Technicolor (process)

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Technicolor logo (until 2010)

Technicolor is the brand name of the US company of the same name, originally founded in 1915, Technicolor Corp. by Herbert Kalmus for the manufacturing processes he developed for color films. In the course of history, various recording and playback processes have emerged:

Technicolor Process No. 1 Additive two-color process with a special projector
Technicolor Process No. 2 Additive recording and subtractive two-color reproduction process with glued film strips and normal projection
Technicolor Process No. 3 Subtractive two-color process and dye transfer copying technique
Technicolor Process No. 4th Subtractive three-color process with three-strip beam splitter camera and dye transfer copying technology
Technicolor Process No. 5 Subtractive three-color process, multilayer films as recording material in normal cameras, dye transfer copying technology

Most important was the process No. 4 , of the name Technicolor about the nomination in front of - or guy wore famous motion pictures around the world. At the end of the 1970s, these Technicolor processes lost their importance in film production. The inventor transformed herself into a service provider for digital film technology and in 2001 was merged with the French electronics group Thomson , which in 2010 was again renamed Technicolor.

First trial, 1917–1922

The Technicolor Process No. 1 was the company's first process, a two-color additive process similar to what was then Kinemacolor , but with one important difference. To generate the two color separations, no rotating color wheels were necessary in the camera to record the images one after the other or to project them one after the other in the cinema projector. The Technicolor camera exposed the red and green images simultaneously using a beam splitter behind the lens, thus avoiding the fraying of the contours of fast-moving objects, which technically occurred in all other processes that produced the color separations one after the other. The recording was carried out by guiding the light through a double prism ( beam splitter ) after passing through the camera lens . The prism distributes the light equally to two image windows that are superimposed on the film tape. In front of the two picture windows, there are color filters, one purple and one green, through which the filtered color components are exposed on black and white film . The camera advances two images per shot.

Technicolor had a railway wagon converted into a rolling laboratory to process the recordings. All work from the film production to development and editing was thus possible in the vicinity of the location.

The major disadvantage of all two-color methods was their limited ability to reproduce colors. Blue was shown more greenish and green leaves appeared brownish (autumnal) on the canvas. To account for the limited color reproduction, was the productions a color consultant ( Color Consultant set aside), the architects and costume designers should provide advice on color selection of materials to the side. Color consultant for Technicolor films has been Natalie Kalmus, Dr. Sweet flag. Until 1948, all productions were contractually obliged to rent the color consultant with the entire package (camera, technician, copier), even when the three-color process was only available and the original need for color advice no longer existed.

In addition to the poorer color fidelity compared to the later three-color systems, another major disadvantage of this system was that a special cinema projector was required. The film copy was a conventional black and white copy, but on which the two color separation images were superimposed. The projector also had to switch two film steps . The two partial images were projected through two lenses with the respective color filters. Before the projection, it had to be ensured that the correct color separation images were behind the associated color filters. Using a prism device, both partial images were brought into congruence again on the canvas, a very complicated process in practice. The premiere of the first with the Technicolor Process No. 1 produced film, " The Gulf Between ", 1917, to a great disappointment, because the cinema projectionist did not manage to adjust the two cinema projector prisms so that the two colored partial images on the screen were correctly superimposed. This problem and others with Technicolor Process No. The fundamental difficulties associated with 1 meant that individual color sequences were only used in one further film, " Way Down East ", 1920, by DW Griffith . The copy price of a Technicolor copy was 90 US cents per meter in 1922 (in 1964 it was 15 US cents per meter).

Second trial, 1922-1927

In 1922, Kalmus and his team brought the Technicolor Process No. 2 on the market. The main difference from the previous system was the use of a subtractive color process for projection. Additive systems used black-and-white images that were projected through color filters, which resulted in a low light yield during projection and required a special projector. However, subtractive systems carry the color information in the film strip itself, so that the use of filters is no longer necessary. In addition, subtractive systems reproduce colors more accurately.

