Cinecolor

Cinecolor is an early subtractive color-model two color film process, based upon the Multicolor system of the 1920s. It was developed by the Cinecolor Corporation, and was in use from 1932 to 1948 as a competitor to Technicolor.

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Like early Technicolor processes, Cinecolor uses two strips of film: a vermillion (red-orange) strip and a teal (blue-green) strip to produce color tones. While Cinecolor could produce vibrant oranges, blues, and flesh tones, it was notorious for not being able to properly replicate bright greens (rendered grey) and purples (rendered black). Nevertheless, Cinecolor was used extensively by the film industry, particularly in animation, where Walt Disney held an exclusive contract to use three-strip Technicolor from 1932 until the end of 1935.

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Before 1945, Cinecolor was used almost exclusively for short films. Among the notable animated short subjects series made in Cinecolor were Ub Iwerks' Comicolor cartoons, the Fleischer Studio's early Color Classics, a number of late-1940s Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and many of Famous Studios' late-1940s Popeye the Sailor cartoons.

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Cinecolor was also prominently employed in Paramount's educational Popular Science shorts. Hal Roach began making all of his product in Cinecolor in 1947, becoming the first Hollywood producer to make all of his output in color. Most features made in Cinecolor were low-budget westerns.

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In 1948, Cinecolor developed a three-color process called Super Cinecolor, which was first used in short subjects and non-theatrical films, and then in 1951-1953 for features such as The Sword of Monte Cristo, Abbott & Costello Meet Captain Kidd, and Jack and the Beanstalk. Super Cinecolor utilized black and white negatives made by a three-strip Technicolor camera, or color negatives made with Ansco/Agfa, Kodachrome, or Eastmancolor films, for principal photography. After the negative was edited, it was copied through color filters into three black and white negatives, one for each of the three primary colors. These separations were used to make the three-color prints in a complex process that added two colors on one side of the print and the third color on the opposite side. The dual emulsion prints had vivid dyes that did not fade, but were grainier than Technicolor prints due to the generation loss when making the pre-print separations, and softer in focus because the image existed on two planes.

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Cinecolor and Super Cinecolor were both available to producers until the Cinecolor Corporation went out of business in 1954, and its assets were purchased by competitor Technicolor Corporation.

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Subtractive color: Subtractive color explains the theory of mixing paints, dyes, inks, and natural colorants to create colors which absorb some wavelengths of light and reflect others. The color that an object appears to have is based on what parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are reflected by it, or conversely by ...

Film: :This article is about motion pictures. For other uses of "film", see photographic film or film (disambiguation)...

1920s: Sometimes referred to as the "Jazz Age" or primarily in North America as the "Roaring Twenties"....