Talk:Technicolor

Natalie Kalmus

"One major drawback of Technicolor's 3-strip process was that it required a special Technicolor camera. Film studios were never allowed to buy these cameras. Instead they had to hire them from the Technicolor Corporation, complete with a number of camera technicians and a 'color coordinator', more often than not, Natalie Kalmus herself. Natalie's name appears in the credits of virtually every Technicolor film made to 1950, in spite of the fact that she was frequently banned from film sets because her concept of color coordination usually differed from that of the artistic directors."

I can only guess that Natalie Kalmus was the wife or daughter of Dr. Herbert Kalmus. This should be made clear. TheMadBaron 07:03, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

The article says "... wife of Herbert Kalmus". She was actually his ex wife.

If I recall correctly, every Technicolor camera available in Hollywood (seven or eight) was rented to film the burning of Atlanta scenes in Gone With The Wind.

My grandfather was the owner/manager of a movie theater, and when GWTW premiered, either the studio or the Technicolor Company actually sent advisors to theaters to make sure that lighting conditions in theaters were "correct." The story goes that the advisor even wanted the red "EXIT" lights turned off. This my grandfather flat-out refused to do, as he had both the law and simple common sense on his side. RogerInPDX (talk) 05:48, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't cite a source, but I remember that Laurence Olivier's Henry V, shot in 3-strip, was so colorful because the production, shooting in Ireland during WWII, was not saddled with a Tchnicolor nanny. The Wikipedia article on the film does say, "The film, which was photographed in three-strip Technicolor, was hailed by critics for its ebulliently colourful sets and costumes...."Jim Stinson (talk) 22:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Whitney article

The John Hay Whitney article should be truncated, with any important information of that article grafted to the Technicolor one. It should not be deleted, as it is important information to that main article, but it does go on too much of a tangent about the process itself. The Whitney article should list briefly his involvement. Thephotoplayer 21:54, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Herbert Kalmus redirect?

Why does Herbert Kalmus redirect to here? He should get his own biographical article with a link. --jacobolus (t) 02:23, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

• Okay, I've created a separate article for him: Herbert Kalmus. Feel free to add more info to it, as it's pretty minimal right now. -- Bovineone 04:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Vomit?

There's no need for the "Technicolor Yawn" reference. Unless someone convinces me otherwise, I'll end up deleting it tonight.

Agreed. This reference does not contribute to the main focus of the article at all. Cintrom 14:23, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Corporate title

Technicolor was incorporated in 1915 as the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation. — Walloon 21:16, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation was only Technicolor as a film producer (Gulf Between and Toll of the Sea). The labs may have originally incorporated that way, but by the end of the 1920s, the firm was simply "Technicolor Corps., Inc."The Photoplayer 06:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

From the official corporate history, issued on their 90th Anniversary: "In November of 1915, the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation was officially established." Scientific or Technical Academy Awards went to "Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation" in 1932, 1940 and 1953. A 1942 article by Winton Hoch says that he is with "Technicolor Motion Picture Corp., Hollywood, Calif." The same article (p. 11) refers to "Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, President of Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation". — Walloon 06:45, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. I just looked at a trade ad from 1953 and it does indeed say "Motion Picture Corporation". I was confusing it with "Technicolor, Inc.", the labs, which were a subsidiary.The Photoplayer 17:50, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Is Technicolor different from Warnercolor?

Is Technicolor at all the same thing as Warnercolor? I understand that The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, was filmed in 1952 in Warnercolor instead of Technicolor. How do these processes differ? What made one process more appealing than the other? Was it simply the matter of cost, and that's it?

I assume that similar results in film processing were arrived at, regardless of the patented method employed, so it must be a matter of cost more than anything else.

WarnerColor was not the same thing as Technicolor. Technicolor used a dye transfer process (read the article) to mechanically create the image from printing matrices, like lithography; while WarnerColor, introduced in 1952, used Eastmancolor print stock to create prints photochemically, just as the color negatives from still photos are used to create color prints. The dye transfer process cost more, but gave unquestionablly better color quality, and the metal-based dyes did not fade; while the photochemical dyes in WarnerColor prints shifted badly toward pink with purple shadows in as little as five years. One film historian called WarnerColor prints "the worst looking prints in the history of motion pictures". By the mid-1950s, Warner Bros. shut down their film labs and went back to Technicolor, even though they continued to use "WarnerColor" in the credits for several years. — Walloon 22:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Savage Passions and Song of the Flame

What evidence is there that Savage Passions (1927) was photographed in Technicolor? The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures doesn't even know the production company or distributor of this obscure feature.

As for Song of the Flame, is there any authoritative source that says this was photographed in 65 mm? All I find is a plot description in the Internet Movie Database that claims so (and another website that reprints that plot description). The AFI Catalog says nothing about a widescreen process for that movie. — Walloon 17:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The Variety film review for "Song of the Flame" on May 14, 1930 states:

""At one time film goes to the wide screen for a pleasant festival and this looks quite nice, with the :staging here as otherwise with numbers happily handled by Jack Haskell." It also states that the film :was "All Technicolor." I will have to recheck the review on "Savage Passions."

