The history of motion pictures dates back to the late 19th century, when the first black-and-white silent films were produced. However, it took several decades before color film became widely adopted by the movie industry. The earliest color films were made by manually hand-painting individual frames of black-and-white film, but this process was incredibly tedious and time-consuming. In the 1930s, Technicolor developed a new process for shooting movies in color using a special camera and Technicolor film stock. While the Technicolor process produced vibrant, saturated colors, it was expensive and required special equipment. It wasn’t until the 1950s that more convenient and affordable color film stocks became available from Eastman Kodak and others, allowing color to truly take hold as the new norm for commercial filmmaking.
The Beginnings of Color Film
The earliest color motion picture processes date back to the 1910s and were based on stenciling, tinting, toning, or hand-painting frames of black-and-white film stock. However, these early color techniques were very limited in the range of hues they could produce.
In 1916, Technicolor developed a new “two-color” process which involved using a prism beam-splitter camera to photograph two frames of black-and-white film simultaneously, one behind a green filter and one behind a red filter. The two frames were then cemented together and projected through the same color filters. This allowed a limited range of reds, greens, and browns to be reproduced.
The first feature film to use the two-color Technicolor process was The Gulf Between, released in 1917. However, because of the restrictions and challenges involved, only a few color films were made over the next decade using this technique.
The Rise of Three-Strip Technicolor
In the early 1930s, Technicolor introduced an improved process known as “three-strip” Technicolor. This used a special beam-splitter camera that allowed three strips of black-and-white film to be exposed simultaneously through red, green, and blue filters. The three films were developed and printed onto glass plates, dyed, and then transferred back onto a single strip of film.
| Year | Notable Color Films |
|---|---|
| 1932 | Flowers and Trees (first animated short in three-strip Technicolor) |
| 1935 | Becky Sharp (first live-action feature film in three-strip Technicolor) |
| 1936 | The Garden of Allah |
| 1937 | A Star Is Born, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs |
| 1938 | The Adventures of Robin Hood |
| 1939 | Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz |
The three-strip process allowed the full spectrum of color to be reproduced and produced rich, saturated colors unlike earlier color techniques. However, the cameras and special film were bulky and expensive. As a result, use of Technicolor grew slowly during the 1930s, primarily in short subjects and lavish live-action films. By the late 1930s, it was used for 40 to 50 films per year, roughly 10% of Hollywood releases. The most iconic films of the era, including The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, cemented three-strip Technicolor as the pinnacle of cinematic technology.
The Arrival of Cheaper Color Film
In the early 1950s, Eastman Kodak introduced a new multi-layer color negative film stock that could be used with conventional cameras and equipment. Films shot on this stock could be printed through the standard black-and-white film processing, unlike the complex Technicolor method. Kodak’s Eastmancolor film was much more affordable and accessible for movie studios.
At the same time, Technicolor began to offer its proprietary dye-transfer printing process as a film processing service for films shot on Eastmancolor stock. This allowed studios to achieve the saturated Technicolor look while shooting on the simpler film stock.
As a result, by 1952, almost every major Hollywood studio film was being released in color. Whereas only 12 Hollywood films were released in color in 1947, over 130 color films were released just five years later in 1952. Over 80% of Hollywood films released in 1953 were in color.
| Year | # Hollywood Films Released in Color | % Films in Color |
|---|---|---|
| 1947 | 12 | 3% |
| 1952 | 136 | 82% |
| 1953 | 140 | 85% |
This rapid shift was revolutionary for the film industry and audiences alike. As director Cecil B. DeMille proclaimed in 1952, “Color is one of the motion picture’s greatest contributions to the peoples of the world. It has given audiences new meaning to beauty, drama and emotion. It has added immeasurably to the power of the motion picture medium to enlighten, inform and entertain.”
Conclusion
While color films debuted as early as the 1910s, the mainstream adoption of color was gradual over several decades. The three-strip Technicolor process of the 1930s demonstrated the possibilities of rich, vibrant color but was too cumbersome and expensive for broad use. It wasn’t until the introduction of affordable and practical color film stocks from Eastman Kodak in the early 1950s that color truly became the norm. Within just a few years, the vast majority of commercial films were being shot and released in color, completely changing the look and feel of cinema. The transition was revolutionary, giving rise to a new era of vibrant and emotive color films.
