ABSTRACT

This chapter considers two distinctive elements within colour film history: the additive colour system known as Kinemacolor, and the development of subtractive colour film processes by Kodak. By understanding these two film enterprises in terms of their shared vision – to bring colour to the motion picture screen – and their very different approaches to the technical solution and its business development, it establishes the nature of these respective histories and their interrelationship. Kinemacolor, with its concentration on the optical and the mechanical, relied on George Albert Smith's ingenuity as a lay scientist working with mechanical engineers. Dr. Kenneth Mees of Eastman Kodak was the polar opposite, as his colour work represented the professional, scientific approach funded and supported by a global corporation.

KEYWORDS

Kinemacolor, Kodachrome, Eastman Kodak, additive colour, substractive colour, George Albert Smith, Kenneth Mees, Charles Urban, George Eastman

Colour film has a long and complex history. Barbara Flueckiger's excellent database, Timeline of Historical Film Colors, provides an authoritative overview of the many applied, additive, and subtractive colour-film systems that emerged in the 1890s and evolved throughout the first half of the twentieth century. This chapter considers two distinctive examples of this colour family tree: the additive colour system known as Kinemacolor and the the development of subtractive colour-film processes by Kodak. By understanding these two film enterprises, in terms of their shared vision, to bring colour to the motion-picture screen, and their very different approaches to the technical solution and its business development, establishes the nature of these respective histories and their interrelationship. It also works to highlight the very convoluted nature of the history of colour film.

In 1902, Lord Kelvin, the eminent mathematician, physicist, and member of the Board of Kodak, made a confident prediction for the new century: ‘Photography in natural colours will soon be an established fact, although it will necessitate a lot of study to get it perfected’. But how would this ambition be realized? For the young film industry, given the prominent role models provided by Thomas Edison and George Eastman and their cinematographic enterprises, this desire could not be satisfied just through invention alone.