The Dawn of Technicolor is a beautifully illustrated
and exhaustively researched book.
It includes over 400 illustrations
many of which have never been published before
and over half of which are made directly from original nitrate prints and negatives.
This book is being released to coincide with Technicolor's centenary
and is a look back at the company's first 20 years.
In writing the book we drew upon many archival sources
including Technicolor's corporate archive, engineer's notebooks
studio production records, as well as, unpublished interviews and first hand accounts.
Today, we expect all films to be in color.
But in the earliest years of motion pictures all the films were in black and white.
Technicolor was one of the many companies that attempted to fill this gap for the industry
but they didn't expect that it would take them 20 years to accomplish that outcome.
Hollywood was somewhat ambivalent about Technicolor
and the prospect of going to all color production.
They recognized that it gave them additional artistic tools
but at the same time it promised to be much more expensive
both on production side and in the cost of
each print that would go out to a theater.
They weren't sure if the additional income from exhibitors
would outweigh the additional production cost.
Technicolor's first processes recorded a limited part of the spectrum
onto two color records, red and green.
Pleasing results could be achieved
but many colors such as blues, yellows and purples couldn't be reproduced.
It was therefore important to control the colors in front of the camera.
So early on the engineers at Technicolor recognized that 3-color was the goal
but they weren't gonna be able to get there overnight
and they knew that one of the steps along the way to 3-color
was coming up with a working successful 2-color process.
Once they had 2-color perfected, moving to 3-color
was just the matter of adding one additional film in the camera
that were relatively simple considering the enormous complications
of getting a 2-color image.
Technicolor had a foothold in Hollywood
and then when sound came in
the recognition was that new technologies seemed to attract audiences.
Sound had resulted in a huge permanent increase
in audiences coming to motion picture theaters.
And then starting in the spring of 1929, Warner Brothers produced
all color musicals that turned out to be enormously successful.
That combination of sound, music and color
turned out to provide the combination that Technicolor
had always needed in order to get audiences excited about watching movies in color.
The book is divided into two sections.
The first half is a historical narrative, over 10 chapters
and the second half is a complete filmography
of every 2-color Technicolor film made between 1917 and 1936.
The book was truly a collaborative archival project.
We worked with many museums, institutions and individuals.
I think it is accurate to say that the reproduction of
2-color Technicolor in the book is the most accurate that has been seen to date.
and that James and I inspected many, many original 2-color prints
and in the production process for the book
we were able to adjust the colors so they accurately represent
what 2-color Technicolor prints
looked like in the 1920's, 1930's.