American cinematographer (Jan 1937)

6 American Cinematographer • January, 1937 R egardless of whether or not the present interest in natural-color productions continues, the motion picture industry has o definite and growing color problem to solve. This is the question of supplying on increasing demand for natural-color still photographs. Newspapers, rotogravure supplements, "fan" magazines and the so-called "class" magazines are making more and more use of color in their pages. Since motion picture personalities are not only news but also (especially the feminine contingent) excellent pictorial material, Holly- wood's press-relations bureaus are receiving an increasing number of requests for "color art." This pressure, in turn, is being passed on in no uncertain terms to the pho- totechnical artists in the studio still departments. The demand for color stills is from three principal sources, each setting its own standards of color excellence. The first is from the growing group of newspapers using what might be termed "semi-color" pictures in their dramotic sections. All of them are somewhat limited by the technical problems of reproducing full-color pictures with the coarse-screen engravings which must necessarily be used when printing on newsprint paper. In their sim- plest form, these journals' attempts at color may be said to paint their pictures „with a very broad brush indeed; they suggest color, rather than actually reproduce it. Broad areas of the background, costumes, and in some cases a player's flesh-tones or hair are printed in color, though it may bear little enough relation to the coloring of actuality. Details, such as eyes, jewelry, etc., are gen- erally left to black-and-white. None the less, this form of color reproduction can be surprisingly effective. In a few instances, some large newspapers have made very praiseworthy attempts at reproducing bona-fide color in spite of the limitotions of their printing materials. The second group includes several Sunday rotogravure supplements and the majority of the "fan" magazines. These use a higher grade of engraving and, in the latter group especially, better paper and printing. Obviously, they must have a finer type of color photograph with which to work. The third group, though definitely in the minority in point of numbers, makes up for it in prestige. This group comprises one or two of the highest-grade "fan" maga- zines, and such "class" magazines as "Esquire," "Stage," "Vogue," and the like. Their engraving, paper and color- printing are unsurpassed. Certain of them justifiably boast the finest color reproduction in the world. Obviously, these three groups need pictures of different standards of quality. A picture which would make a very acceptable newspaper color picture might prove entirely too crude for the perfected reproduction of one of the class group, while a "Vanity Fair" type of color still would prove no better than an ordinary color shot if given the adequate but not superlative reproduction of the aver- age paper or magazine of the middle group. Inevitably the question of cost enters. Natural-color stills are more expensive to make than black-and-white ones. They require more care in the dark-room, and pho- tographic printing in color is as yet relatively slow and costly. Throughout, a certain degree of specialized tech- nique is required, the more so, naturally, in producing the highest-grade color pictures for the de luxe magazines. Accordingly, in almost every studio, three different grades of color stills are turned out, to serve the three different types of outlet. The most elementary type, used principally for news- Stills From “The Carden of Allah” Attacking paper reproduction, is an ordinary black-and-white stili, hand-colored. This is usually done on an 11x4 print,_with oil colors. A well-colored example of this type can be quite pleasing. There is a distinct advantage in that a print from any existing negative may be transformed into a color-print by this method, at a minimum of expense. There is a further advantage at times in that the colora- tion of the print may be based more on art than on fact. The extent of detail-coloration, too, may be coordinated to the newspaper's needs. The intermediate group may as a rule be served with natural-color transparencies which, while good, need not adhere to the perfection demanded by the highest-class group. Virtuolly all of this field is supplied with trans- parencies made by the Dufay process. This consists simp- ly of a special film, which may be exposed in any still- camera. Special filters make it possible to photograph Dufaycolor stills under any light condition—daylight. Photoflash, normal incandescent lighting, or arc lighting. The base of this film is covered with a pattern of micros- copically fine rulings in the three primary colors—red, blue and green. When the film is placed in the holder with the emulsion-side away from the lens, this screen (reseau) acts as an infinite number of tiny filters. In the image of a red object, for instance, the blue and green rulings would absorb the light falling on them, leaving only the emulsion behind the red rulings to receive an expos- ure. The exposed film is developed, floshed and reversed into a positive. When the picture is viewed by transmit- ted light, the tiny filters reproduce the color of the orig- inal subject. In our red object, the reversal process has left the innumerable tiny sections beneath the red-filter rulings clear, while those beneath the blue green lines re- main opaque. Thus we see that part of the picture only through the red-line portions of the screen, and the image is reproduced in red. If the object were some other color, its image would be reproduced by a combination of varying degrees of density in two or more of the primary-color