From film negative to final print

Technicolor Process No. 2, the same additive process is used on the recording side as in Process No. 1 applied. The same camera is said to have been used, although pictures from this period show a modified Bell & Howell. After developing the negative, the images are copied onto two half-thickness matrix films using a special copying machine, a custom-made product from Eastman-Kodak. The copier advances the negative two images at a time, but advances the positive film only one. This copies the purple separation of the negative onto the corresponding matrix film and later the green onto the second matrix film. After the matrix films have been tanned, the unexposed and therefore uncured areas are washed out with warm water. A gelatin layer with a thickness image of the negative ( gelatin relief ) remains. Then the two Matrix films back to back glued together ( Cemented Two Color Process ), and then the coloring of the two sides took place in a floating process, according to their color belonging in one or blue-green stain bath red-orange similar to the then known toning and Beizfarbenverfahren ( toning ) . Depending on the strength of the gelatin relief, more or less color is accepted. The resulting film carried the finished, two-tone image.

History of Technicolor Process No. 2

The system brought several advantages, it improved image sharpness and color reproduction, and it was the first natural color process that allowed the projection of the film with the existing cinema projectors. The price per copy fell to 50 US cents per meter as a result of the new copying process, making it possible to make bulk copies for the first time.

In 1922 the Technicolor company opened a new laboratory in Hollywood. Colorcraft Pictures, Inc., a founding of Technicolor, produced in Hollywood in 1922 as the first film based on the new Technicolor Process No. 2 The Toll of the Sea . Joseph Schenck introduced Dr. Kalmus free studios, a director ( Chester M. Franklin ) and the star ( Anna May Wong ) available. The film premiered at the Rialto Theater in New York in November 1922 and was a great success.

In 1923, Dr. Kalmus finally convinced one of the big film studios to produce a full-length feature film with Technicolor Process No. 2 to produce. In November signed Jesse L. Lasky of Paramount a contract that Dr. Calamus made the turning of Wanderer of the Wasteland possible. Although Paramount with Dr. Kalmus had agreed to shoot the entire film in Technicolor, Lasky had not approved a larger budget than that for a normal black and white film. The production required Dr. Kalmus and his team put in an extraordinary effort and many hours of work. Every day, the exposed negatives had to be brought from the filming locations near Yuma, Arizona, to Technicolor's new copying facility in Hollywood in order to be able to demonstrate the daily film samples required by the producer. But the hard work was worth it. Wanderer of the Wasteland was a success and brought more attention to color cinematography.

Over the next several years, the Cemented Two Color Process has been used in about two dozen films. The best known are The Phantom of the Opera (1925, Universal, Sequenzen), The Ten Commandments (1923, Paramount, Sequenzen) and Ben Hur (1925, MGM, Sequenzen). Ben Hur was actually shot entirely in color, but shortly before shooting was over, the production team decided to shoot the entire film again in black and white. Therefore only a few color sequences were added to the finished film. This, of course, wasn't the big breakthrough that Dr. Kalmus had hoped, since most of the color films of that time were not entirely colored. Only Douglas Fairbanks , who had come to appreciate the advantages of the Technicolor system, made a contractual commitment in 1926 to complete the silent film The Black Pirate (1926) with Technicolor Process No. 2 to produce. The film was a huge hit for Fairbanks.

disadvantage

The Technicolor Process No. 2 had two disadvantages, which only became noticeable in the large-scale projections in the cinemas. A lot of light is required here, and the heat development in the picture window is correspondingly large. Since the screening copy consisted of two matrix films glued together, the film facing the arc lamp was heated more strongly than the other. As a result, the bond could loosen and this resulted in a bulge that led to blurring and made a further demonstration impossible. In the case of the damaged copies, the damaged film sequences had to be replaced with new ones immediately after the screening. Technicolor technicians were therefore always present in the demonstration rooms to carry out the repairs. In addition, due to the gluing, the copies were a little thicker and stiffer than normal positive film, which led to more wear and scratching.

Despite the artistic success, the film studios were not yet ready to switch to the Technicolor process. In addition to the many mechanical problems with the copies, the effort and costs of producing a color film were still too high for them.

Third trial, 1927-1933

Technicolor only made its big breakthrough after another change in copying technology in 1928. The second subtractive Technicolor process was the now famous Process No. 4 already very similar. The matrix films were modified in such a way that they could now be used as printing matrices for transferring the dyes to bare positive film. This method of dye transfer or extraction has different names: " Imbibition Printing ", " Hydrotype " or, best known, " Dye Transfer ", an invention of the Englishman E. Edwards in 1875 (British patent 1,362). Troland and RD Eaton have revised this process for Technicolor (US Patent 1,919,673), Comstock created the copier. The blank film was prepared in such a way that the dyes could be transferred without diffusion losses when the matrices and blank film came into contact in the copier. The Technicolor printing process was thus created. An optical soundtrack could also be copied and developed beforehand. Kodak continued to supply the footage. The camera (US Patent 1,451,325) was significantly modified by Comstock and Ball. The two partial images were still next to each other, but were now arranged in mirror image symmetry.

