Abstract
THE paper read before the Royal Society of Arts on November 9 by Mr. T. Thorne Baker gave a useful account of new developments in colour cinematography. Compared with other inventions like radio-telephony, the aeroplane and sound films, the coming of photography in natural colours seems very slow. The coloured films which have been shown at many picture theatres during the last two or three years are nearly all two-colour pictures. The main drawback is that the colours obtained in these pictures are not absolutely natural. But now methods have been devised for obtaining three-colour pictures. These require for the development of a satisfactory studio technique an immense amount of further research. In the early days of the sound film, many thought that it would have a short life because the reproduction of both speech and music was so bad. Yet improvements have proceeded so rapidly that it is now so good that the demand for silent films has almost ceased. A similar series of events will probably take place in connexion with colour films. Most of the various attempts made to please the eye by two-colour processes have failed. It has taken years to put three-colour processes into practical form. But once the natural colour film has been seen by the public it seems that they will soon cease to think that it is a ‘colour’ picture and merely derive increased enjoyment from its naturalness. Similarly, the expert who is familiar with the latest developments of colour films feels when he looks at the ordinary film, notwithstanding the exquisite photography and the magnificent art which characterise modern productions, that a serious omission has been made.
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Colour Films. Nature 130, 805 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130805b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130805b0