The Cine Technician (1939)

March-April, L988 1 HE C J N B-T K (' II \ I <' I A \ ins Commonsense for Colour Films. Reprinted from "The International I'hotograplu ONE of fcbe most avidlj discussed problems in the motion picture business to-daj is the future oi coloured motion pictures and their effect upon lli ■ industry. Several times within the past lew yens it has seemed that the colour was about to sweep the industry, but at no time lias it seemed mure hkeh, than at present). There are at least two reasons win this is particularly true. One is that colour photography is finally reaching a degree of perfection commensurate with commercial operations, and the second is that colour is the white hop : of the picture business in competing with and delaying the general advent of television. I Hack and white television is an actuality and ma\ seriously compete in the very near future with black and white pictures, while colour television is still not realised and will probabh require many years to perfect. Throughout all of the discussion oi i olour, an analogy between colour and sound is repeatedly drawn which is false in main of its precepts, and which can lead to mam incorrect conclusions. For example, both the trade and news-press have repeatedly carried publicity stories fostering the belief that the advent oi colour will mark the doom of many reigning favourites in much the same manner as sound pictures displaced many of the silent stars. The fallacy ol tin analogy should be al once apparent. Of course, some have said that colour is hypercritical of bad features; that shadows are accented, that make-up cannot conceal had photographic features as effectively from the colour camera as from tin old black and white film. Bleached or dyed hair, they say. cannot be photographed, etc., ad infinitum. Most oi these assertions are far-fetched and ridiculous. Whv should a colour process be tolerated which photographs kindly only blonde beauty, and will not pleasingly reproduce the brunette and titian? It is a physiological fact that the pigmentation of the auburn type differs markedly from the pigmentation of the blonde. It is just as true that the pigmentation of the evergreen forest differs -fundamentally from the pigmentation of the flowers of the Alpine meadow nestled in its shadow : yet the colour process which finally meets the industry's approval must photograph one as well as the other. Should not this same film and process reproduce the beauties oi human subjects without preference for some particular coloration; granted, of course, that seldom do we encounter in humanity that c< implete flaw lessness w hich delights us in simple)' nature. However, here again the make-up which has come so many times to our aid in black and white work again rises to the rescue in colour work, with the distinction that in the colour photography of to morrow, correction of physiogi tic delects will be even i asii r to achieve than in the older monotone picture. The analog\ between sound and colour has been like wise extended as the hasis for widespread belief that the general advent of colour into the motion picture industry will result in another major upheaval of the technical organisations of the studios similar to that of ten years ago. However, a (dose studv of the development toward commercial colour motion picture photography leads us to believe that development of colour motion pictures is proceeding along different lines and that the transition will be practically painless. The factors which contribute to this opinion are mam . In the early days of sound onh a handful of men m Hollywood had the remotest idea of the principles ol sound. Radio itself had scarcely emerged from the crystaldetector stage and men trained in the intricacies of vacuum tube technique were few indeed. Yet from this small group as a nucleus, the industry was in a few months, able to swing into practical h one hundred per cent . sound pii jiluct ion schedules. ('olour, on the other hand, is primarily photographic, and in addition to the thousands of experienced photographic black and white technicians the gradual development of colour pictures has resulted in a situation where there are dozens of capable cameramen who have had produel ion experience in colour, some on several different processes, and probabh several hundred laboratory technicians who have operated in colour laboratories and who will, therefore, more than fill the needs of the colour era. Compare that early sound situation, in which there were onh two companies with meagre equipment immediately available, with tin present colour set-up in Hollywood. Colour has been a particularly sore spot to main pro ducers because of the concomitant evils of colour experts. cameramen and directors, whose mysterious abracadabras have been an apparently unavoidable complication ol colour production, vet it is difficult to rationally see just why this should lie necessarily true. Many detractors to the contrary, top-notch cameramen and directors of blackand-white pictures to-day an' superlative artists, and probably more so than main of their contemporary colour specialists who do not understand the medium of motion pictures. Does it not seem strange that these recognised black-and-white artists apparently can think only in monotone, or is not the fact more likely that these eminenth experienced experts cam compose, light, and photograph a scene for action, set. and colour, just as efficiently as flu specialised talent'.' Finally, then, does it not devolve upon the colour laboratory to give the industrv colour photography which will reproduce upon the screen the visual effect of the original, sans all tricks, sans all special "effect" lighting? TITLE MAKERS TO THE BRITISH FILM INDUSTRY STUDIO FILM LABORATORIES LTD. 80-82, WAR DOUR ST.. LONDON W.I. GERRARD 1365-6