Cinematographic annual : 1930 (1930)

278 CINEMATOGRAPHIC ANNUAL and blue-violet. It gave beautiful results, but was hardly more than a laboratory experiment yet. The next development was in reducing it to a simple two-color process, and eliminating the filters by putting them on the film: this was done by dyeing the alternate frames their appropriate color. In this form it began to show signs of being a commercial product. Finally it blossomed into real practicability by being adapted to give a subtractive print, very much after the fashion of Kodachrome. For several years after this development, which occurred about 1921, Prizma nourished as the proverbial green bay-tree. Many of the major producers used it for special scenes and inserts, while several features were made entirely in Prizma. Mae Murray and her producers were Prizma enthusiasts, while D. W. Griffith, Hugo Ballin and the Famous Players Company also made use of it. Abroad, an English company made at least two features in Prizma, under the direction of Commodore Blackton. All in all, Prizma seemed headed straight for success in a big way. Just at that time, however, the film industry was beginning its last great migration to the Pacific Coast. Prizma did not choose to run, so it stayed and languished in its inaccessible laboratory in Jersey City. Had it joined the rest of the industry in its Westward trek, there is no doubt that it would be with us today. Technicolor About the time Prizma began its decline, a new face was pushed over the cinematic horizon. A group of engineers from Boston had evolved a process which they called Technicolor, and with which they proposed to brighten up the movies. When Technicolor took its first bow, it was a two-color twin-lens proposition, which gave fine results in the laboratory, but not in the studio. This was soon abandoned for a subtractive process, which achieved considerable success. The negative was made in a special camera which made the two color-images through a single lens, at one exposure, by means of prisms. The two sets of negative-frames were then printed onto two separate films, which were appropriately dyed, and then cemented back-to-back, in perfect register. This gave a very satisfactory print indeed, and one which could be run in any theatre. However, it had two slight drawbacks: it was rather denser than the ordinary print, requiring a more powerful projection-light, and, as the film was thicker, the focus of the projector had to be altered between black-and-white and color sequences. Still, the process caught on commercially, and became quite a success. Of late, however, Technicolor has made a number of improvements which have placed it at the forefront of professional color processes. The double film has been entirely done away with, while production has been so simplified that the cost has been lowered very considerably, and the volume tremendously increased. In the new process, the actual taking is practically the same, but the printing is entirely different. Two separate prints are made, one of all the red images, and one of the green ones. These are so treated that the image is in relief, in the gelatine itself. Then they are inked, just as printing type is, and brought in contact with a strip of cleat