Before the 1950s, film wasn't always black and white. The early Thomas Edison shorts of the late 1890s were occasionally in color, produced by having artists hand-paint individual film frames (and you thought your job was dull). In the early teens, monochromatic film tinting became used to differentiate day scenes from night (often tinted blue). The problem that early filmmakers had with color film was the technology; color film had to be produced bypassing multiple, color filtered, negatives through a camera and then compositing them. It was an expensive process, driving shooting costs up nearly three times of black and white photography. With the exception of a handful of films throughout the 1930s-1940s (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Becky Sharp, some Walt Disney shorts), actual color film was a rare treat for filmgoers.
This began to change in the 1950s when television, film's adversary for the domination of the...
This began to change in the 1950s when television, film's adversary for the domination of the...
- 3/31/2011
- by Drew Morton
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