Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Year 11 Term 1: Independent Research - History of Technicolor

In a previous post, I mentioned how I was interested in the history of Technicolor. I have done my own independent research on the topic, and here's what I found.

The Technicolor Corporation was founded by Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Comstock and W. Burton Wescott, to develop a "flicker free" movie color system. The word "Tech" in Technicolor actually came from Kalmus' and Comstock's association with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Technicolor’s first color process was a two color additive system that recorded red and blue-green images simultaneously. It did this through a single lens using a beam splitter and color filters to record the images stacked one on top of the other. Their first camera, the Technicolor Process 1 was made in 1916. The first and only movie made using this process was ‘The Gulf Between’, produced in 1917.

Technicolor System 1 - Photography Illustration
How video is captured through the Process 1 camera.
Technicolor System 1 - Projection Illustration
How the video is projected. Note how it requires a specialised projector
as well as manual adjustment of the prism to get both colours aligned.
Images above are taken from www.widescreenmuseum.com.
A surviving still from The Gulf Between.
Image taken from America Pink
Technicolor’s second innovation was the Process 2 in 1922. Unlike its predecessor, Process 2 uses subtractive color. This made a huge difference in overall color quality and also made it easier to project the colors on screen. Additive systems used a black and white image projected through color filters, resulting in loss of the light absorbed by the filters. The film strips were also able to be played on normal projectors, unlike in Process 1 which required specialized projectors. The first film to be shown in Process 2 was “The Toll of the Sea” produced in 1922.


Technicolor System 2 Camera Optics
How the Technicolor Process 2 camera captures video.
Image taken from www.widescreenmuseum.com.
The camera negative carries both the red and blue-green records of the scene. The blue green record is upside down to the red record, and two separate prints are made on matrix films that are half as thick as standard matrix films. The red and blue-green matrices are printed as mirror images because they need to be placed back to back after dye application, which is also why each matrix are half the thickness of standard matrices.

From Left to Right: Camera matrix, red filtered matrix, blue-green filtered matrix.
Image taken from www.widescreenmuseum.com.

After Process 2 came Process 3, which had similar technology to Process 2, but mostly used in a different way. The camera used was the same, but instead of producing a duplicate negative that generated the matrices that would be dyed and cemented, the matrices were optically generated from the camera negative and were used to make other prints. This process eliminated some problems with Process 2 and used the matrices to transfer dye to a specially prepared clear base film. Process 3 received critical acclaim and Technicolor's output increased from 1928 through 1930. The first film to use Process 3 technology was The Viking, produced in 1928.

The Viking
A still from The Viking (1928), the first sound film produced in Technicolor.
Image taken from www.widescreenmuseum.com.
In 1931 Technicolor went on to develop a three strip camera that would be able to capture red, green and blue rather than only red and green and to refine the dye transfer printing that had been introduced in 1927. In 1932 the first 3-strip camera was completed, becoming known as Process 4. The first commercial film to use the 3 color system was Flowers and Trees, produced in 1932, by none other than Walt Disney. 

The Technicolor Process 4 three-strip camera.
Image taken from the-culture-counter.com
How the camera worked.
Image taken from www.widescreenmuseum.com.
Flowers and Trees Frame
Flowers and Trees (1932). Produced by Walt Disney.
Image taken from www.widescreenmuseum.com.
Later on, Becky Sharp, produced in 1935, was the first live action film to be recorded in 3-strip Technicolor.
Comparison between Becky sharp in the inferior Cinecolor (left) and Technicolor Process 4 (right).
Click to zoom in.
Technicolor's 3-strip film process ended up becoming a huge success and raised the standard for color film in the industry. Their innovations have been used to create hugely successful films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and more. While films now are much more sophisticated and do not require 3-strip film to record colour, some films try to recreate the look and feel of these old colour technologies in post-production for reasons such as achieving the early 20th century look. Without Technicolor, films probably would have taken longer to reproduce natural colours, and maybe colour films would decline in popularity during those days.

Sources:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/technicolor1.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/cig/movies-flicks-film/condensed-history-color.html

Year 11 Term 1: History of Film

A new school year has begun, and so has a new year of film studies. We started our first film class in the DP by watching a presentation about the history of cinema from the early 1900's. We learned how much film has evolved over the course of a century and what technologies and innovations defined films we see today. While watching the presentation, we each learned some new things. The 5 main points which I found the most interesting are mostly in the form of technological innovations within the films themselves.

To start off, of course the most interesting thing I found out about was the earliest form of film, or back then was known as a motion picture. I learned that the earliest form of film was known as a "motion peep show" created by Thomas Edison and W. K.  Dickson. It worked by moving pictures through a light, and was only view-able by a single individual at a time. The other name for this device is the "Kinetoscope".

The kinetoscope, image taken from Reflexions ULg
The next point I found interesting was when the Technicolor company was formed in the late 1910's, which offered some groundbreaking new innovations in colour technology in films. Later on, they would be the first company to offer a full spectrum of colour in films. I ended up researching more about the history of Technicolor individually, which I will discuss in the future.
The Technicolor Process 4 three-strip camera, the first capable of
recording a full range of colour instead of the usual red and green at the time.
Image taken from www.the-culture-counter.com.

Next, in the 1920's, sound started appearing in films. However, back then, sounds were not directly "attached" to the video, and had to be synchronised manually. One such film was Steamboat Willie, a short created by Walt Disney featuring Mickey Mouse. This short ran for about 7-8 minutes, and is notable for debuting the Mickey Mouse character to the public.


Jumping to the 1970's, Dolby Stereo was introduced, producing sound with the effect of being all around the viewer(s), allowing them to have a sense of positioning of the source of the sound. While Dolby Stereo wasn't the first form of stereo, it was important because it was backwards compatible with traditional theatre speakers.

And finally, the film Casper was produced in 1995. This film is notable for having a fully CGI (computer generated imagery) character play in the main role. The film was directed by Brad Silberling.

Christina Ricci as Kat, the protagonist of the film,
and Casper, voiced by Malachi Pearson.
Image taken from Buzzfeed.com.
These are the 5 things I found the most interesting in the history of film, because it makes us wonder how films will continue to evolve through technological innovations. While it seems that films now are as lifelike as ever, with full and accurate colour, surround sound, HD video formats and realistic CGI, they can and probably will continue to improve in the future. My guess is that films may start getting into VR (virtual reality) technology, putting the viewer inside the film in a 3D environment, creating full immersion. While it sounds crazy now, it may become the norm in a decade or so. Personally, I found the history of film to be an interesting and exciting topic. It really is fascinating seeing how films started out as short moving pictures to becoming immersive, expansive stories that can really take the viewer into another world.