American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1942)

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Controlling Color In Lighting 16MM. Kodachrome For Professional Pictures By JAMES A. LARSEN, JR. PRODUCTION of professional motion pictures in Kodachrome, either for direct-16mm. commercial or educational use, or for enlargement to 35mm. color for theatrical release, involves a number of factors which are not encountered in black-and-white production (in either 16mm. or 35mm.) and which are by no means paralleled by the problems met in making 35mm. theatrical films in Technicolor. The first and most basic of these is the necessity for realizing that 16mm. Kodachrome is a distinct medium in itself: basically diff"erent from 35mm. blackand-white or even 35mm. color, but capable of equally serious use if approached in a seriously professional manner. Speaking generally, the majority of professional producers and technicians base their concepts of motion picture production fl upon their experience in 35mm. | black and white, and as regards color, with 35mm. Tech |L| nicolor. Many of them, unfor "^ tunately, are inclined to approach the use of 16mm. with the attitude that since both 16mm. and Kodachrome were introduced primarily for amateur use, and give adequate results in the hands of even comparatively inexperienced amateurs, they, as experienced professionals, can take 16mm. in their stride. They fail to recognize the fact that to get consistently professional results with 16mm. and Kodachrome, they must handle it in a consistently professional manner. They should study the new medium at least as carefully as though the Kodachrome film were of 35mm. width and running through their Mitchell cameras, and adapt their techniques to the requirements of the medium in the same careful way they would if it were a new and unfamiliar 35mm. process. The problems of exposing and lighting 16mm. black-and-white are not too unlike those of exposing and lighting 35mm. black-and-white, allowing of course tor the differences between the • emulsions and processing methods involved. But in Kodachrome, these problems are considerably different, and more complex. The Kodachrome emulsion has much narrower latitude than does any black-and-white emulsion, and the laboratory processing affords considerably less control than is possible in black-and-white or in 35mm. color. One of the biggest points of difference between Kodachrome and black-andwhite is the necessarily much lower sensitivity or speed of the Kodachrome emulsion, which means that under all conditions, much more light is required to give a satisfactory exposure in Kodachrome than in black-and-white. This is of course true of any color process; theatrical technicians are already familiar with this aspect of Technicolor, and I believe that some of the Holly Color-balanclng artificial light and daylight is often a problem in Kodachrome location-work. wood studios which have made use of 16min. Kodachrome for pre-production tests have found that in practice the speed of the "Type A" used for interior photography is approximately on a par with that of the three-strip Technicolor process. However, lighting Kodachrome is a very different thing from lighting Technicolor. In any color process, not only are the direction and intensity of the lighting important, but also the color of the light. Lack of recognition of this fact probably accounts for most of the unsatisfactory results which Kodachrome has given in the hands of studio professionals and 16mm. commercial cameramen, to say nothing of amateurs. In any system of natural-color photography, the pictured rendition of colors will inevitably be influenced not only by the actual colors themselves, but by the color of the light falling on them. What we term a true rendition of colors moans necessarily an exact reproduction of their visual appearance under what we consider normally colorless light — i. e., normal daylight, which is theoretically defined as a blending of lightrays of all the spectral colors, so blended that we are not conscious of any color in it. As a matter of actual fact, however, the proportion of light of different colors which leaches the eai-th from the sun varies throughout the day. The radiation of the sun itself is uniform, but the light which actually reaches us has to pass first through the earth's atmosphere, which acts like an enormous filter. The density and coloring of this filter vary according to weather conditions, and according to the angle at which the sun's rays strike it. Air full of moisture and dust (whether visible or not) has more of a filtering effect than dry, clean air. Similarly, the rays of the sun which reach the earth through a great thickness of this blanket of atmosphere— as is the case in early morning and late afternoon, when the sunlight strikes at a slanting angle — are filtered much more than the rays which reach the earth in the middle of the day. When the sun is relatively high in the sky, virtually the whole spectrum passes through; but when the sun is near the horizon, the rays pass through a much longer path of atmosphere, which holds back much of the blue and green light, and passes the yellow, orange and red rays strongly. An excess of dust or moisture in the air accentuates this. Despite this minute-to-minute variation in the color of the light reaching the earth, there is usually a period of several hours during the middle of the day when the coloring of sunlight is essentially constant and "normal." The color-sensitivity and filtering of the Technicolor process has been balanced to this normal standard of illumination. So, too, has that of the regular or "daylight" Kodachrome film used for exterior shooting. Exposed to light of, or reasonably close to this "normal" color quality, the film will give proper color reproduction. But if "daylight" Kodachrome is exposed to light of any other color-quality, it will not give absolutely accurate color reproduction. The degree of inaccuracy depends, of course, on the degree the coloring of the light varies from the midday "normal." It is for this reason that the Eastman Kodak Co. warns users of Kodachrome not to expose it within two or three hours after sunrise, or two or three hours before sunset. But in commercial production it may sometimes be necessary to shoot during these off-color periods, even though normal color-rendition is demanded in the final film. In such instances, it is possible to use color-correcting filters, such 348 August, 1942 American Cinematographer