Monday, April 27, 2015

Danielle Rennalls: Extra Credit - Technicolor Exhibit

Attending the “In Glorious Technicolor” exhibit at the George Eastman house was a very fulfilling and rewarding experience. Entering the exhibit with not even the slightest idea of what to expect, I was completely blown away by all the artifacts, information and images that represented the introductory of Technicolor and color cinema.
“The Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation began in Boston in 1915 and rapidly grew into an essential part of the American film industry, fundamentally shaping the aesthetic, cultural and industrial nature of cinema.” The introduction of Technicolor transformed cinema from black and white and gave it a whole new colorful meaning. Still in operation today, “…Technicolor created the only commercially viable color process for motion pictures” and today still “provides high-quality digital services to the motion picture industry, from digital intermediate and restoration to international distribution.”
This particular exhibit at the George Eastman house “celebrates Technicolor’s vivid history…[and is] comprise[d] of previously unavailable documentation, posters, behind-the-scenes photographs, cameras and other original artifacts…” The exhibition also celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation as well as its great achievements. The exhibit highlights early Technicolor films such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, the initial two color process which consisted of green and red color separation and early filming equipment weighing two hundred pounds.
My favorite section of this exhibit that caught my attention for a lengthy period was the wall lined with dyes used throughout Technicolor’s film coloring existence. These dyes were used in a “sophisticated dye-transfer process” which ultimately aided Technicolor to be the best in the industry. This particular section of the exhibit was very interesting to look at, as it reveled how little I knew about the process of creating colored moving images. Furthermore, it demonstrated that often times consumers like myself take the film making process for granted as we become ignorant living in a world so advanced that we fail to realize that this wasn’t always the case.
Another section of the exhibit that I found rather interesting was the section in which the process of generating color schemes was described. Initially, Technicolor believed that there were only two primary colors (red and green) and so they created a process that utilized and separated these colors in order to produce a color palette for their films. However this color palette proved to be very limiting as they were unable to achieve colors that consisted of purple, yellow or blue. Therefore Technicolor went on a hunt to discover the missing element and after realizing that this key element was blue, Technicolor transformed the cinema as “[it] could finally reproduce the world in all its natural color.” 
However, the equipment and the process developed to capture the world in its natural color was in itself another hassle. The cameras were so delicate and heavy that it required trained technicians to operate and several persons to move them around. “Unlike with black and white films, the Technicolor process was so complicated that the company mandated that studios purchase a full package, hiring the camera and camera crew from Technicolor, which previously was not the case with black and white cinema, as studios had the ability to use their own cameras and cameramen.” Moreover, the company also supplied a color consultant to advise on appropriate colors for makeup, costumes and set design in order to ensure that colors used during filming would represent their appropriate meanings.
Nevertheless, after twenty years of dominating the color industry, Technicolor came to its decline. With the film industry changing so rapidly in the 1950s Technicolor was now faced with strong competitors such Eastmancolor and many others who were making a similar color process but was significantly cheaper. “Within three years of the film industry switching to Eastmancolor, Technicolor retired the last of its three-color cameras” as Eastmancolor was much more appealing and moreover “Technicolor could not handle the introduction of the wide screen.” Therefore, Technicolor stepped down and offered its services to the public in another way by “offering its superior dye transfer printing for films photographed with color processes.”
            Getting the chance to see a small synopsis of the process by which color cinema was developed was very gratifying. Though in this day in age the digital era has taken over, it was nice to take a step back and appreciate all the hard work, time and dedication that went into the process so that a digital age can even exist today. Technicolor was truly a company that was ahead of its time and was able to impact the film industry in more ways than one.

Citation

“In Glorious Technicolor” Exhibit, George Eastman House, January 24 2015 through April 26, 2015 in Special Exhibition Galleries.

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