The widescreen effect on "Song of the Flame" was most likely a combination of a Magnascope lens, cropping and a wider screen (Technicolor had no method of printing 65mm film in color due to their reliance on 35mm tooled pin transfer belts). Magnascope had already been used on Technicolor films, notably the last 800ft of Gold Diggers of Broadway were englarged during the films initial London run. --Actuationset (talk) 21:48, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

There are numerous problems with the AFI Catalog: 1921-1930. It's by far the weakest of

the lot. There are something like 75 features not included, numerous synopses

are wrong, and cast and credits are frequently incomplete. 24.6.23.248 19:18, 10 :July 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with you, volume F2 (Feature Films, 1921-1930) is the weakest of the series, but the second volume they put out, F6 (Feature Films, 1961-1970) isn't much better. I wish that they would redo both volumes, at least for their online version of the catalog, using the standards they employed for the subsequent volumes. — Walloon 19:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Economics

The paragraph about Technicolor's decline in the 1970s seems to contradict the later representation of the article about Technicolor's decline. According to the National Association of Theater, while there were fewer paying audiences going to the movies in 1975 than in the previous year, the number of screens in the US was increasing. The increase in the number of prints necessary in a short amount of time (fast-run Eastman prints being made in 300% the time that Technicolor could produce) is what killed Technicolor printing in the '70s (and its revival in the late '90s), NOT the lack of prints needed. Plus, Eastman prints could be struck in numerous laboratories-- Technicolor print could only be struck at their plants. Citation #2 does nothing I can see to substantiate this claim. The Photoplayer 16:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

No reply, so I am ammending this statement. If anyone has some numbers or articles to the contrary, please post it here. The Photoplayer 22:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Shooting Technicolor footage, 1934-1954

Technicolor's advantage over other early, natural color processes was that it was a subtractive synthesis rather than an additive one. Technicolor films could run on any projector; unlike other additive processes, it could represent colors clearly without any special projection equipment or techniques.

Technicolor was not unique in having a subtractive three color process. Rival processes such as Kodachrome, Agfacolor and Gasparcolor were available by 1935. Technicolor's advantage was that their camera produced the finest quality live action color prints which could be printed at that time to the bulk printing requirements (200 plus prints) of that time.

Early in the process, the clear film would be pre-exposed with a 50% density black-and-white positive image derived from the green matrix. This process was used largely to cover up fringing in the early days of three-strip printing, and to print framelines that would otherwise be white. Because the layer was of neutral density, the contrast in the picture was lowered. By the late 1930s, however, Technicolor streamlined the process to make up for these shortcomings and this practice ceased.

I have seen 1939 salmes using the key image. The key INCREASED contrast, crushed shadow detail, whilst reducing the general intensity of the colour image.

The color control that was available in the Technicolor process was even available to cinematographers, and many actors and actresses can recall standing on the set for long periods holding a board of colored squares (known as "The Lily") while the camera technicians balanced the colors in the camera. Conversely, cinematographers using monopack stocks such as Eastman and Ansco were at the mercy of the color balance of the negative stock as supplied, and the laboratory's timing. The Eastman company produced two versions of their film stock, one balanced for studio lighting, the other balanced for daylight. Cinematographers did have a large amount of control using colored filters over the camera lens or even the lighting

I do not understand this feat of 'balancing the color in the camera'. The color was balanced after the camera negative was exposed. The balancing process involved printing the three monochrome negatives with appropriate bias.

--Emitron1 15:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Correct about the subtractive system.

Fixed the error about the key image (obviously that's what was meant, but it wasn't written very well).

As for balance within the camera, to some extent I suppose it was possible that filters could accurately adjust to a good image, but you can do that with practically any camera in which color film is used, so I've deleted that paragraph. If anyone has a better reason as to why it should be left in, post it here. --The Photoplayer 07:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

"About the Technicolor Process" redundant?

Isn't the section "shooting Technicolor footage" redundant? This information is pretty much covered within the HISTORY section. I feel we should merge it, but what do you think? -The Photoplayer 10:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Process 3.5?

[[Image:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg -->|thumb|275px|right|Poster for the film.]] There seems to have another process between 3 and 4 which is not mentioned in the article. In 1931, a new process was used for the film called "The Runaround" released by Radio Pictures (RKO). According to the review (which praises the attractive color of the film) in Variety: "It's the first made under Technicolor's new printing process designed to remove grain, which is does to a degree placing application of tints on a much improved scale."Zosimus Comes 19:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Notice how the poster for the movie also mentions that the color process is much improved.Zosimus Comes 19:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

While it's true that the technology was refined in 1931, the process stayed the same-- same camera, same kind of printing. Many small tweaks were performed at Technicolor over the years-- listing them all would be interesting, but merely pointless minutiae. For all intents and purposes, this is still "process 3". - The Photoplayer 19:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Modern terminology

The Modern Terminology section refers to "This is, however, incorrect, as 3-Chip camcorders split light into red, green, and blue portions instead of magenta, cyan, and green." Shouldn't it be "instead of magenty, cyan, and yellow"? jhawkinson 19:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely - it should be yellow. I'll change that now. LACameraman 00:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Toy Story?

