British Kinematography (1953)

February, 1953 TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN 1952 45 V. FILM MANUFACTURE AND PROCESSING DURING 1952, the attention of the British motion picture industry has been concentrated a great deal on two important questions : the potentialities of colour film processes, and the progress of television. These two matters are interrelated, because the threat of competition from television has greatly stimulated interest in the possibilities of an all-colour film programme. It is true that this interest has its source in the U.S.A., where colour television programmes in the home are far too close to commercial reality for anyone in the film business to ignore the prospect. The effect of colour television on cinema attendances if black and white films continue to be shown needs no stressing in order to explain this situation. Moreover, should commercial colour television become a reality, there will be a considerable demand for colour films to include in the programmes. Influence of Trends in America The British film industry is strongly influenced by such trends in America because of the large number of American productions which are release printed over here, necessitating the adoption of similar colour print processes ; and of course British producers have to consider the effect of the all-colour programme in relation to their export business, where British films may be in direct competition with those made in Hollywood. So 1952 has been a busy year for the raw stock manufacturers, who have had to grapple with the enormous problem of first making colour film of satisfactory quality at an economic price, and then planning to produce it in sufficient quantity to meet probable demand, while still maintaining an adequate output of black and white films. In Britain there has been much behind-thescenes activity in this way, but the results will not be seen until the end of 1953 at the earliest. Of course, relatively new colour processes are referred to here, and not the well established Technicolor and Cinecolor processes, which have been operating to the full capacity of their plants. The newer colour film processes are all of the integral tripack type, that is, they consist of picture negative and print films each having three separate emulsions coated one above the other on a single support. The best known of these are Eastman Colour, Ferraniacolor and Gevacolor films, all of which have to be imported at the present time. Manufacture of 35mm. integral tripack motion picture film seems unlikely in this country before 1954. Because of currency regulations importation of these films has been limited with a consequent restriction of their use. Limitations of Integral Tripack Apart from the problem of supplies, the integral tripack processes were subject to two major limitations as compared with black and white materials. The first was that no duplicating negative film was available so that optical inserts and special effects could not be introduced, and only straight cutting of the original negative was possible. However, this situation has now been rectified and duplicating negative films are obtainable for the respective colour processes. The Ferrania film is of a reversal type enabling duplicate negatives to be made in a single step from the original. The Eastman and Gevaert are similar to the conventional black and white type in that a master positive must first be made, from which the duplicate negative is printed. Since there are three separate emulsions on the original negative, three separate black and white master positives must be prepared, which are then re-combined on the duplicating negative film. The second limitation concerns the speed of the camera negative film. The best speed obtainable is of the order of B.S.I 6, or about one-third to one-quarter the speed of a standard black and white negative material. This means that, in studio use, the lighting has to be very bright, and is very hot. A new