What exactly is Technicolor?

▲

Technicolor has become a relic of another time. There are still dozens of Technicolor cameras in the world today, but they are rusty from lack of use. And most dye-transfer plants have been shut down, with only a few still open for archival purposes.

▲

It wasn't all rainbows though! The problem with Technicolor cameras was that they were massive, and they also required a lot of light in order to capture an image. This meant that Hollywood was skeptical about the Technicolor process and unwilling to pay such major costs.

▲

Basically, a Technicolor camera contains three separate film strips. The camera splits the light from an image into separate red, green, and blue negatives.

▲

Due to the difficulty of operating a Technicolor camera, studios could not buy these cameras. Instead, they had to rent them with camera technicians and color supervisors. Yes, they rented the professionals, too!

▲

When people think of Technicolor, their minds often conjure an image of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ a classic film released in 1939 and considered one of the best Technicolor movies in history. But this was not the first movie to arrive in color!

▲

Early films, such as ‘A Trip to the Moon’ (1902), were painstakingly hand-painted, which usually required an entire assembly line of workers.

▲

The first successful process to color film was Kinemacolor, which was used from 1909 to 1915. The process involved using only red and green filters, which was quite limiting.

▲

The very first film to use Kinemacolor was ‘A Visit to the Seaside,’ released in 1908. But this process of coloring films did not really show the full spectrum of colors on screen, since they could only filter red and green colors that lacked blue.

▲

The inspiration for the "Tech" in the company's name came from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which is where the company’s founders received their degrees.

▲

In 1932, Technicolor starting using dye transfer to create vibrant colors never-before-seen in cinema. This is when the company added the very important B in RGB.

▲

Walt Disney showed off the newfound Technicolor process in the animated film ‘Flowers and Trees,’ released in 1932. But even this process turned out to be extremely difficult to achieve.

▲

Although Disney’s animated film was the first to use the Technicolor process, the first film to actually use a Technicolor camera was ‘The Cat and the Fiddle’ in 1934.

▲

The most famous Technicolor film of all time is, of course, ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ The film broke many records for the film industry, and is regarded as one of the best films of all time.

▲

It has been noted that ‘The Wizard of Oz’ doesn’t start off in color. In fact, the beginning of the film is shot in sepia, while the land of Oz is saturated with color. The truth is that the film sets were deliberately painted sepia so that the beginning of the film could look like older movies.

▲

The Technicolor Company was founded in about 1915, and began experimenting with techniques to produce color movies. At one point, the company even tried to imprint color on film stock, but this process was incredibly expensive.

▲

Interestingly, Technicolor cameras required incredibly bright lights in order to work properly. It has been reported that the sound stage for ‘The Wizard of Oz’ was hotter than 100°F (38°C).

▲

One of the key elements that made Technicolor so impressive is that movie theaters around the world didn’t need to install special equipment to play Technicolor films.

▲

One of the top color supervisors in history was Natalie Kalmus, the executive head of Technicolor’s art department. All Technicolor films that were produced from 1934 to 1949 credited her as the color consultant. In fact, she is credited in over 300 films from this time!

▲

Natalie Kalmus also published an essay called ‘Color Consciousness,’ which developed the early literature for color theory. This has significantly impacted the way films are made today.

▲

As the film industry evolved, the old Technicolor techniques were employed less and less. Two of the last films to use this process were ‘The Godfather’ (1972) and ‘The Godfather Part II’ (1974).

▲

In 1997, Technicolor was reintroduced into the restorations of older films. After this, several big-budget modern films used the dye-transfer process, including ‘Toy Story 2’ (1999) and ‘Pearl Harbor' (2001). But the process was sadly discontinued in 2002.

▲

Today, Technicolor is a company that dabbles in CGI and the manufacturing of DVDs and Blu-rays, which is a far cry from where the company started. But whatever one might say, we can agree that cinema wouldn’t be what it is today without Technicolor.

Sources: (Britannica) (Vox) (StudioBinder) (Technicolor)

▲

The Technicolor Company remained a highly successful film processing firm and became involved in manufacturing CDs, VHSes, and DVDs.

▲

But after the difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Technicolor Company filed for bankruptcy in 2020. By this point, the company was only a shadow of its former glory.

▲

The visual aesthetic of Technicolor’s dye transfer is still mimicked in Hollywood today, especially for period films set in the mid-20th century. This technique is now obtained using digital technology.

▲

If a filmmaker wanted to change the color of a film to have a certain aesthetic, all they needed to do was change the concentration of the dyes.

▲

These negatives would be flipped to become positives and then soaked in dyes. These dyed positives would then be combined to create a vivid image.

▲

Technicolor is the name given to the process and techniques used to dye film so that black and white movies could have color.

▲

Cameras as we know them today allow anyone to capture a full-color video without much hassle. But this wasn’t always the case! Old films used to require an enormous amount of work just so that audiences could see stories in color. But how did films move away from black and white in the first place? Enter: Technicolor.

Curious? Click through this gallery to see what creativity there has been in the world of color.

What exactly is Technicolor?

A look behind the curtain of cinema’s inner workings

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU

Hollywood reaches gender equality but still lacks racial diversity, according to report

The most celebrated Japanese movies ever

Actors and musicians who returned their industry awards

Oscar-nominated (and winning) parents and children

From Italy to Hollywood: the unlikely origins of Spaghetti Westerns

Shocking wins in Oscar history

The most wins and nominations achieved at the Oscars

Ralph Fiennes: his life on screen, stage, and television

Groundbreaking movies that innovatively use AI