Re: Two-Color Kodachrome
Richard Knoppow (dickburk@ix.netcom.com)
Tue, 19 May 1998 00:58:00 -0700
At 09:38 PM 5/18/98 -0400, Jadlupp wrote:
>I remember seeing many 2-color Kodachrome movies in theaters when I was
young.
>The contrast with Technicolor when it came on the scene was a real eye opener
>as to how good color could be, albeit oversaturated compared to natural
color.
>
>I wondered, in fact, when Television came out if they would use a two-color
>palet in order to simplify things, but the state of the art moved faster than
>I expected.
>
>I am not old enough to have seen the 1916 movies, only the ones still
released
>in the late 40's.
>
>Don
>
What you were seeing was three color Technicolor. The three color
process was introduced in 1935 with the release of "La Cucaracha", a short
produced by Technicolor to demon strate its capabilities. The first
feature was "Becky Sharp". Three color Technicolor is a dye transfer
process. For the first few years it incluede a gray key in addition to the
three colors.
The gaudy colors were what the producers of the time wanted. The process
is capable of very subtle color and a very great degree of control.
The earlier two-color version of Technicolor was only marginally
successful. it had pleasantly muted color but full contrast. The color
gamut was limited, as is always the case with two color processes, and care
had to be used in choosing what to photograph. Blues were reproduced as
cyan and reds as orange or brown. The two primaries were chosen to
reproduce caucasion skin well.
There have been few if any attempts at two-color television. Experiments
in color TV date back to the 1920's if not before. The competing systems
brought before the FCC in the 1950's were both three color. One was an
all-electronic system (RCA) and the other a sequential system using a color
wheel (CBS). The FCC approved the CBS system at first and then, under
industry pressure, reconsidered and approved the RCA/Hazentine labs system,
which is what we have today.
As far as I can find out the original Kodachrome process was related to
the Pinachrome process, a type of dichromated gelatin process. The
original Kodacolor was an additive lenticular process based on the
Keller-Dorian process.
This is all very off subject but I make my living at it (TV) so can't
resist.:-)
----
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles,Ca.
dickburk@ix.netcom.com