Wasn't Toy Story released in 1995? > "After its reintroduction in 1997, the dye transfer process was (somewhat unexpectedly) used in [...] Toy Story." Phil86921 02:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe they're actually referring to Toy Story 2, which was released in 1999. -The Photoplayer 19:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Emulsion flaking?

Under Reintroduction of the dye transfer process, in the second paragraph, after dye bleeding. It doesn't seem to be vandalism but Google can't find the term. I've no clue what it even means, but on the off chance it means something, I'm not going to delete it myself. Could someone who would know if it means anything either delete it or replace it with something more clear? -- Dezro 08:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

SORRY! What I thought was obscenity was the result of a browser plugin run amuk. DISREGARD OR DELETE THIS SECTION. -- Dezro 23:36, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Technicolor/video comparison

"3CCD camcorders are often erroneously referred to as filming "in Technicolor" due to the similarities to Process 4. This is, however, incorrect, as 3-Chip camcorders split light into red, green, and blue portions instead of magenta, cyan, and yellow."

I believe that this comparison IS accurate, because Technicolor uses RGB in the camera just like video. Magenta, cyan, and yellow do not come into play until the film print is made. You would not split light into magenta, cyan, and yellow because any given photon would expose TWO of those strips, resulting in very dull color. Algr 05:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I believe successive-exposure Technicolor (as used in animation) uses cyan, magenta, and yellow filters. This eliminates at least one step when producing the printing matrices. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 19:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect. Whether the process is additive (RGB video) or subtractive (a CMY Technicolor print), RGB filters are used in the photography. Additive and subtractive processes both work by controlling the amounts of red, green and blue light that reach the eye. CMY is simply RGB "by the back door": cyan (printed from the red-filtered image) controls the amount of red light that is seen, by absorbing more or less of it; magenta the amount of green; yellow the amount of blue. The seeming RGB-CMY dichotomy can be very confusing to the novice -- at least, it had to rattle around in the back of my own skull for quite a while before the concept became entirely clear. The muddled treatment of the matter in my 8th Grade science textbook was not helpful. Unfortunately, misleading or erroneous "explanations" are still far too abundant. AVarchaeologist (talk) 06:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

1990s rewrite

Chemmg, your rewrite is pretty rah-rah about the new process. The previous version was pretty sceptical. Who should I believe? Neither version is reinforced with a single reference. Binksternet 02:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I noticed this too and am equally tepid. Maybe restore the old version alongside the new version and put up a tag for referencing? Girolamo Savonarola 04:31, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It was anything BUT successful, particularly in making large runs, which was the reason Technicolor stopped. Having run some of those IB prints myself, I can attest that some of them looked great, but most of them looked and ran horribly. The emulsion flaking was a major problem, and really wasn't solved before it was too late.

Also, I'm puzzled at the use of Azo dyes during the manufacturing process. Technicolor used a number of dyes, mostly sulfuric in nature, which perhaps should be expanded upon in the article. The yellow layer was comprised of Anthracene Yellow, the cyan of Pontacyl Green and Fast Acid Green, and the magenta of Acid Magenta and Fast Red. It should be noted that Pontacyl Green and Fast Red was the original combination of dyes for the two-color system.The Photoplayer 18:26, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but whatever stays or is restored must have citations. Girolamo Savonarola 20:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

"Dye transfer" or "dye-transfer"?

Should this be hyphenated. The article is not consistent. jhawkinson (talk) 23:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

My grammar days are somewhat foggy, but I believe that the answer depends on whether it's used as an adjective or not. (The former being hyphenated.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 11:03, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Certainly , yes, if its a compound noun, then the adjectival form is hyphenated ("dye-transfer"). That doesn't advise whether the noun form should hyphenated though... jhawkinson (talk) 03:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

As an example, I believe that "the print was a dye transfer" and "it was a dye-transfer print" are both correct. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 03:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, it depends on whether it's being used as a noun or adjective. — Walloon (talk) 05:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is Technicolor more saturated, more vivid, more vibrant, etc.?

The article should address this topic, as it is the crux of the mystique of Technicolor. Is there a trick, or is it simply because the gamma of the film is high? That's the explanation for the saturated colors of Kodachrome. BTW, the Kodachrome article is silent on this topic as well, and the Gamma correction article does not mention this phenomenon.

If you've never heard of the relationship between gamma and color saturation, it's easy to understand, really. Imagine if the technicolor process were to use Kodalith (extremely high-contrast film). Each channel would be either 0% or 100%, and the resulting color palette would contain only saturated colors: R G B C M Y plus white and black.

