What was the first color film?

Color is such an important aspect of modern filmmaking. From the sunny pastels of the year Jacques Demy's playful romances and unconventional musicals to the dreary monochrome Tim Burton's gothic tales, such as his masterpiece Edward Scissorhands, color is crucial in setting the mood and tone of a film. We know that movies were not always in color because this technology was developed later. But when exactly? It's hard to pin down, as there are many different definitions of the first color film depending on how you look at it, from short films to documentaries to animated films.

Until the advent of color methods, cameras could only produce black and white images. While filmmakers could play with shadows in visually exciting ways — like the ghostly presence of Count Orlok in “Nosferatu” or the powerful futuristic society in “Metropolis,” visual storytelling with colorful filmmakers could finally be told in completely different forms. for creative expression.

Many moviegoers mistakenly believe that early live-action Technicolor films, such as The Wizard of Oz from 1939, are the first color films, but the use of color in film has a longer and more complicated history. “The Wizard of Oz” is considered a movie classic today was one of the first films to be shot in Technicolor, specifically. To make one full-color film strip, Technicolor requires a special camera that separates three black-and-white negatives for each primary color. The filmmaking technique has vibrant and detailed colors that make everything really pop off the screen.

“The Wizard of Oz” revolves around the power and beauty of this powerful color. When Dorothy opens the door of her hurricane-ravaged home, leaving the drab, sepia-toned world behind, we are struck by the bright, rainbow-hued Land of Oz, with its bright yellow brick road and glittering Emerald City. Although the use of this new technique was stunning and would take over Hollywood for decades to come, animation had been using Technicolor and even other types of color for some time.

Walt Disney Studios revolutionized the use of Technicolor in its animated films, beginning with its short “Flowers and Trees” about backwoods romance and rivalry, followed by the full-length “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was Disney's biggest box office gamble because studio executives were skeptical of all the elements that would eventually make it so revolutionary. In the documentary “The One That Started It All” from the Diamond Blu-ray and DVD release, animator Ward Kimball shares what had the Hollywood bigwigs so worried:

“It was fine, six or seven minutes, like shorts, but an hour and a half, no way! The big reason was that you ran out of funny things to do, you had to laugh in a minute. And the bright colors would hurt your eyes; everyone would get up and leave out.

Not only was the story completely engrossing, taking us from the horrors of the haunted forest to the cute, lovable dwarves hooking up with the princess, but the colors were eye-catching and gorgeous. We all remember the shot of a bright red apple dripping with green poison in the shape of a gruesome skull. The rich colors were perfect for the main character, whose beauty with porcelain skin, ruby ​​red lips and black hair made her the most beautiful of them all.

Disney would go on to use Technicolor for other animated classics such as Pinocchio and Cinderella. Oversaturated palettes became the standard for feature films by the mid-1950s, both live-action and animated. But before Technicolor there were other color processes that allowed color to appear in films as early as the beginning of the 20th century.

Many early shorts were originally shot in black and white but converted to color by manipulating the film stock, either by hand-painting each frame or using tints. Early color version Georges Méliès' 1902 short A Trip to the Moon, one of the greatest space films of all time. uses color to make the space adventure feel even more fantastical, bathing interstellar goddesses in bright pinks and turquoises. Similarly, “La Vie et la Passion de Jésus Christ” of 1903 uses the same hand-painted technique, where only certain elements are colored to emphasize their importance in the biblical story, such as the bright yellow star above the manger of Jesus Christ.

Technically, 1908's “A Visit to the Seaside” was the first color film, but it's only an eight-minute short. The collage of young ladies frolicking in bathing suits or stately couples strolling along the boardwalk was filmed in a new process called Kinemacolor. Kinemacolor was a special camera tool used to apply red and green filters to black and white film. The striking colors allowed the scenes to stand out and resemble real life as much as possible. Of course, to our modern eyes, the first thing we notice is the limited range of tones, where only red and green are visible. Kinemacolor also required a special projector, which had too many problems. In 1912, Kinemacolor was also used in the documentary With Our King and Queen through India, depicting the coronation and triumph of King George V and Mary, Queen of Teck. It must have been exciting for the audience to see authentic images of their leaders captured on screen using colors that highlight their royal importance.

Taking into account the most popular definition of a film as a full-length narrative, World, Flesh and the Devil, shot in 1914, can be considered the first color film. The 50-minute drama, shot in Kinemacolor, follows a cunning woman who conspires to swap children between rich and poor families. Unfortunately, all footage from this film has been lost. Although the Kinemacolor technique paved the way for later color processes and was less painstaking than other approaches, it still had many complications to work out before Technicolor could revolutionize filmmaking.

It's incredible how far we've come with color film and how much it's changing the way we see films. Looking back, we can see how early color techniques transformed film beyond the black and white that came before it. The history and role of color in cinema is as rich and varied as the color wheel itself, and is worth further exploration in books such as Color in Motion: Chromatic Studies in Cinema by Jessica Niebel and Sofia Serrano.