1915: The Beginning
MIT graduates Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Frost Comstock and W. Burton Westcott used the success of their first business venture – the chemical process development firm Kalmus, Comstock and Westcott – to build upon Kalmus’ prediction that color film was the future of cinema, and on Nov. 19, 1915, Technicolor was incorporated in Maine. The next year, they moved their operations to Jacksonville, Fla., and began production on their first project in their unusual laboratory space.
From Weekly Variety, Dec. 1, 1916: “Kalmus, Comstock & Westcott have bought outright and fitted up as a complete laboratory plant a 72-foot Pullman car. It left Boston Sunday morning for Jacksonville, Fla. There the promised picture, a 7-reeI dramatic subject, will be filmed, developed and made into positives, the railroad car plant doing the work.”
That proposed picture, “The Little Skipper,” would never come to light, but in 1917 Technicolor released its first film, “The Gulf Between.”
1939: The Oscar
Technicolor developed a string of new two-color (red and green) processes for color film for the next 20 years. Color was seen as a novelty, and as the country entered the Great Depression, the extra expense of color films along with the lack of lifelike quality of the two-color process meant that studios began to produce fewer and fewer of them. In 1932, Technicolor completed work on a new three-color (red, green and blue) camera and process (its fourth) that allowed for a full range of colors. Kalmus convinced up-and-coming animator Walt Disney to use the process in his “Silly Symphonies” cartoon shorts, and in 1932, “Flowers and Trees” was the first commercially released film in the new three-color process.
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1955: The First Reinvention
The three-color process was not an instant smash success. An exclusive contract with Disney beginning with “Flowers and Trees” and running through the end of 1935 meant that for the first half of the decade, any non-Disney color cartoons by in Technicolor could only be made using previous inferior two-color processes. The strategy worked well for Disney, whose Technicolor “Silly Symphonies” shorts grew in popularity to the point that he began using it for his “Mickey Mouse” shorts, but it delayed the use of the three-color process in other studios. The first full-length, live-action film in the process, “Becky Sharp,” came in 1935 from RKO Pictures, and Hollywood was skeptical.
1996: Setting the Standard
The watershed moment for Technicolor would come in 1937 with the release of Disney’s first full length-animated film, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” in Technicolor, which would go on to become the most successful sound film of all time. Decades before Pixar, Dreamworks and others would perfect the animated art of giving all ages of moviegoers the sniffles at the theater, the animation and color of “Snow White” would bring a tear to the eye of one film critic.
From the review in Daily Variety, Dec. 22, 1937: “Walt Disney’s animation of Grimm’s fable, ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,’ sets a milestone in the art of picture making. It is completely a thing of beauty and charm. … ‘Snow White’ is the genius of craftsmanship which can make an endless series of line drawings and color washes so eloquent in human expression and trouble and antic joy, so potent in evoking audience emotion, laughter, excitement, suspense, tears. Yes, indeed — tears!”
2000: The Acquisition
When Technicolor signed its exclusive contract with Disney, some projects in development with other animators were put out to pasture. One such film from Ted Eshbaugh was an animated story of a Kansas farm girl who is swept up in a tornado and transported to a colorful and magical land – “The Wizard of Oz.” This 1933 short film, which was made in Technicolor but did not receive licensing, would preview its more famous predecessor in a conspicuous way; though the film was released at the time in black and white, it originally only began in black in white, and transitioned to Technicolor as Dorothy finds herself in Oz. Though only two prints of the film were made at the time and the cartoon was likely never seen by MGM producers of the later live-action classic, the technique would prove itself memorable by the end of the decade.
After the runaway success of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” studios jumped to produce their own three-color films, and in 1939, “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone with the Wind” were both released in the new process, the latter claiming the all-time box office title from “Snow White” and winning Technicolor its first Oscar for color cinematography, an award it would win for all but three of the following 28 years, cementing Technicolor as the defining look of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
FAQs
Technicolor could now promise studios a full range of colors, as opposed to the limited red–green spectrum of previous films. The new camera simultaneously exposed three strips of black-and-white film, each of which recorded a different color of the spectrum.
Why was Technicolor so important? ›
Technicolor could now promise studios a full range of colors, as opposed to the limited red–green spectrum of previous films. The new camera simultaneously exposed three strips of black-and-white film, each of which recorded a different color of the spectrum.
