Home Movies (1944)

HOME MOVIES Published in Hollywood FEBRUARY 1944 W. HEN a feverishly awaited reel of color film arrives from the processing plant, and is hastily projected on the living room screen, the resulting reaction is not always one of unadulterated pleasure and satisfaction. In the early days of Kodachrome, the mere fact that the picture was in colors — any sort of colors — was enough to thrill us. Now, with the novelty gone, we look at our color shots more critically. We notice that the reproduction is not always faithful in color to the original. In assembling a reel, we notice color changes in passing from one shot to another. Some scenes are only fair, perhaps a few are downright bad. And being only human, many of us blame the film, or the process, and console ourselves with the thought that when it is further perfected, such failures will be unknown. But will they? Are we always justified in blaming the film or the manufacturer? Sometimes, yes — but very often we should seek the cause in our own method of working. Few photographic operations are fool-proof; nearly all demand some degree of skill and care to achieve consistent results, and in color this is especially true. So let us see what causes bad color reproduction, and what we can do to keep our own work reasonable free from it. In the sequence of elements leading to a color picture on our screen the principal elements are: The Object, the Light which falls on it, the Lens, the Film, the Projector Light, the Projector Lens, and the Projection Screen. All of these influence color reproduction, and all of them must be taken into account. The Object: The object may be of a color which it is impossible to reproduce in three-color photography. Remember that this process is based on the theory that all colors may be produced by a suitable mixture of three primaries. This would be true if the theoretically ideal primary colors existed in the form of dyes or pigments — but such colors do not exist (although the yellow is a very close approximation) and there is seri 59 • Color film cannot handle as long a scale of tones as panchromatic film. For best color results, therefore, it is desirable that the brightest portion of a scene be, no more than ten times as bright as the most dimly lit area. CAUSES OF POOR COLOR REPR0Dl)CTI0I A Color Expert Tells Why Some Filmers Get Better Kodachrome Shots Than Others ous ground to doubt that they ever will exist. All the available magentas are poor in blue; the cyans are fair in regard to blue and poor in respect to green. An artist, in painting, must use a minimum of five colors to get realistic color: yellow, two reds (one yellowish and the other bluish), and two blues (one greenish and one purplish). However, practical reasons limit our film to three colors, and no device of science will make those r~ three yield any more hues than an artist could produce by mixing the three in various proportions. This being the case, we must realize that while we • An exposure meter, intelligently used, is an important factor in obtaining the accurate exposures that render Kodachrome shots in truest colors. M can reproduce excellent reds and yellows, we must expect some deterioration of greens, blues, violets, purples and magentas. This is not to say that we cannot produce very beautiful pictures within those limitations — but we should not film the Painted Desert, a Butterfly's wing, a flower garden or a rain• Continued on Page 76