Technicolor

Technicolor is a series of color motion picture processes, the first version dating from 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. It was the second major color process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952. Technicolor became known and celebrated for its highly saturated color, and was initially most commonly used for filming musicals such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, costume pictures such as The Adventures of Robin Hood and The African Queen, and animated films such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Gulliver's Travels, and Fantasia. However, by 1953, Eastmancolor had surpassed Technicolor's three-strip color process in the marketplace.

History

Technicolor was founded in Boston in 1914 by Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Frost Comstock, and W. Burton Wescott. The company was an offshoot of their Kalmus, Comstock, and Wescott, which was a consulting firm that specialized in industrial research. Technicolor originally existed to study color photography, but in 1922, the company moved into the field of motion picture production.

Technicolor Process

The Technicolor process is a color motion picture process that was widely used between 1922 and 1952. The process involves a special camera that exposes three black-and-white negatives through three different color filters. The resulting negatives are then used to create dye transfer prints, which combine the three separate images into one full-color image.

Legacy

Technicolor has left a significant legacy in the film industry. The company's color processes were used in some of the most iconic films of the 20th century, and the Technicolor name has become synonymous with vibrant, saturated color in film. Today, the Technicolor brand is used by other companies for various digital video and audio technologies.

See also

• Color motion picture film
• List of early color feature films
• List of film formats