The way colour is created, manipulated, and perceived has vastly changed over the years. Colour has always been available to filmmakers; early on, most movies were shot on black and white film stock. Despite this, it was always possible to manipulate each celluloid to create colour. The ability to create colour film has been around for almost as long as moving images. Photographers in the eighteen hundreds had been retouching their black-and-white portraits and landscapes to make them look more realistic.
Within a short period of time, shortly after the invention of cinema, filmmakers began retouching their own film stock via hand colouring and stencil. This was an incredibly time consuming task, as each individual frame had to be manipulated. As the sufficient technology wasn't available, this was a labour intensive task, which is why although the option was available, most filmmakers decided to shoot their film in black and white.
Despite this, many earlier films were very short, as they were only several hundred feet in celluloid, which gave filmmakers a chance to be able to create short colour films. For example, the early fantasy productions of French filmmaker Georges Méliès, heavily stood out from other films being made at the time; Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902), was one of the first films to feature colour. At only 15 minutes in length, the frames were manipulated via hand colouring, giving Méliès the opportunity to show the world how colour could be introduced within film. Though labour intensive, stencilling was markedly easier than hand-colouring, and is used in such landmark films as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916).
The birth of Technicolor became a big solution to the labour-intensive colour problems facing the film industry; 'Technicolor' is the technology behind many classic successful colour films, such as Gone With the Wind (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and An American in Paris (1951). Despite it's success, Technicolor brought an unusually fantasised spectrum to films. Many colours were often heightened, for example, the magical fantasy world of Oz, or the cartoon world of Disney, often had highly contrasted, bright colours. This was used to not only bring a aesthetically pleasing fantasy world, but was also used to show off the technology, much like having something fly out of the screen to showcase 3D technology.
Before Technicolor, other available technologies were expensive due to them being labor-intensive, requiring filmmakers to work in an assembly line factory, painting each frame of each film. This resulted in expensive, and rather unnatural looking films. The Technicolor Corporation, an engineering firm, went through a two-strip additive process, which mixed two colours on the screen for an accurate approximation of the spectrum, up until the 1930s, where a three-strip subtractive process was applied, each emphasising a different colour of the spectrum. Becoming the most realistic, fastest, and cheapest method of colouring, Technicolor quickly became the most successful colouring technology in the film industry.
Within a short period of time, shortly after the invention of cinema, filmmakers began retouching their own film stock via hand colouring and stencil. This was an incredibly time consuming task, as each individual frame had to be manipulated. As the sufficient technology wasn't available, this was a labour intensive task, which is why although the option was available, most filmmakers decided to shoot their film in black and white.
Despite this, many earlier films were very short, as they were only several hundred feet in celluloid, which gave filmmakers a chance to be able to create short colour films. For example, the early fantasy productions of French filmmaker Georges Méliès, heavily stood out from other films being made at the time; Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902), was one of the first films to feature colour. At only 15 minutes in length, the frames were manipulated via hand colouring, giving Méliès the opportunity to show the world how colour could be introduced within film. Though labour intensive, stencilling was markedly easier than hand-colouring, and is used in such landmark films as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916).
The birth of Technicolor became a big solution to the labour-intensive colour problems facing the film industry; 'Technicolor' is the technology behind many classic successful colour films, such as Gone With the Wind (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and An American in Paris (1951). Despite it's success, Technicolor brought an unusually fantasised spectrum to films. Many colours were often heightened, for example, the magical fantasy world of Oz, or the cartoon world of Disney, often had highly contrasted, bright colours. This was used to not only bring a aesthetically pleasing fantasy world, but was also used to show off the technology, much like having something fly out of the screen to showcase 3D technology.
Before Technicolor, other available technologies were expensive due to them being labor-intensive, requiring filmmakers to work in an assembly line factory, painting each frame of each film. This resulted in expensive, and rather unnatural looking films. The Technicolor Corporation, an engineering firm, went through a two-strip additive process, which mixed two colours on the screen for an accurate approximation of the spectrum, up until the 1930s, where a three-strip subtractive process was applied, each emphasising a different colour of the spectrum. Becoming the most realistic, fastest, and cheapest method of colouring, Technicolor quickly became the most successful colouring technology in the film industry.
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