This dye aspiration or dye transfer process gained recognition not only from theater audiences but also from some film studios. By 1934 there were a total of around 78 productions, many of which only contained color sequences. The production at Technicolor grew significantly from 1928 to 1930, but fell in 1931 and 1932 during the Great Depression. The last full-length Technicolor silent film was The Viking by MGM in 1928 , but it already had music and sound effects. Warner Bros. produced On with the Show in 1929, the first full Technicolor sound film. Others with the Technicolor Process No. 3 films made were The Secret of the Wax Museum (1933, Warner Bros.), Whoopee! (1930, United Artists ), Der Jazzkönig ( Universal ) and Under a Texas Moon (1930, Warner Bros).

Fourth method, 1932-1955

Three-strip camera of the fourth Technicolor process

As a logical further development of the two-color printing process, work on a three-color printing process began as early as the late 1920s in order to finally be able to reproduce all colors without restriction. The footage continued to be supplied by Eastman-Kodak. The materials used for the bipack films were similar to those produced for the two-color process, one of which was provided with a red-colored cover gelatin, and an orthochromatically sensitized film as a single film. Particularly great effort had to be devoted to the accuracy of fit in the film production. The film material was not allowed to shrink due to the later printing process and polyester underlays were not yet known. In 1939 the film speed could be increased threefold. The films were sensitized to artificial light. From now on you no longer needed light-absorbing filter discs in front of the headlights in the studio, the light requirement sank from 3600 lux to around 1500 lux. A conversion filter was now used for outdoor shots to adapt the film to daylight.

Since the Technicolor Process No. 3 proven dye-transfer copying processes were modified. The thickness of the fully developed gelatin layer corresponded to its exposure: darker areas caused a thicker gelatin layer, lighter areas a thinner one. Correspondingly, more or less color was absorbed by the gelatin layer during the printing process or transferred to the blank film. In addition, the blank film in front of the green separation was given a thin, but high-contrast, black and white silver image to increase the depth of color. Thus the three-color print was actually a four-color print. This process was retained until around 1961, when the black-and-white image became superfluous due to improvements in the color materials.

From 1936 the copier machines were equipped with electronic measuring instruments, from 1943 16 mm Technicolor dye transfer copies could also be made. From 1944 there was an optical copier for titles and special effects.

In 1932 Walt Disney accepted an offer for the new Technicolor Process No. 4 by Dr. Calamus on. He stopped an ongoing production of the film "Flowers and Trees" from the series " Silly Symphonies ", which was produced from 1929 to 1939. He started all over again using the new system. The film was the first to be shot using the new process and it became a sensation. Thereupon, Dr. Kalmus and Disney on a three-year contract that gave Disney sole use of the new system. The contract had to be shortened to one year later, however, because the other large film studios did not agree to continue to work with the older system.

The interest of the film studios in the new Technicolor process increased and was increasingly used in the large film productions. The audience reacted to the color cinema with increasing enthusiasm. The first “non-cartoon” film was La Cucaracha (short film) in 1934 . In 1935 he won an Oscar in the “Best Short Subject, Comedy” category . The first full-length feature film was Becky Sharp with Miriam Hopkins in the leading role in 1935 , which was, however, a failure. Technicolor film made its breakthrough in the late 1930s. In addition to Disney's cartoon Snow White , the main real-life films included The Garden of Allah (Pioneer, 1936), Robin Hood, King of the Vagabonds (Wallis, Warner Bros.), Gone with the Wind (Selznick, MGM, 1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939) (MGM, 1939) and The Red Shoes (Powell-Pressburger, 1948) were successful. The final projects with the three-strip camera were Foxfire (Universal-International) in the USA in 1956 and the British film The Ladykillers (Independent) in 1955 .