Dave Yost (talk) 01:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I would imagine that the saturation is largely because the colors on the Technicolor prints were created with stable dyes rather than photochemicals. As for the contrast, the receiver prints started with a 50% b/w image which would significantly boost contrast. (Much like how the K component of CYMK acts.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 02:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Though a dye-imbibition process allows a much-wider choice of dyes than a chromogenic process, there is no inherent reason the former should produce more-highly saturated color than the latter. Kodachrome -- a chromogenic process -- was capable of highly saturated color. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the silver layer (which was dropped sometime in the early '40s) desaturated the color and lowered the contrast of the print. It was there largely to cover up registration errors that were so prevalent in the late '30s.

It wasn't until the late 1940s that Technicolor began to pump up the color in their prints, and not until the mid-1950s that this became commonplace from studio to studio. Part of the reason there's such a high contrast ratio in Technicolor compared to other color processes that rely on contact printing (such as Eastman color) is that Technicolor is mostly an optical process, and optical printing introduced contrast, which means higher gamma.

Technicolor does not use optical printing. And -- at least as far as the terms are commonly used -- "contrast" and "gamma" do not refer to the same thing. Photographic materials can have both low gamma and high contrast. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The main reason for that Technicolor "pop," however, is simply based on set and art direction in color, and how Technicolor met the demands of the producers to print very colorfully or otherwise. In the beginning of Technicolor's three-strip process, the company frowned upon splashy color. It was the bane of many producers, including David Selznick who wrote a considerable amount of memos on the subject during the production of Gone With the Wind. -The Photoplayer 05:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Nevertheless, three-strip Technicolor is inherently more-saturated than "modern" color films. The extremely fine grain needed for color photography necessarily increased the material's contrast (that is, it narrowed the tonal scale), which increased apparent saturation. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 13:08, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That's bullshit. How saturated a film is is largely an artistic decision and that has been true for a very long time now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.114.146.117 (talk) 05:54, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

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I don't understand-- why was a screenshot from a public domain movie tagged with a copyright tag in the first place? The Photoplayer 16:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Boston to Hollywood move

This may be useful to editors working on a history of the company..... The management team that moved from Boston to Hollywood comprised: 'Doc' Herbert Kalmus and Natalie Kalmus, Jack Kienninger (Chemist) and wife Alice, Russell Connant and wife Marion, Eric Howse and Louise, Mel Blanco (Purchasing?), Malcolm Ames (Mechanical Engineer) and Mary. Ariconte (talk) 10:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The Cavalier (1928)

This Tiffany film is regretably now lost in any form. It is noted here as a milestone in being the first color sound film. Yet film reviews from the period or indeed newspaper adverts never mention color. However on the bill for the New York premiere (see the New York Times) there was a silent two color Technicolor short shown with the film at that time and this is inded listed as Technicolor. This could easily be misread by someone at some point such that The Cavalier was (wrongly) in Technicolor.

Also, if the film was made in the earlier cement process as stated, it is unlikely to have carried an optical track due to the obvious problem of soundtrack distortion created by having two films cemented together.

The memoirs of Dr Kalmus specifically state that 'The Viking' was the first Technicolor production with sound and there is an in-depth discussion of how it came to be technically and there is no mention of 'The Cavalier'.

Whilst it would be nice to find something new and forgotten in film history, I don't think 'The Cavalier' could claim the position of first color sound film for the reasons stated above.

It would be good if some solid information on the film from more than one source could be provided to back up the idea that the Cavalier was anything other than b/w sound.

--Actuationset (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The Cavalier is not listed in Technicolor's company list of films shot or processed by them, so off this article it goes. The Photoplayer 00:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Redskin (1929 film)

The article about Technicolor states that Redskin is a Technicolor Process 3 film, but it's actually a Process 2 film. I just watched the DVD and it states that it was filmed in tinted B&W and in 'two color Technicolor.'

Anybody wanna step up to bat find a citable reference so this can be fixed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bkd (talk • contribs) 04:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

"Process 3" in context is correct-

• Process 1 - Additive process with beam splitter
• Process 2 - 2-color double-strip cemented prints
• Process 3 - 2-color dye-transfer prints
• Process 4 - 3-color dye-transfer prints

The Photoplayer 08:52, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Home Networking

Technicolor has recently become a part of the Home Networking industry. I just noticed after all the sites for my DSL modem started redirecting there, but it appears that the Speedtouch brand of DSL modems has been acquired by them. Is this worthy of being placed somewhere in the 'Technicolor Today' section? I can't find much info, other than that available on their site.

I thought it was a joke at first, but then I realized it was legitimate.

