provide better context (5:27-6:55 of the "snippets" link above)
According to this post on Pamela Hutchinson's Silent London blog: "the June 2018 issue of Sight & Sound ... contains the full story of the fragments’ discovery and is out next week."
Many of these short snippets were discovered in the head and tail leaders of another film (The Black Pirate) during routine inspection -- the discovered footage had essentially been discarded for its original purpose and simply used as filler. (BFI curator Bryony Dixon comments: "as they say in archaeology, all the best stuff is in the rubbish pile.")
Some of these color fragments are from otherwise completely lost films. Others are snippets from films which now only survive as black and white copies, so the BFI has put together some really neat sequences where the short color segments are reinserted into that surviving footage to provide better context (5:27-6:55 of the "snippets" link above)
According to this post on Pamela Hutchinson's Silent London blog: "the June 2018 issue of Sight & Sound ... contains the full story of the fragments’ discovery and is out next week."
@1970s_Antihero - your links may have the answer, but why was blue the last to come? The reds and greens certainly give the most familiar look of old Technicolor! And that Zauberklang link is a great resource for comparing the different coloring treatments back then, thanks for pointing that out.
posted by aleksalhambra at 12:23 PM on April 27, 2018
posted by aleksalhambra at 12:23 PM on April 27, 2018
why was blue the last to come?
The problem mostly was capturing all that color information. How to photograph three colors simultaneously was an extremely difficult problem. The early color processes tended to have films that were coated on both sides—one side of the film was sensitive to red colors, the other side green. (The human eye is much less sensitive to blue than it is green or red, so if you're going to throw away one color, that seems the sensible choice).
With Technicolor three strip, the light entering the camera was sent through a prism, and the red, green, and blue components of the light are exposed on three separate strips of film (hence the name). This was ridiculously complicated— it required a super-expensive camera, three times the amount of film, and the light needed to be three times as bright, which meant that actors had to work under oppressively hot lighting.
Kodak and other film companies eventually figured out how to coat film so that the red, green, and blue layers are all on the same side of the film, and in the 1950s, the three strip process died off. (Technicolor was still being hired to print out films from the color negatives, which is why you see films being advertised as Technicolor afterwards).
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:52 PM on April 27, 2018 [6 favorites]
The problem mostly was capturing all that color information. How to photograph three colors simultaneously was an extremely difficult problem. The early color processes tended to have films that were coated on both sides—one side of the film was sensitive to red colors, the other side green. (The human eye is much less sensitive to blue than it is green or red, so if you're going to throw away one color, that seems the sensible choice).
With Technicolor three strip, the light entering the camera was sent through a prism, and the red, green, and blue components of the light are exposed on three separate strips of film (hence the name). This was ridiculously complicated— it required a super-expensive camera, three times the amount of film, and the light needed to be three times as bright, which meant that actors had to work under oppressively hot lighting.
Kodak and other film companies eventually figured out how to coat film so that the red, green, and blue layers are all on the same side of the film, and in the 1950s, the three strip process died off. (Technicolor was still being hired to print out films from the color negatives, which is why you see films being advertised as Technicolor afterwards).
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:52 PM on April 27, 2018 [6 favorites]
These are a real delight! The early color and sound clips are especially cool. Thanks!
posted by Thorzdad at 1:00 PM on April 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 1:00 PM on April 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
If you look closely at the actual film negative as shown in the first post link (the video from the BBC, around 0:42 or so) you can see an example of what two-color Technicolor looked like in negative form.
The Technicolor 2 link describes the filming process like this: "incoming light [was captured] through a beam splitter with red and green filters ... the two [resulting] b/w images were recorded on one negative strip. This was achieved by the pull-down of two frames simultaneously, a process that required the double speed in the camera. These two frames were arranged in pairs, whereby the green record was inverted up-side down."
This article from the Atlantic has a really nice overview of the history of Technicolor, as well as another perspective on why red and green were chosen, and not blue:
The Technicolor 2 link describes the filming process like this: "incoming light [was captured] through a beam splitter with red and green filters ... the two [resulting] b/w images were recorded on one negative strip. This was achieved by the pull-down of two frames simultaneously, a process that required the double speed in the camera. These two frames were arranged in pairs, whereby the green record was inverted up-side down."
This article from the Atlantic has a really nice overview of the history of Technicolor, as well as another perspective on why red and green were chosen, and not blue:
Filmmakers could only prioritize certain colors for naturalness—they chose red for skin tone and green for foliage. "Which meant skies would never reproduce accurately, and water wouldn't," [James Layton, one of the authors of The Dawn of Technicolor] told me. "But they didn't mind sort of the color palette being a bit thrown off because if people appeared natural then audiences were willing to forgive it a bit, or accept the rest as natural even though it wasn't. There are some great examples. A beach scene... where the sky is this very vivid green, it's very unnatural."posted by orthicon halo at 1:15 PM on April 27, 2018 [3 favorites]
This Vox video give a nice overview of the history of Technicolor
posted by octothorpe at 1:53 PM on April 27, 2018
posted by octothorpe at 1:53 PM on April 27, 2018
This is so good. I need to make this into a screen saver. Yes, I still do that.
posted by bongo_x at 2:51 PM on April 27, 2018
posted by bongo_x at 2:51 PM on April 27, 2018
Via the Louise Brooks Society writeup on the discovery, Technicolor trailer for The American Venus.
posted by larrybob at 2:56 PM on April 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by larrybob at 2:56 PM on April 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
Great post. I felt like I was in a time machine.
posted by 4ster at 4:32 PM on April 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by 4ster at 4:32 PM on April 27, 2018 [1 favorite]
I love Pre-Code era movies. The old film student in me is really enjoying these. I wonder if some of those old leaders weren't recycled bits that were spliced out of these films due to censorship boards.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I don't even know your husband!" ::guffaws, nearly chokes on tea::
Blue has a much shorter wavelength than red or green, yes? So it must have been very hard indeed to get a three-color process going that worked equally well for all colors on film.
posted by droplet at 6:27 PM on April 27, 2018
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! I don't even know your husband!" ::guffaws, nearly chokes on tea::
Blue has a much shorter wavelength than red or green, yes? So it must have been very hard indeed to get a three-color process going that worked equally well for all colors on film.
posted by droplet at 6:27 PM on April 27, 2018
Yeah, that’s some spicy dancing — and racially mixed, too, which may have caused equal objections.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:41 PM on April 27, 2018
posted by Countess Elena at 8:41 PM on April 27, 2018
These are wonderful and frustrating too. I want to see more.
The George Eastman House in Rochester, NY has a display of the dyes used in the development of Technicolor. It’s pretty overwhelming.
posted by kinnakeet at 10:02 PM on April 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
The George Eastman House in Rochester, NY has a display of the dyes used in the development of Technicolor. It’s pretty overwhelming.
posted by kinnakeet at 10:02 PM on April 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
One of my favorite relatives worked in film processing for DeLuxe (as in "color by") for years and I've always wondered exactly what that job entailed (which it's sadly too late to ask).
posted by atoxyl at 2:55 AM on April 28, 2018
posted by atoxyl at 2:55 AM on April 28, 2018
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Most of these different color processes fell by the wayside (and the films shot in them sadly ended up being destroyed) as soon as the Technicolor 3-strip process came to the market, which had full red, green, and blue details.
Here's an early Kodachrome 2-color process from 1922.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:11 PM on April 27, 2018 [5 favorites]