The main advantage of the fourth process and the introduction of the dye transfer process were not only the excellent color reproduction and the low copying costs. It was only years later, when only multi-layer color films were used in the negative-positive process, that people learned to appreciate the unsurpassed shelf life of the starting material and the positive material. Since the dye transfer process involves black and white starting materials, the chemically induced color changes that are feared by the later multilayer films with their embedded color couplers do not occur after development. Black and white films can be kept almost in their original state for decades under optimal conditions. With multi-layer films, on the other hand, color changes occur that can only be reversed with a complex restoration. Since the matrix films used in the Technicolor process do not change either, color-original copies can be made again and again as long as the dye-transfer copying technology is available.

Fifth trial, from 1955

prehistory

Kalmus recognized very early on that the future did not belong to the complicated and clumsy three-strip camera. The film producers also demanded that a different color film material must be developed so that the handy and numerous ordinary cameras can still be used. Troland did the first theoretical work for a multi-layer color film for Technicolor in the late 1920s. They were registered in US Patent 18,680 but were not recognized until eleven years later. The first attempts with multi-layer color films took place as early as 1932. In the meantime, Mannes and Godowski, two musicians, had presented their idea of ​​a monopack film at Eastman in Rochester, and they were given the funds to do research in the field. In 1935, a mutual license agreement was made between Eastman-Kodak and Technicolor under which Kodak could use the process developed and patented by Troland for Technicolor for a multilayer film. In return, Kodak limited its commercial exploitation to the 16 mm film market, Technicolor received the rights to use monopack films in the 35 mm area. The first films used by Technicolor as multilayer recording material were the reversal films Kodachrome , Ansco Color and the Monopak film developed for Technicolor (notation without "c").

In addition to Eastman color negative film, the special Eastman stripping film was also tested as a recording material for Technicolor. This was a multilayer negative film which, unlike Eastmancolor, had no color couplers incorporated. The three differently sensitized black and white layers were mechanically separated after exposure in conventional cameras and customary development by peeling off the upper two layers ("stripping") and transferring them to a new base. The further processing was the same as for the three separation negatives exposed with the Technicolor camera. The preparatory work on this material at Eastman had already started at the end of 1940, and from July 1942 a three-layer material was available, but initially did not gain much importance. It was only when the modern multilayer films of the negative-positive process began to establish themselves in 1950 that Technicolor installed systems in Hollywood in 1952 in order to be able to process Ansco Color and Eastmancolor negative and positive films.

Technicolor Process No. 5

When making Technicolor copies from color negatives, the first step was to take the detour via three black-and-white separation positives, from which the separation negatives were produced, which could only then be copied onto the matrix films. In 1953 Kodak released the tricolor matrix films. They enabled a significant simplification, as the matrices could be made directly from the original negatives. For this purpose, the negatives were copied onto the blue, green and red sensitive matrix film. The contrast of the matrix films could be influenced by pre-exposure according to the quality of the images. At the same time, the resolution of the blank film, i.e. the material of the theater copy, was improved. This copying process, known at the time as the “ Improved New Technicolor Process ”, the Technicolor Process No. 5, brought a considerable increase in resolution, since losses due to intermediate copies were eliminated. For this reason, the negatives of CinemaScope films could now also be copied using the Technicolor process, while the first films (including “ The Robe ”, 1953) were still copied on Eastmancolor positive. Color negatives developed by other laboratories for the production of color separations for the Technicolor copying process have now also been accepted, with these copies then being marked in the opening credits with “Print by Technicolor”, whereas films processed entirely by Technicolor were called “Color by Technicolor”.

More on the history of technology

After moving to color negative film as the base material, a number of improvements have been introduced into the Technicolor process. For example, between 1957 and 1959 the so-called wet printing method (“liquid printing”) was improved, in which a layer of liquid in the optical printer prevents damage or, in the case of old copies, hides scratches and other mechanical defects. In 1959 and 1960 the technology of auto optical printing was introduced, which allows fading in, fading out and cross-fading in the copying process without the use of master positives or dup negatives. An adjustable shutter and separate transport mechanisms were used for the negative and the matrix film so that the latter could be exposed twice. Auto Optical Printing was first used for Breakfast at Tiffany's . Auto Selective Printing emerged from this in 1960 . This means that different scene variations or film versions can be created when copying without cutting up the negative or producing a dup-negative. The run of the original negative in the copier is not interrupted. As a result, in addition to different rental versions for other countries, scene changes are also possible. Since 1969 it has been possible to make television copies with an aspect ratio of 4: 3 of anamorphic films (e.g. CinemaScope), using the printer ( pan scan printer ) to select the most favorable section from the wide format.