– The answer is here

And for people who understand french speaking, there is a treasure of courses here (it's from the Cinémathèque_Française at Bercy, Paris. If it's not made, check "Techniques cinématographiques" on the left otherwise you'll get way too much courses themes). Technicolor ones are mostly around 2015

2001:660:3305:100:7000:A465:42D5:42FC (talk) 12:16, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Gehrc (talk) 22:45, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

It is no correct to call Technicolor be an subtraction process. In such case colors must be yellow, magenta and cyan as in modern films based on Agfacolor process of 1934 year. Red, Green and Blue colors made Additive process as in Maxwell theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.255.206.253 (talk) 01:20, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Color Descriptions Wrong

The Technicolor 2 process refers to Green and Red being complementary colors to each other, and that each was toned with its opposite (so the Red positive with Green and the Green positive with Red). This appears to be a layman's interpretation. The complementary color for Green is Magenta, and the compliment of Red is Cyan. These are the toning colors for this process. Further, the filter for "Green" may not be spectral green. Other sources I've looked up refer to it as Blue-Green with a Magenta complement. http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/technicolor2.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.68.249.228 (talk) 16:18, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

The patent papers specify for the dyes used in the dye-transfer process as "Fast Red" and "Pontacyl Green". And although they are not technically complementary colors, spectral red and green filters were the ones used in the prism on the two-color camera. The Photoplayer 08:15, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Whatever the primaries, a line drawn between them would have to pass through the center (or close to the center) of the CIE chromaticity diagram in order for "white" to be correctly rendered. The line would also have to pass through a red(dish) hue that rendered an acceptable "Caucasian" skin tone. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 19:02, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

All that is necessary to render white by any subtractive process is for all the dyes to be absent. All that is necessary to render an acceptable black by a two-color subtractive process is for each dye to substantially block the portion of the spectrum that the other transmits. They do not need to be strictly complementary. There is sometimes a huge gulf between theory in the form of color charts or diagrams and practice in the form of dyes which may have complex spectral characteristics (not to mention the peculiarities of human color vision, an easily overlooked but critical factor in any color reproduction process). Pontacyl Green, for example, might most accurately be described as a green-leaning cyan—distinctly green when concentrated, but tending to blue when dilute (note that it and another nominally green dye constitute the distinctly bluish cyan component used for three-color Technicolor IB prints). Aniline dyes of various colors when highly concentrated typically appear red because they are almost completely transparent to very deep red wavelengths while absorbing more or less of the rest of the spectrum, including at least a small percentage of the part they nominally transmit, something which would hardly be apparent from a CIE diagram. Suggested experiment: try stacking three or four layers of a typical deep green photographer's lighting gel and looking at a sunlit landscape with green foliage through the murky sandwich. After your eyes adjust to the low light level, chances are you will see impossible magenta-red foliage set off by a 1930 Technicolor greenish-blue sky, all live and in unnatural color. Because of dichroic characteristics and other complexities which can best be analyzed with the aid of a spectroscope rather than a color chart, it is possible to reproduce a considerably wider range of colors (sometimes including seemingly impossible colors at low purity and saturation) with a two-color subtractive process than with a two-color additive one. AVarchaeologist (talk) 12:56, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Today's tags

This article is written like a essay written by a film buff or cinematographer from personal experience, and is not a properly cited encyclopedia article. While it has a number of footnotes, this large article has huge swaths of uncited claims and what seems like personal opinion, violating both WP:V and WP:NPOV. From the tone, which is straightforward and cleanly written, I'm sure this was created in good faith. Nonetheless, the plethora of claimed facts here must, by policy, be properly footed with WP:RS citations. --Tenebrae (talk) 05:49, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

It would be good to have more in-line citations from reliable sources. Please expand on the neutrality issue??? Regards, Ariconte (talk) 22:30, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Ariconte. It looks like some work was done on this since December, which may have addressed some of these issues. (I haven't gone through them edit-by-edit or anything.) At the time, the article seemed a bit rah-rah, making it seem as if Technicolor were the greatest thing to happen to movies since Edison. That may be unavoidable to some extent: Technicolor certainly is a miraculous technology. But I note that even at the time, I wrote that the article seemed written more like a personal essay than as a tonally neutral encyclopedia article, so perhaps a tag referring to "essay-like" or "inappropriate tone" might be better than the harsher neutrality tag. If you'd like to swap it out, I'd certainly go along. Overall, there is an amazing amount of information here, and as you concur, it does need much better citing. With regards, --Tenebrae (talk) 20:02, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try improve the citing and will remove the neutrality tag. I'm no expert on the company or the process - I used to know a bunch of people who were - but they are all dead. Regards, Ariconte (talk) 21:29, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Technicolor 126 Film

I recall using Technicolor brand color film for a Kodak 126 camera in the late Nineteen-Seventies. Does anyone have any information on this brand of film? Was it made by the same company that made Technicolor film for the cinema? Eligius (talk) 02:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I respectfully request that you delete your question and the following response. No, of course not. At one time photographic companies imported materials and rebranded them. The Technicolor product probably came from Ferannia. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 12:43, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Created from unperforated 35mm Eastmancolor, more likely. In 1970, you could walk into Technicolor's classic deco building in Hollywood and pick up a roll of 35mm "Technicolor" negative film (Bell and Howell perf IIRC and so probably salvaged from left-over ends of standard Eastmancolor motion picture negative stock), then mail it in or drop it off for processing. What you got back was an uncut roll of negatives, a set of mounted slides made from them (printed on Eastmancolor high-fade positive stock, judging by their current wretched pale reddish appearance) and a fresh roll of "Technicolor" film to keep you hooked. Happily, I only shot a couple of rolls of the stuff before returning to the better-looking Ektachrome, which had resolved its own fading problems by then and still looks fine over forty years later. AVarchaeologist (talk) 13:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

minor errors

"The process of splitting the image reduced the amount of light reaching the film stock." Though this is literally true, it applies to all color processes, including integral tripacks. The need to separate the image into red, green, and blue components necessarily reduces the amount of energy available to expose the film (or sensor).

