By 1950, there were more than a few competitors carving out Technicolor’s market share. However, the difficulty of producing them continued to annoy studios and filmmakers. During the 1940s, hundreds of Technicolor films were made - and people loved them. Mass Adoption Moving into the Technicolor ageĪfter the release of The Wizard of Oz, studios around the world rushed to get their hands on Technicolor. But many were left traumatized or sick - including the original Tin Man actor Buddy Ebsen, who was poisoned from the silver make-up. It got so hot in those costumes that the crew feared for their safety.įortunately, the cast and crew made it through production mostly unscathed. On top of that, many of the actors were in elaborate costumes, especially Ray Bolger (The Scarecrow), Bert Lahr (The Cowardly Lion), and Jack Haley (The Tin Man). Numerous reports say that throughout filming, the sound stage was hotter than 100☏. At the time, Technicolor cameras required incredibly bright lights to work as intended. However, it’s no secret that they came at a cost. The visuals are perhaps more immersive and more staggering than any of its contemporaries. Not only is The Wizard of Oz enshrined in the annals of cinema history for its production design, but for its technical brilliance as well. A lot of studios didn’t think it was worth the time or energy.īut after The Wizard of Oz, things started to change. It’s easy to forget just how difficult the process of coloring films was. This video shows how Disney pulled off a miracle through technical expertise:įor many, this was the first time they had seen a film in color. It was also the first full-length cel-animated film and first animated feature in the English language. Snow White wasn’t the first Technicolor film, but it’s largely synonymous with the company’s foray into the limelight. It’s no secret that Walt Disney put his career on the line with his remake of the famed Brothers Grimm fairytale. There were two movies that changed everything for color in film and the world of animation: these were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfsand The Wizard of Oz. From 1920 to 1935, the cinema industry had gone through enormous change, institutionally (from Pre-Code to Hays-code), structurally (silent to “talkies”), and technologically (black and white to color).īut although many knew about the changes, few had seen them all put together in a single picture. At the time, this was viewed as a quantum leap forward for cinema. The first Technicolor film shot entirely in Technicolor’s three color process was Becky Sharp in 1935. Color in Cinema What was the first Technicolor movie? But by this point, and for the first time, Technicolor filmmaking was made widely possible. It’s entirely mobile, operable, and easy to use - meanwhile the “blimp” required an insane amount of knowledge and technical skill to operate. Today, everybody with a smartphone has an HD camera at their disposal. Just think about how big that “blimp” camera was! It’s easy to forget just how different the filmmaking process was then compared to now. The three strip process required a gargantuan amount of work from the Pre-Production process all the way through Post-Production.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |