Movie Makers (Jun-Dec 1928)

only colors which are permitted to be projected are those which, on the screen, blend into the corresponding original colors of the scene photographed. The pattern of these rays from all the cylindrical lenses on each frame projects a picture on the screen, with each ray contributing its speck of light to the color or blend of colors at one point. "The film itself is not colored. The colors of the subject are reproduced merely by the transparency of the film, or by black metallic silver deposited in various degrees of opacity, so as to permit light to shine through one of the three areas of the filter as directed by the tiny film lenses. "Owing to the absorption of the light by the color filter used in projection, it is necessary to be content with a small picture on the screen, and for this reason we must use small screens so that the illumination can be sufficient. "This process, which was an interesting development of the known principles of color photography, was invented in France and covered by patents in the United States as well as in many foreign countries, but the technical difficulties in its realization are very great, and it did not attain any commercial success. "Now the Kodak Company has been experimenting on color photography for 25 years. It has studied process after process, and has expended enormous sums of money in the hope that it might find a process which would meet its requirements and enable the amateur photographer to make colored photographs. When this French process was brought to its notice it was thought to offer possibilities of success, and it was somewhat akin in its requirements to the methods used for the DR. C. E. K. MEES Head of the Research Department of the Eastman Kodak Co., which Perfected the New Color Process. process of amateur cinematography which the company had already developed with such great success. We, therefore, purchased rights in the process and proceeded to develop it experimentally. This development was directed towards the perfecting of the process for use with amateur 16 mm. film. It involved a great deal of study. It was necessary to standardize the methods of making the lenses on the film, to design and make a suitable emulsion strongly sensitive to green and red light and yet have sufficiently fine grain to enable the minute structure of the separate color elements to be resolved, and, especially, to work out suitable methods by which the film could be developed and reversed while retaining the rendering of color. "All this work has been accomplished and, today, history repeats itself. "Forty years ago, in 1888, we announced still pictures in black and white for the amateur. The whole story of the system was told in the one line, 'You press the button; we do the rest.' "Now all that the amateur needs to do to obtain motion pictures in color is to load his Cine-Kodak with Kodacolor film instead of with the usual film and then slip the Kodacolor Filter attachment into place. He then proceeds to take pictures just as he would with the regular film. It's all as simple as that. 'You press the lever; we do the rest.' It is to view the results of that accomplishment that you have been asked to come here today and have so graciously assented." (Continued on page 614) PART OF THE FIRST KODACOLOR AUDIENCE Among the Distinguished Guests at the Kodacolor Demonstration Were, Left to Right, Adolph S Ochs publisher of the New York Times, General John J. Pershing, George Eastman and Sir James Irvine, Vicechancellor of St. Andrews University, Scotland. 572