Although Firefox was the last live-action three-strip Technicolor film, Disney continued to use "three-strip" Technicolor for animation. Sleeping Beauty was shot in three-strip Technirama. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 12:53, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

In paragraph 2 in the Section "Shooting Technicolor footage, 1932–1955" the statement is made that the Orthochromatic film, by its nature, absorbed the blue light so it did not reach the panchromatic film adjacent to it. Actually, the Orthochromatic film is sensitive only to blue light but still did transmit both blue and red light - there was no typical film black backing layer. The blue light was actually absorbed by "a red orange dye coating on top of [the Orthochromatic film emulsion]... which acted as a filter to prevent any blue light from reaching the red element film, which was sensitive to both red and blue light." Source is the American Wide Screen Museum's Technicolor Article, page 7. The referenced paragraph should be updated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.55.160.110 (talk) 00:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Quite so. Done, along with general overhauling in the vicinity to cure some other errors and oddities, but any serious spit and polish in this section is liable to be labor expended in vain until the major problem has been tackled: it and the section that precedes it are essentially duplicate renderings of the same subject matter. They badly need to be merged into one. AVarchaeologist (talk) 18:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Re: "wherein the 16mm Kodachrome Commercial," in the article. I don't think there ever was a Kodachrome Commercial. The film stock was almost certainly Ektachrome Commercial ("ECO" - type 7255 as I remember).Jim Stinson (talk) 22:31, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Copyright film frame?

The article contains a film frame from a Donald Duck film claiming public domain as it a work of the government. Why then does the frame contain a very clear copyright notice? 109.153.242.10 (talk) 17:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

At the commons page the image is said to be public domain because it was made for the U.S. Government. I don't know if that is sufficient or not. A lot of wikis use the image. Binksternet (talk) 18:00, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

It is. It's a frame from The Spirit of '43, a propaganda film made for the U.S. Government. The relevant law section is ‘Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.’ (This is the same law that puts NASA images in the public domain.) From '41 to '45 Disney was under a government contract to produce propaganda shorts. Disney was almost bankrupt at the time and sorely needed the money, so they produced dozens of animated shorts, as well as numerous training films, all of which are in the public domain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.114.146.117 (talk) 05:47, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Need for clarification of jargon

In my opinion this article assumes a knowledge of photography in the reader. I would imagine it's unclear for almost anyone who reads it, frankly. For example, the phrase about the one of the films in Technicolor 4 running "from base to base" is nonsensical, since it's meaningless for almost anyone reading it. I think it would be wise to define these confusing terms so that the article becomes understandable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.199.204.112 (talk) 10:33, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the details of the processes are inevitably somewhat technical and it is reasonably assumed that the reader at least knows that photographic film normally has a base side and an emulsion side. Should this article be required to explain what photography is, what a camera is, and why movies seem to move? There are elementary articles explaining all of those things. Wikipedia articles on specialized subjects are not required to assume complete ignorance of the basics in their field and start at Square One. All the math articles would have to begin with 1+1=2. Anyone not interested in the technical and historical aspects can get what they need from the first paragraph—Technicolor was an old process for making movies in color and is often associated with bright, splashy color schemes—and skip the details. AVarchaeologist (talk) 22:48, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

P.S. My belated thanks for pointing out a substantial error in the first of the TWO descriptions (an error in itself, and yet to be cured) of the three-strip process in this article. The phrase you quoted, "from base to base", should have set off my alarm bell but its import was overlooked in the context of your broader complaint. In fact, those films ran emulsion to emulsion. That description, which could easily confuse someone well-acquainted with the basics of photography, has now been completely overhauled. AVarchaeologist (talk) 04:53, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC on Terminology for Process 2 movie

There is a Request for Comments at Talk: Wanderer of the Wasteland (1945 film) concerning the terms to used for the older Technicolor Process 2. Please participate in the RFC. (This question may apply to other articles, either concerning movies that were filmed in Process 2, or movies that had a predecessor that was filmed in process 2.) Robert McClenon (talk) 04:27, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

RFC: dealing with "two-strip"

I see that there has been a typical Wikipedia brouhaha over this term on the talk page for the 1945 (sic!) Wanderer of the Wasteland, as was rather inconspicuously flagged in the preceding section of this page. Too bad it wasn't conducted here, the logical place for it, where I and other interested and informed editors would be much more likely to see it and toss in our two cents.