The film " Moby Dick ", produced by John Huston for Elstree-Film from 1954 to 1955 , has already been partially photographed on Eastmancolor negative film. This film featured a special copying effect that allowed Huston to produce desaturated colors. When John Huston wanted to use special color effects again in 1967 for the production " Reflections in a Golden Eye " (Warner Bros.), this was no longer possible because of the new Technicolor copying process. Only after a long series of tests was the "New Technicolor Desaturation Process" introduced, with which the desired effects could be achieved. The copy had a sepia tone , which was only interrupted by reddish purple colors in some parts of the picture. This effect was achieved by using colored light when creating the matrices from the original negative. In addition to Eastmancolor, other makes of color negative film were soon used as the starting material for Technicolor copies.

20th Century Fox had the Eastman color negatives of its CinemaScope films developed by De Luxe, and the dye-transfer copies were then made by Technicolor in Hollywood . Such films ran with the title credits " Technicolor by De Luxe ". All 70 mm copies with “Technicolor” in the opening credits are Eastmancolor positives, as the Technicolor laboratories did not have a facility for 70 mm dye transfer copies. The samples were also drawn on multilayer positive film.

Since 1961, the audio track copy has been created at the same time as the dye transfer process, whereby the audio negative was copied onto the matrix film, this was colored after the relief development and the dye was then transferred to the blank film.

In 1966, at the same time as the introduction of new, improved dyes, the sequence of dye transfer was changed from what used to be yellow-blue-green-purple to now purple-blue-green-yellow. The blank film and the matrices have also been optimized so that the copies show better color reproduction and have better blackness and resolution. The “fourth” print, the silver image obtained from the green copy, was thus omitted. Technicolor Hollywood developed the Vidtronics process for making copies of films from color television recordings on magnetic tape . At Vidtronics, a screen recording is made on black and white film after decoding the three color components obtained on the video magnetic tape. In this way, the three color separations required for the dye transfer process were obtained. Technicolor's color television copier service has existed in Hollywood since 1965, in England since 1968 and in Italy since 1969. Since these orders only involved a small number of copies, they were not produced using the dye transfer process, but on Eastmancolor print film.

In 1970 the Technimatte process was introduced, the merging of different foregrounds and backgrounds for special effects.

In 1975 the last job for the dye transfer process was carried out in the USA, a reprint of Walt Disney's Jungle of 1000 Dangers ( Swiss Family Robinson ). After that, the factory in Hollywood was closed. In 1975 Technicolor sold the dye transfer equipment to the Beijing Film and Video Lab in China. British Technicolor Labs was still able to make dye transfer copies until 1978.

literature

  • Joachim Polzer (Hrsg.): World wonder of cinematography . 6th edition. Polzer Media Group, Potsdam 2002, ISBN 3-934535-20-8 (with a longer article by Gert Koshofer about Eastman Kodak and Technicolor).
  • Paul Read : A Short History of Cinema Film Post-Production (1896-2006) . In: Joachim Polzer (Hrsg.): On the history of the film copy work. Cinematography wonder of the world. Contributions to a cultural history of film technology . 8th edition. 2006, ISBN 3-934535-26-7 .
  • Gert Koshofer: 90 years of Technicolor . In: Joachim Polzer (Hrsg.): On the history of the film copy work. Cinematography wonder of the world. Contributions to a cultural history of film technology . 8th edition. 2006, ISBN 3-934535-26-7 .
  • Herbert T. Kalmus, Eleanore King Kalmus: Mr. Technicolor. 1st edition. MagicImage Filmbooks, Absecon, NJ 1993, ISBN 1-882127-31-5 .
  • Fred E. Basten: Glorious Technicolor: The movies' magic colors. AS Barnes and Co., Cranburry, New Jersey 1980, ISBN 0-498-02317-6 . (An expanded and updated new edition was published in 2005)
  • Gert Koshofer : Color. The colors of the film. Wissenschaftsverlag Volker Spiess, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-89166-054-5 .
  • Robert Koziol (pseudonym of Gert Koshofer): A chronicle of the colored cinema. tv + filmTECHNIKUM, June 1972 to June 1974.
  • Johannes Binotto : Supernatural Color. About Technicolor and its aesthetics. In: Filmbulletin. 6.12 (2012), pp. 33-39.

Web links

Commons : Technicolor  - collection of images, videos and audio files