| |
 |
Colour was first used in the cinema in 1905 by Georges Meliès, who hand- coloured some of his illusionist trick effects, covering some ten thousand frames in each film. A lot of the silent movies immersed whole lengths of film into dye, so that the gelatine emulsion could be tinted giving a coloured background, blue for night-time and pink for love scenes. At first only short bursts of colour were used for special sequences.
|
By 1923, the Technicolor process was invented by Herbert Kalmus. Two negatives were used, one for red, orange and yellow, and the other for green, blue and purple. However, it wasn't until 1935 that colour entered films generally. The great Russian film maker, Sergei Eisenstein used colour in long single sequences reverting where appropriate to black and white. He also wrote a book about film in which he had a monumental section on colour describing psychological colour symbolism that is still valid today. Some contemporary film makers such as Zefferelli are specially interesting for their use of colour concepts. In one of George Kukor's films, the designer and colour consultant, George Hoyningien-Huene, uses drab browns to represent the powerlessness of a character in trying to escape her nymphomania. One of the most colourful influences on film today has been the advent of the Japanese film, in which film-makers have shown innate mastery of psychological colour symbolism. |
DP
Bibliography
ANON. (1964) Colour in the cinema. Sunday Times May 10th.
KLEIN, A.B. (1936) Colour Cinematography. (For the second edition, 1950, the author changed his name to Cornwell-Clyne, A. for political reasons)
RICHIE, D. (1973) Japanese Cinema. Film Style and National Character. London: Secker and Warburg.
|
Copyright © 2005 Micro Academy.
|
|
|
