BBC reports discovery of first colour film

[kndy]

The world's first colour moving pictures dating from 1902 have been found by the National Media Museum in Bradford after lying forgotten in an old tin for 110 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19423951" target="_blank

[s.w.a.c.]

From 1902!

I'm guessing the original would have had to play back through colour filters, kind of like that Gaumont Chronochrome colour system, but the clip above has the electronically processed version.

I'm guessing that parrot has since rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

[s.w.a.c.]

Oops, I just posted this in Silent News, since it's, well, news. I'm sure one of our distinguished moderators can figure out which page suits it best.

[fwtep]

No, you stunned him just as he was waking up!

[Frederica]

No, you stunned him just as he was waking up!

Beautiful plumage.

[Monsieur X]

Looks like he's pining for the fjords.

[Brooksie]

I'm guessing that parrot has since rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Well, on the other hand, a local museum where I grew up had the taxidermied remains of a local parrot that supposedly lived to 120 years old. He was not exactly handsome (picture at http://www.smh.com.au/environment/anima ... 1jkz2.html).

What this has to do with early colour film, I couldn't tell you.

[ILoveMary68]

I'm guessing that parrot has since rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Well, on the other hand, a local museum where I grew up had the taxidermied remains of a local parrot that supposedly lived to 120 years old. He was not exactly handsome (picture at http://www.smh.com.au/environment/anima ... 1jkz2.html).

What this has to do with early colour film, I couldn't tell you.

Wow, that bird has seen better days.

[Kelly]

Yeah I read on Thursday edition of UK Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... eiled.html" target="_blank

[Gagman 66]

While this is good news in historic context, personally I would have been more excited if they had found FLAMING YOUTH, PRODIGAL DAUGHTERS, or TIN GODS. But then we probably wouldn't have been reading about the discovery either. Maybe if they keep digging they will turn up Lubitsch's KISS ME AGAIN?

[CoffeeDan]

While this is good news in historic context, personally I would have been more excited if they had found FLAMING YOUTH, PRODIGAL DAUGHTERS, or TIN GODS. But then we probably wouldn't have been reading about the discovery either. Maybe if they keep digging they will turn up Lubitsch's KISS ME AGAIN?

WE KNOW! WE KNOW!!

[Big Silent Fan]

The world's first colour moving pictures dating from 1902 have been found by the National Media Museum in Bradford after lying forgotten in an old tin for 110 years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-19423951" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

From what I gathered from the story, the experiment wasn't a big success originally because of the difficulity projecting the three seperate films into one image on a screen.

The same concept was done long ago in Russia to produce stunning Colour images using three slide projectors with color filters, but it would likely be impossible to repeat the process with moving pictures.

It's only because it could be digitized today that we're able to see this stunning clip, hidden for a century without any way of seening it before.

[Andi K]

Very interesting! Seems to be a similiar technique like this russian guy used to make colour photographs of the pre-revolutionary Russia, which were just recently possible to develope: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Prokudin-Gorsky" target="_blank

[urbanora]

From what I gathered from the story, the experiment wasn't a big success originally because of the difficulity projecting the three seperate films into one image on a screen.

It's only because it could be digitized today that we're able to see this stunning clip, hidden for a century without any way of seening it before.

The three-colour films made by Edward Turner were certainly not a success - he never managed to work out how to bring the three sequential images he took, one for each colour (red-green-blue) and project the results as a composite colour image. The considerable complexity of the projection apparatus, together with a required speed of 48 frames per second meant that the results were unwatchable, and the films were shown to an audence. This account from an unpublished piece of writing of mine explains how the projector was meant to work:

British Patent (B.P.) no. 6,202 (1899), was issued on 22 March 1899, ‘Means for taking and exhibiting cinematographic pictures’. The patent describes a conventional cine camera with its shutter replaced by a rotating wheel with red, green and blue filters, interspersed with opaque sections, which could be attached in front of or behind the lens, in synchronisation with the movement of the film through the camera. The film passing through the camera would therefore record in succession a red, green and blue record, though the patent gives no indication of the speed (in frames per second) that would be required. The film was to be shown through a three-lens projector of some complexity. It was to have three lenses arranged close together vertically, with a triple gate that allowed the three successive images to be projected together and superimposed. To move three inches of film intermittently would put far too great a strain on the film, hence there was the need for three lenses, with each frame projected through each lens in turn. A synchronised shutter to provide the colour was attached, with three opaque sections alternating with three filter sections bearing concentric bands in the primary colours. The pattern of these concentric bands altered, and hence the light illuminating each red, green and blue record passed through the appropriate colour filter at the upper, middle and lower lens.

Colour experimenter and film processor G.A. Smith wrote about witnessing the results:

It was when we came to superimpose the pictures on the sheet through three-coloured glasses that we found the process unworkable. As soon as the handle of the projecting machine was worked the three pictures refused to remain in register, and no knowledge that any of us could bring to bear upon the matter could even begin to cure the trouble. The difficulty is mainly due to the fact that cinematograph pictures are small to begin with, and they have to be enormously magnified in exhibiting, as you all know. The slightest defect in registration it pitilessly magnified, and when the minute defects of registration in the first three pictures are followed by minute defects of another sort in the next three, and by yet another sort in the succeeding three, and so on throughout the length of a film, the effect on the observer is almost unbearable.

