The Cine Technician (1939)

March-April, L938 T 1! E (IN E-T E C HMl'IAN L94 that it has become a means of expression oi some oi the finest artists and craftsmen in the world. This art. which lias grown up with us during the last twenty years to its present very high standard, already affords tremendous scope for expression, hut 1 am convinced, from what J have seen of colour photography, thai it will not he a very long time now beiore the scientists and technicians have achieved perfection in the reproduction of the harmonious colourings of that greal artisl 'Dame Nature', thus affording the medium of colour expression to enhance the aesthetic enjoyment. However, I do leel that full appreciation of colour photography will not conic until the technique oi stereoscope . whili is already making considerable headway, reaches a stage when it may lie placed before the public. The long hours of patient labour on the part oi research workers, who will assuredly reach their goal, will he more than repaid by the increased patronage of those members of the general public whose sole appreciation is in tic subtleties of colour expression. HUMPHREY JENNINGS, Production Unit Director, Dufay-Chromex, interviewed, declares for special colour stories Humphrey Jennings had a lot to say about colour when interviewed by a "Journal" scribe. In his opinion Technicolour and Dufay-Chromex are away ahead oi the field and will continue to lead until such time as Kodachrome or some similar system lias devised a method oJ making prints. With Technicolor, a special camera is needed, plus three negatives, three positives and a final print. The result is very expensive hut very beautiful. Jennings instanced "A Star is Born" as a brilliant example of Technicolor perfection. The requirements of DufayChromex. he claimed, are much simpler and less costly. The negative can he loaded into any camera, and any competent cameraman can shoot, without requiring am special training. The negative is developed in a way almost identical to black and white, and rushes sent in one day can he seen the next. Technicolor, added Jennings, given first-class laboratorv service, is a splendid vehicle for studio pictures. But Dufay is more adaptable. Using an ordinary Sinclair camera they had shot in colour from an aeroplane 5,000 feet up, and they were now shooting interiors, with arcs running off a generator, in small rooms on lo< ation. Jennings, who for some time worked with the G.P.O. Film Unit as a documentary director, claims that DufayChromex is the ideal system for documentary work. The speed of their negative allows them to shoot exteriors in poor light. There is also a greater mobility due to their ability to use ordinary cameras. Jennngs believes that the use of colour will compel producers more and more to use natural locations and to break away from studio conventions. "Colour," he said, "lias a horrible way of showing up the texture of laces and sets, so that the studio tricks of special make-up. plaster sets and painted artificial backgrounds are emphasised by all colour systems. I see no reason why realistic feature pictures should not to a great extent he shot on location with natural backgrounds. Hollywood is tending more and more to take semi-documentary themes as backgrounds for their stories." He instanced "Wells Fargo." "Bengal Fancer." "Florida Special." "This tendency should be greatly encouraged by colour Suppose a film with a London setting requires a scene ii an office overlooking Trafalgar Square there is no earthly reason why it should not be shot in an actual office in Trafalgar Square. The results in colour will he tar more realistic than it the set is built in a studio, with a painted backgr* lund. "Colour," Jennings went on, "will divide ver\ sharply stories which arc frankly hokum from stories that are supposed to bear some relation to contemporary life. If it is to be hokum, let it he hokum — and colour will play its part. It intended to be realistic, colour can now produce a new realism that is at the service o! the storv depart i i ii -i it . "(M course, the sound department will probably base fits, but they have had so many (its that another won't hurt them. In any ease, the camera department will now have its own hack on sound for the indignities they suffered in the early days of talkies." "In the future." he concluded, "1 believe that colour film stories will have to hi' constructed tar more in terms of the locations than has been the practice with black and white films. The story department should be sent, with the director, to the locations before the script is written. If colour can bring a greater realism, not only to the appearances, but to the fundamentals of films it will have performed a in itable service. "News before colour," says F. WATTS, Pathe Production Chief, in an interview Mr. Watts' views were crystal (dear. He had obviously thought over the subject a lot. He tells me that his company have experimented with the use of colour for newsreel work but not to any large extent. "If it is true to say that in the case of the ordinary fiction film the story is the main essential, the same is doubly true oi news. Before we could use colour throughout all our newsreels we should have to completely reorganise our system. All cameras would have to be adapted and all cameramen would have to use the same stock. I don't mean in England alone, but all our cameramen throughout the whole world. To me, colour is like the cake after the bread and butter— it is something extra — something special. And you don't want too much of it. In the average house people do not go in tor a whole variety of bright and outstanding colours. Why is it that many people have wall decorations in the form of etchings and woodcuts in plain black and white V Perhaps the answer is that they are more rest till. And the only way in which colour could become of general use in newsreel work to the exclusion of black and white depends on three things : 1. — It must be cheap. '2. — It must be efficient. 3. — ft must be quick in processing. "All of them arc important. We depend to a large extent on sunlight. At the moment, it the weather is dull. you certainly gel a more effective result in black and white than you do in colour, which needs more sunlight. Admitted, certain subjects do look more attractive in colour — the Derby, the Coronation and so forth. But supposing an important item of news turns up -am I to reject it just because the weather is too dull for my colour camera'.' That is surely a breach of faith with the public. 1 am not going to sacrifice news value just for the sake of colour. "