Subject Librarian
Dartmouth College
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Internet resource(s)
- Timeline of Historical Film ColorsBarbara Flueckiger, a professor in the Department of Film Studies at the University of Zurich, created, developed and curated this database. It provides comprehensive information about historical film color processes invented since the end 19th century including specific still photography color technologies that were their conceptual predecessors.
Definition of color on film
Colour - An attribute of things, whether objects in the world or images on screen, that results from the light they reflect or emit: this light causes a visual sensation that varies according to electromagnetic wavelength. Human eyesight is responsive to particular wavelengths, which we label red, green, and blue, and which, in various combinations produce the wide variety of colours we see (see also colour film). Within film studies, writing on colour has sought to describe how physiological, optical, chemical, and technological processes form the basis for the development of colour film and the viewer’s visual cognition of colour. Discussion of colour is an integral part of film analysis, examined in relation to mise-en-scene, cinematography, production design, and so on (see textual analysis). Where cinematographers use colour temperature as a technical measure of colour, for the sake of film analysis the following terms are preferred: hue—which part of the colour spectrum is predominant; saturation—how pale or intense the colour is; brightness (sometimes lightness, or value, is the preferred term here)—how dull or bright the colour is. These terms are sometimes abbreviated to HSB, HSL, or HSV. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Colour. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2 Apr. 2022
Colour film - A film that is made using colour cinematography; a film that is not black and white. Cinemagoers at the turn of the 20th century would have experienced a vivid mixture of black-and-white and colour cinematography (see early cinema); indeed, a clear distinction between the two was not established until the 1920s. Early colour processes included the hand painting of each frame: this was expensive and time-consuming—a silent film ten minutes in length and running at 16fps (see frames per second) would require 9,600 separate frames to be painted. The films of French filmmaker Georges Méliès are renowned for the use of this technique, though the practice was relatively widespread. Colour was added also by tinting or dyeing the film. These processes allowed filmmakers to append a single colour to either the lighter or the darker areas of the film, and the technique was often used to mark difference between night and day or to establish a particular mood or tone. From 1905, the French film company Pathé developed a stencilling process that made tinting and dyeing more straightforward. A number of companies, including Kinemacolour in Britain and Dufaycolor in France, developed more refined additive colour processes. These worked with black-and-white film stock and used colour filters during filming and projection to create colour. However, they were not widely adopted. ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Colour film. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2 Apr. 2022
In the Library's Collection
Most of the books on color films are located in the call number range PN 1995.9 .C546 on Baker Level 4. There are also books in the Sherman Art Library.
This page not only looks at color films, the change from Black & White to color, but also the use of color in films.
- motion pictures production and directionInsert the name of a country if you like. Most resources are in the call number range PN 1995.9 .P7 on Baker Stack Level 4.
Introductory reading(s)
Black & white cinema: a short history by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780813572413From the glossy monochrome of the classic Hollywood romance, to the gritty greyscale of the gangster picture, to film noir's moody interplay of light and shadow, black-and-white cinematography has been used to create a remarkably wide array of tones. Yet today, with black-and-white film stock nearly impossible to find, these cinematographic techniques are virtually extinct, and filmgoers' appreciation of them is similarly waning. Black and White Cinema is the first study to consider the use of black-and-white as an art form in its own right, providing a comprehensive and global overview of the era when it flourished, from the 1900s to the 1960s.
British colour cinema: practices and theories by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .C546 B758 2013ISBN: 9781844574131British Colour Cinema: Practices and Theories is one of the outcomes of a major research project on colour and British cinema. This project was one of the last opportunities to gain an insight from surviving practitioners who worked with film colour in one of the most fascinating periods of its history.
Chromatic cinema: a history of screen color by Call Number: Sherman Art Library TR 853 .M57 2010ISBN: 9781444332391Chromatic Cinema provides the first wide-ranging historical overview of screen color, exploring the changing uses and meanings of color in moving images, from hand painting in early skirt dance films to current trends in digital color manipulation.
The colour fantastic: chromatic worlds of silent cinema by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9789462983014Sparked by a groundbreaking Amsterdam workshop titled "Disorderly Order: Colours in Silent Film," scholarly and archival interest in colour as a crucial aspect of film form, technology and aesthetics has enjoyed a resurgence in the past twenty years. In the spirit of the workshop, this anthology brings together international experts to explore a diverse range of themes that they hope will inspire the next twenty years of research on colour in silent film. ...
Colour films in Britain: the negotiation of innovation 1900-55 by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .C546 S774 2012xISBN: 9781844573127Colour Films in Britain is the first nationally-focused study of colour style and technology. Unlike the coming of sound, colour did not revolutionise the film industry overnight, and charting the British experience of colour offers fascinating insights into the complex network of issues that accompany the introduction of new technologies.
A short list of books about movies
Cinema and colour: the saturated image by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .C546 C63 2010ISBN: 9781844573158A study of the use of color in film, and of the ways in which color has been theorized, both as a concept and specifically in terms of cinema.
Color and empathy: essays on two aspects of film by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9789089646569The collection of essays brings together texts from two decades, documenting two of the author's ongoing areas of interest: the poetics of colour in film as well as affective viewer responses. Employing a bottom-up approach as a basis for theoretical exploration, each of the essays concentrates on a particular film or a number of related films to come to terms with a set of issues. ...
Harnessing the Technicolor rainbow: color design in the 1930s by Call Number: Sherman Art Library TR 853 .H54 2007ISBN: 9780292716285Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow is the first scholarly history of Technicolor aesthetics and technology, as well as a thoroughgoing analysis of how color works in film. Scott Higgins draws on extensive primary research and close analysis of well-known movies, including 'Becky Sharp,' 'A Star Is Born,' 'Adventures of Robin Hood,' and 'Gone with the Wind,' to show how the Technicolor films of the 1930s forged enduring conventions for handling color in popular cinema. He argues that filmmakers and designers rapidly worked through a series of stylistic modes based on the demonstration, restraint, and integration of color--and shows how the color conventions developed in the 1930s have continued to influence film-making to the present day. ...
If It's purple, someone's gonna die: the power of color in visual storytelling by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .C546 B46 2005ISBN: 9780240806884If It's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die is a must-read book for all film students, film professionals, and others interested in filmmaking. This enlightening book guides filmmakers toward making the right color selections for their films, and helps movie buffs understand why they feel the way they do while watching movies that incorporate certain colors. ...
Other library resource(s)
Color from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceISBN: 9780199791286The history and theory of film has, from the very beginning, been characterized by subfields devoted to major stylistic elements and constitutive features: movement, sound, editing, narration, and acting. Color—for a variety of reasons—has emerged as a subfield of film studies only very recently. For a long time, the perceptual difficulty of color, as well as the more empirical problems of color fading, appeared as obstacles to enduring and reliable studies of color practices and processes. ...
Finding scholarly articles and journal titles
Film & television literature indexCall Number: Electronic resourceThis index covers over 300 journal and magazine titles for film and television reviews, scholarly and critical analysis of cinema and television, and articles of popular interest about film and television. About half the journals and magazines are film periodicals and the other half cover film and television with some regularity. Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
