International projectionist (Jan-Dec 1954)

tributed information to projectionists on the handling of color film, and the subject has been covered in IP over the years in articles by Robert A. Mitchell and others. It should be remembered that good color values cannot be obtained on the screen when light is discolored or not uniform. In an arc lamp that gives no better than 60 to 80 percent sideto-center distribution, color values on the screen are damaged. Red changes to terra-cotta, blue to steel-gray, and orange to brown. It has been standard practice in the past to process Technicolor prints for projection with highintensity arcs capable of delivering ten or more foot-lamberts at the screen. Information about new-process light standards is not yet available from Technicolor, but it is reasonable to believe it will be substantially the same. If the illumination at the side of the screen falls far below the specified level, good results will not be obtained. A foot-lambert is a unit of measurement for the actual brightness of a screen surface. An interesting sidelight to consider at this point is the suggestion that lighter-density color prints be used to obtain more light for beam-splitter 3-D projection. This is a highly questionable practice because with subtractive color processes such as Technicolor and Eastman Color, the color quality is directly related to the transparency of the film in such a way that really good color is available only with prints of high density. This will be true so long as dyestuffs that change saturation and hue with varying density are used for subtractive color processes. House Lighting It is regarded as bad practice to use any but absolutely necessary colored house lighting near the screen during the showing of a color film. The removal of red or amber decorative lighting in the auditorium is suggested to the extent possible under local regulations. Color flooding of titles of Technicolor productions, either by projecting the title on a colored curtain or by using colored foot and strip light is bad practice because Technicolor titles are designed with care. Color-flooding alters the colors recorded on the film — colors which not only make the titles pleasing to see, but which harmonize the titles with the dramatic mood of the picture to follow. It is also suggested that the projection arcs be struck two minutes before the changeover so that the discoloration produced by a cold carbon trim is avoided, and the arc be allowed to reach normal burning temperature before the changeover is made. Focus should be checked at the beginning of each reel. Although it is only now coming to dominate American film production, color on the screen is, of course, far from new. The first color movie that could be run on a standard 35-mm motion picture projector without any changes or attachments was also the first Technicolor picture, "The Gulf Between," produced in 1917. Even this color system had been preceded as far back as 1909 by color systems such as the British Kinemacolor. Color Before 7 970 It may interest projectionists to know that Nick Tronolone, mentioned earlier in this article, was connected with the American affiliate of Kinemacolor and projected the first Kinemacolor showing in the United States before 1910, sweating over a handcranked projector that had to run at 32 frames per second — double the "silent" speed — to make the process work. Kinemacolor used a red-and-green color wheel mounted on the projector and synchronized with the projector movement so that alternating filmframes, which carried red and green color values in black-and-white, would be in front of the proper section of the wheel. The red and green combined on the screen to give an effect of full color. Mr. Tronolone, who is celebrating his 50th year in motion pictures during 1954, has worked in all technical phases of the business, projection and photography as well as laboratory processing. Technicolor Processes Dr. Herbert T. Kalmus, inventor of Technicolor, soon abandoned his first process, which made use of successive red and green tinted frames, when he decided that it was too crude. After the first World War he began to experiment with a subtractive color method which is the forerunner of the modern Technicolor process. Two important developments came at this point. First, a split-beam camera was developed which recorded red and green color values on two separate strips of film. Then a subtractive rather than an additive color process was used by Dr. Kalmus in preparing the prints. A picture in natural color was produced on the print as well as the screen. In the previous additive process, then outmoded, white for instance, was produced on the screen by a rapid succession of colors. Curiously, in the color television of 1954 white is produced by a mixture of complementary colors. In the subtractive process, white is white on the finished print. This was a real landmark, not only because it improved the quality of the color, but also because the subtractive process permitted much more light to reach the screen. In the additive process, such as the first Technicolor, alternate frames were tinted, or dyed, all over their entire area with the appropriate color — red or green. But in the doubleprint subtractive process developed by Technicolor about 1920, the black and silver were bleached out chemically from the two-color separation prints which were then toned to the desired color with the white areas of each print remaining free from color. Two-Color System Used in a picture called "Toll of the Sea," made in 1921, the above process differed from modern Technicolor in two important respects. It was a twocolor rather than a three-color system. And, although it was a substractive system, the red and green color values were each carried on a separate film, both cemented together for projection. These double prints often buckled badly during projection. It was "imbibition" printing (imbibition is a formidable-looking word that merely means drinking in or imbibing) , developed for motion picture film the next year, that really opened the way for modern Technicolor. Instead of being toned or tinted for projection, the two color prints were converted into "wash-off relief" matrices. These relief matrices, on which the raised gelatine image could be felt with the fingernail if it were run across the matrix film, were hardened and used in the imbibition printing process which is really not photographic at all but which resembles a lithographic printing process. The matrix bearing the red image, for instance, received or "imbibed" crimson dye from rollers with only the raised gelatine image (Continued on page 31) INTERNATIONAL PROJECTIONIST • JANUARY 1954