@Onel5969: Apparently, you are working under the mistaken impression that "two-strip" was a term in use when the process was current. Please read Technicolor Adventures in Cinemaland, a short history of Technicolor written in 1938, just a few years into the three-color era. The author is none other than Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, who, I presume you would concede, is a higher authority on the correct terminology than either his contemporaries or the authors of the much later sources on which you are apparently relying. You will find "two-component" used in most instances, and the more compact and convenient "two-color" a few times, but you will search in vain for an appearance of the term "two-strip". The same is true of other vintage verbiage from Technicolor experts, and indeed of all the relevant early literature that has come to my attention, as far as I can recall.

When I first delved into this subject in the early 1970s, "two-strip" was the term in use, and it was in my vocabulary for many years. It still occasionally slips out. However, it appears to have been a quite recent creation at that time -- I would be very surprised if you can find any appearance of it prior to the 1960s -- and it is a misbegotten, misleading misnomer which has led people to prattle on about "those bulky two-strip cameras" when talking about Technicolor films from the 1929-1930 cycle. Robert Gitt, late of the UCLA archive, and other high authorities have pointed out the undesirability of the term and lobbied for its retirement, with ever-increasing success. No one is doing the world a favor who keeps the wretched brain-dead thing on life support.

The term does, however, appear in numerous sources from the post-1970 era, so it needs to be acknowledged and dealt with. The rational way to do that, IMO, is not by mentioning it in the body of the article, where it is apt to contaminate the reader's vocabulary, but with a footnote. There was such a footnote, but you removed it; maybe all for the best in the long run, as it certainly could have stood improvement.

RFC: In keeping with the above, I would like to relegate the term "two-strip" to an explanatory footnote. If anyone knows of a nice neat high-quality source to cite in such a footnote, I would be most grateful if you would supply the necessary details (or create the footnote yourself); otherwise, I will have to piece together cits of Kalmus and other sources to support it, laying myself open to accusations of "creative synthesis". AVarchaeologist (talk) 17:45, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Initially, when the films made this way came out, there was no was little or no mention of the "process", it was simply called "color" film (as is done HERE). When a process was mentioned, usually it was simply the Technicolor process (such as HERE, and here). However, when the newer process came about in the 30s, the earlier process in the literature of the times was almost universally called by the misnomer. I do a bit of rooting around in mags like The Film Daily, Motion Picture Herald, Motion Picture Magazine, Silver Screen, American Cinematography, Motion Picture Daily, Photoplay, and others. While I am sure that the correct term might have been used occasionally, the misnomer was the much more common term. If I have time, I'll look into sources. I think your wording is well-intentioned by your above comment, but to be accurate, it should reflect that from the 30s until very recently, most sources called the process by the misnomer. I'm not sure how to word it, but I don't think it should be relegated to a footnote. Anybody who does a bit of research of the films of the 30s (granted, there aren't many of us), would be confused by there being no mention of it in the article. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 13:32, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Just to clarify - I don't know what the more common term was between 1950s on, I haven't begun any research into those eras yet. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 16:37, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Interesting! Thanks for your research (and for the direct links -- it seems archive.org now wants us to surrender our anonymity and get a "library card", a development I am constitutionally inclined to resist). Apart from browsing through some Photoplays from the talkie transition era, I've not yet found the time to do much digging in the gold mine of early film periodicals that has recently been made available online. I look forward to exploring there with pleasure. Even without the benefit of those sources, I was confident that the "two-strip" moniker was not contemporary with the process for the same reason that 78 rpm records were not called "78s" by consumers in 1930: for home use, at least, there was no other kind.

Still a retronym, but apparently a much more venerable one than it seemed. Pointers to early occurrences in trade and fan magazines would be very helpful in hammering out something more specific than my provisional and weasely "later in the 1900s" wording -- "since the mid-1930s", perhaps?

I can live with an adequately disclaimered parenthetical rather than a footnote; in fact, there is much to be said for dealing with the matter where the reader is more likely to see it, despite my concern that it may serve to prolong the life of the justly moribund term. However, the parenthetical really needs to be reiterated in the subsection about Process 3, presumably in a similar location within it.

BTW, if a digression and some OR may be indulged here: your first link is of particular interest to me because of the quoted review of Wanderer of the Wasteland which praises "a blue, blue sky" seen in it. Despite the fact that Technicolor itself referred to the components as "red and green", and that the main constituent of the dye blend used for the "green" side is named Pontacyl Green, I strongly suspect that the color balance of Process 2 prints shifted significantly and early on, and that the "green" was a considerably more ambiguous and dichroic cyan green when the prints were fresh. My own "archive" of Process 2 Technicolor consists of slightly more than one frame, from the 1926 film The Brown Derby, very easy to identify because it's from the film's main title. I got it back in 1970 and it has not changed noticeably since then, but the effect is of pea soup. The eponymous object is redolent of Saint Patrick's Day and would likely have evoked titters if it had appeared that way on the screen in 1926. The red dye blend is quite dichroic and the portion visible outside the frame line ranges from a vivid red where it is dense to a surprisingly pure yellow where it is thin. Another major factor in the equation is the blue-heavy carbon arc light universally used for projection at the time, for which the color was balanced. The upshot is that the color of two-color is not as simple a matter as it may seem. End of digression.

