21 Facts About Technicolor

Technicolor is a series of color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades.

Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films running through a special camera started in the early 1930s and continued through to the mid-1950s when the 3-strip camera was replaced by a standard camera loaded with color negative film.

Technicolor Laboratories were still able to produce Technicolor prints by creating three black and white matrices from the Eastmancolor negative.

Term "Technicolor" has been used historically for at least five concepts:.

Technicolor itself produced the only movie made in Process 1, The Gulf Between, which had a limited tour of Eastern cities, beginning with Boston and New York on September 13,1917, primarily to interest motion picture producers and exhibitors in color.

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Technicolor had to supply new prints so the cupped ones could be shipped to their Boston laboratory for flattening, after which they could be put back into service, at least for a while.

Technicolor envisioned a full-color process as early as 1924, and was actively developing such a process by 1929.

Technicolor's advantage over most early natural-color processes was that it was a subtractive synthesis rather than an additive one: unlike the additive Kinemacolor and Chronochrome processes, Technicolor prints did not require any special projection equipment.

In 1944, Technicolor had improved the process to make up for these shortcomings and the K record was eliminated.

Live-action use of three-strip Technicolor was first seen in a musical number of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature The Cat and the Fiddle, released February 16,1934.

Pioneer Pictures, a movie company formed by Technicolor investors, produced the film usually credited as the first live-action short film shot in the three-strip process, La Cucaracha released August 31,1934.

Technicolor worked with quite a number of "associates", many of whom went uncredited, and after her retirement, these associates were transferred to the licensees, with, for example, Leonard Doss going to Fox where he performed the same function for Fox's DeLuxe Color.

Since the film speed of the stocks used was fairly slow, early Technicolor productions required a greater amount of lighting than a black-and-white production.

Technicolor introduced Monopack, a single-strip color reversal film in 1941 for use on location where the bulky three-strip camera was impractical, but the higher grain of the image made it unsuitable for studio work.

That same year, the Technicolor lab adapted its dye transfer process to derive triple matrices and imbibition prints directly from Eastmancolor negatives, as well as other stocks such as Ansco and DuPont color stocks.

In 1997, Technicolor reintroduced the dye transfer process to general film printing.

One problem that has resulted from Technicolor negatives is the rate of shrinkage from one strip to another.

Technicolor company remained a highly successful film processing firm and later became involved in video and audio duplication and digital video processes.

Technicolor, Inc acquired the film processing company CFI in 2000.

Since 2001, Technicolor has been part of the French-headquartered electronics and media conglomerate Thomson.

Visual aesthetic of dye transfer Technicolor continues to be used in Hollywood, usually in films set in the mid-20th century.