The National Media Museum's digital restorations therefore show what could not be achieved in 1902, though they do prove that Turner's system was capable of capturing a reasonably faithful natural colour motion picture. Despite what some news reports say, the films are not a recent discovery - they have been stored for decades. Turner died in 1903, and the producr Charles Urban (who had been funding him) handed over the project to G.A. Smith, who took away the blue filter, and came up (in 1906) with Kinemacolor, which was successfully commercialised. For the Turner colour story, see http://thebioscope.net/2008/01/27/colou ... le-effect/" target="_blank" target="_blank.

A successful three-colour additive system was eventually developed by Gaumont at Chronochrome - see http://thebioscope.net/2008/09/14/colou ... onochrome/" target="_blank" target="_blank.

The same concept was done long ago in Russia to produce stunning Colour images using three slide projectors with color filters, but it would likely be impossible to repeat the process with moving pictures.

Prokudin-Gorski did experiment with three-colour cinematography in the early 1920s, but I don't know of the details.

Luke

[Paul Penna]

Well, the biggest limitation is inherent in this and all the other systems using sequential rather than simultaneous exposure of the individual color records. Any subject motion faster than a snail's pace is going to result in trailing primary-color ghost images. You see this in the Prokudin-Gorsky still images as well, such as when wind is moving tree branches, also in clouds and flowing rivers.

[Andi K]

Prokudin-Gorski did experiment with three-colour cinematography in the early 1920s, but I don't know of the details.

To be more precise, Prokudin-Gorskij did experiment with three colour photography in the early 1910s. Some nice examples can be seen here: link

Although the more successful autochrome technique was already developed in 1903 by the Lumiere bros: link

[urbanora]

Prokudin-Gorski did experiment with three-colour cinematography in the early 1920s, but I don't know of the details.

To be more precise, Prokudin-Gorskij did experiment with three colour photography in the early 1910s. Some nice examples can be seen here: link

with three-colour photography yes - but his experiments with three-colour cinematography, which are scarcely written about, were in the early 1920s, as said.

[Andi K]

@urbanora: oh, yes of course, you are right! I seem to have overseen this little difference!

[All Darc]

It's a b&W nitrate reel, one frame registered by a orange filter and other frame in blue-green.

That's why thed did not noticed it was a color film (color system)) until use computer to recreate the projector effect of use filters to recombine the colors.

The 0:28 time code ... funny, I could say I saw that same scene before in a old documentary about the Lumiere brothers.

[Paul Penna]

It's a b&W nitrate reel, one frame registered by a orange filter and other frame in blue-green.

It's a three-color system, not two.

[urbanora]

That's why thed did not noticed it was a color film (color system)) until use computer to recreate the projector effect of use filters to recombine the colors.

The Museum has known about this film for many years (see The Science Museum booklet The First Colour Motion Pictures, by D.B. Thomas, written in 1969, which reproduces frame stills from the films). It was just presented as an a amazing discovery because the media like discovery stories. It's been announced now because it's the 110th anniversary and because a digital film fund was available that enabled them to undertake the digital restoration.

[Christopher Jacobs]

That's why thed did not noticed it was a color film (color system)) until use computer to recreate the projector effect of use filters to recombine the colors.

The Museum has known about this film for many years (see The Science Museum booklet The First Colour Motion Pictures, by D.B. Thomas, written in 1969, which reproduces frame stills from the films). It was just presented as an a amazing discovery because the media like discovery stories. It's been announced now because it's the 110th anniversary and because a digital film fund was available that enabled them to undertake the digital restoration.

It's probably like the fact that everyone in the media *knows* that in 1927 THE JAZZ SINGER became the first "talking picture," while we all know that it's really a silent feature with some songs and brief talking sequences, and moreover that Thomas Edison's studio was making Kinetophone talkies back in 1913 and had experimental synchronized sound films in 1894. Another five years and somebody will "rediscover" those early color films yet again for their 125th anniversary, as there are still people convinced that the first color films were THE WIZARD OF OZ and GONE WITH THE WIND, and still others who are positive that both of those films were originally made in black and white and then colorized back in the 1980s!

Still, it's great to get some public exposure about these early efforts to record color in motion. I was aware of the 1912 Gaumont color films, but cannot recall having heard of these experiments from a decade earlier. Early color photography is always fascinating, and early sound and early widescreen movie processes are just as fascinating (and easy to google if anyone is so inclined).

[All Darc]

"THE WIZARD OF OZ and GONE WITH THE WIND, and still others who are positive that both of those films were originally made in black and white and then colorized back in the 1980s!"

Not even today colorization technology have powerfull to add such color details to make a colorized film look like a natural technicolor.

[urbanora]

For those in the UK only (sorry) the programme The Race for Colour is available this week on iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01mw0cl/