As to your addendum: there weren't too many books about film published in the 1950s (in English, at least), and the few I own or have seen only acknowledge the existence of early color vaguely in passing if at all. The flood of film books didn't really come until the 1970s, and esoteric terms like "Process 2" were not likely to be found in them. In my experience, "two-strip" was ubiquitous in book and magazine treatments of the subject into the 1980s and beyond, IMO an example of the all-too-common and deplorable scholarly echo chamber syndrome. AVarchaeologist (talk) 18:58, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Excellent! I'm working on an article about one of the founders of Liberty Pictures (the co. which made "It's a Wonderful Life"), and there's a lot of material on him, so I'm taking my time with it. As I can, I'll do searches for mentions in 1930s and 1940s sources for what the Technicolor processes were called at that time. Take it easy! Onel5969 ^{TT me} 21:01, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

"Reintroduction"

None of the respective articles mention this, there's no citation, and Toy Story's release date of 1995 contradicts the earlier statement that the process was reintroduced in 1997. I haven't read through any of the sources, so it's possible the info is in there. I just wanted to bring the issue to people's attention. 8bitW (talk) 18:04, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Restructuring

I restructured the last three sections under one top-level heading, "Post-1955 usage". Feel free to discuss or change if you disagree. 8bitW (talk) 18:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, the three sections all talk about post-1995 usage... --Janke | Talk 20:34, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Good call. :-D I was thinking "post-1955" because when the last major film in Technicolor was released, but I had glossed over some later references in the previous section. Still, I'm thinking that "post-1995" sounds a bit arbitrary. Maybe something more like "Recent usage" or "Recent history"? I'm not sure though. 8bitW (talk) 21:01, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

IP comment moved from article to talk

From an IP editor: "The Star Wars reference above is incorrect and is based on confusion between the Technicolor 3-strip process and the routine making of monochrome separation masters from monopack colour negative originals which had nothing to do with Technicolor." This needs to be looked into! --Janke | Talk 07:21, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

• OK, did a quick check. There --Janke | Talk 07:29, 25 April 2016 (UTC)were a few Technicolor IB prints (no idea how many) made in 1977, so there simply had to be B&W separation masters... These would be ideal for restoration work. --Janke | Talk 07:29, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Misleading

The article says: ‘Technicolor's advantage over most early natural-color processes was that it was a subtractive synthesis’

This is very misleading, especially to lay people, and especially when they follow the link. The fact of the matter is that red, green and blue channels are recorded. The only place where subtractive mixing is used is on the film itself. It is sort of possible to piece this together out of the rest of the text, but I still think this needs to be rephrased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.114.146.117 (talk) 04:35, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Misleading only if the reader overlooks the key word "synthesis" in the quoted sentence. All full-color processes (excepting only exotic hyper-rarities like the Lippmann process) start with analysis into RGB channels, so that can and should always be assumed. Agreed, though, that color photography in general is badly misunderstood by many (most?) people, who seem to imagine that the color is captured and displayed by some mysterious chameleon-like phenomenon rather than by analysis into, and then synthesis from, monochrome channels of color information. The basic principles of color reproduction by printing press, photographic film and television were covered in my 8th grade science textbook, but that was then and perhaps the subject has now been crowded out. 66.81.243.188 (talk) 09:40, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

In other words, make clear that it's about the *PRINTING* process, not about how the color is being recorded by the emulsion inside the camera. Looked at it that way, Technicolor is halfway between Prokudin-Gorsky's three-plate still color photography (which is entirely additive, aka RGB) and Lumiere's Autochrome, Kodachrome, and Eastmancolor (which are entirely subtractive, aka CMYK). Technicolor captures color in RGB, which is then printed in CMYK. --2003:DA:CF04:926:F1D7:F80D:2D56:5017 (talk) 03:00, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Technicolor

Voice 103.148.21.18 (talk) 01:29, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Disney & United Artists

"Kalmus convinced Walt Disney to shoot one of his Silly Symphony cartoons, Flowers and Trees (1932), in Process 4, the new "three-strip" process. Seeing the potential in full-color Technicolor, Disney negotiated an exclusive contract for the use of the process in animated films that extended to September 1935. Other animation producers, such as the Fleischer Studios and the Ub Iwerks studio, were shut out – they had to settle for either the two-color Technicolor systems or use a competing process such as Cinecolor."

Disney didn't start self-distributing their films until 1953. At the time, United Artists were releasing their movies, what does United Artists have do to. 2A02:C7C:3405:B900:1011:3B2C:855A:FEE4 (talk) 19:53, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

After 1955: Technicolor, Kodachrome, and Eastmancolor

The section about Three-strip Technicolor says that it was used up until 1955 and vaguely hints that a new "monopack" version of Technicolor was used from 1955 onwards (up until Kodak introduced Eastman 5254 ECN-1 in 1968?). However, in the later section The introduction of Eastmancolor and decline, this supposed "monopack" simply refers to 35mm Kodachrome reversal introduced as early as 1941. --2003:DA:CF04:926:F1D7:F80D:2D56:5017 (talk) 02:54, 25 June 2024 (UTC)