How did color change the film industry? ›
Aside from added depth, clarity, and interest in movies, color also kept the movie industry from falling apart after the 1950s. At this point in time, television had quickly become popular. With longer storylines and full-color scenes, television was easily gaining favor with the general public.
How did Technicolor change storytelling? ›
Makers of Technicolor movies, naturally, are deeply interested in the capacity of color to induce emotion. The affinity is a heaven-made one—emotions being, so to say, the primary colors of the movie palette... Gray, blue and purple are associated with tragedies; while yellow, orange and red complement comedy scenes.
When did Technicolor stop being used? ›
Technicolor stopped filming with three-strip cameras in 1954 and these cameras were given away, principally to film schools, in 1965. The cameras never shot film after 1954. The dye transfer process was used until 1974 in the United States.
What is the history of Technicolor? ›
Invented in 1932, the Technicolor camera recorded on three separate negatives--red, blue and green--which were then combined to develop a full-color positive print. The box encasing the camera, a "blimp," muffled the machine's sound during filming. The Early Color Cinema Equipment Collection [COLL.
What replaced Technicolor? ›
Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950, was one of the first widely successful "single-strip colour" processes, and eventually displaced the more cumbersome Technicolor. Eastmancolor was known by a variety of names, such as DeLuxe Color, Warnercolor, Metrocolor, Pathécolor, Columbiacolor, and others.
How color contributed to the evolution of filmmaking? ›
Color simplifies complex stories.
Filmmakers realized that different tones could help viewers follow stories that jumped between characters and locations. In Intolerance (1916), for example, D.W. Griffith gave each of his four storylines a unique tint to signal they took place in different time periods.
How did the film industry change? ›
Digital filmmaking and digital technology have made it easier than ever to get started in the movie industry. Today, there still is a lot of networking and dues-paying to get into the movie business, but the Internet has radically changed what that looks like, and the biggest change has been in accessibility.
How has color in film changed over time? ›
Before 1932, when three-strip Technicolor was introduced, commercialized subtractive processes used only two color components and could reproduce only a limited range of color. In 1935, Kodachrome was introduced, followed by Agfacolor in 1936. They were intended primarily for amateur home movies and "slides".
The first filmmaker to employ Technicolor's new process number 4 was Walt Disney on his first color animated short, Flowers and Trees – recipient of the Academy Award in 1932 for Best Animated Short Subject.
Is Technicolor still used? ›
“It's the most faithful, and durable color technology that's ever existed.” But Technicolor has been dead since 1965, and for predictable reasons. It was an incredibly complex, expensive, and logistically difficult technology to shoot in.
Did Disney invent Technicolor? ›
During the 1930s, Walt Disney Cartoon Studio developed technicolor, a film process that allowed movies to be produced in vibrant, lifelike colors. This visual enhancement of animated films allowed artists to create worlds that radiated energy and jumped off the screen in a way audiences had never seen before.
What does Technicolor do today? ›
Thomson products, which include advanced devices for the connected home, have long been a big part of everyday life; today as Technicolor, that extends from manufacturing, supply-chain services and connected devices, to award-winning visual effects and animation across film, television, advertising, and games.
When was Technicolor perfected? ›
To begin with, the processes that Technicolor used during the 1920s only recorded red and green, but the problem of three-color recording was solved in 1932. The camera was made by the Mitchell corporation, following the instructions provided by J. Arthur Ball of Technicolor. Three 35-mm negative film strips were used.
What is Technicolor called now? ›
Why does Technicolor look better? ›
These multiple color records had to be printed one by one onto a blank piece of film. Together, they created a gorgeous Technicolor image. As it lacked contrast, the company would add a black and white layer underneath the matrixes to serve as “the key” and add crispness to the images.
When did Technicolor become a thing? ›
In 1915, in Boston, Dr. Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Frost Comstock and William Burton Westcott created Technicolor Motion Pictures Corporation with the aim of producing color cinema. This was to be effected via an additive process followed by tanning and dyeing the images.
Why was Technicolor so expensive? ›
The cumbersome and expensive three-strip Technicolor process “required enormous amounts of light, and the studios were required to hire cinematographers who worked for Technicolor,'' says five-time Oscar-nominated director of photography Caleb Deschanel (actress Zooey's dad).
Was Wizard of Oz first Technicolor? ›
The Wizard of Oz was not the first movie in color, but it revolutionized the use of color in film and set a precedent for future movies. The first color movie in film history was "The World, The Flesh, and the Devil," a feature-length work of fiction filmed using the Kinemacolor process.
