[rollei_list] Re: ...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago "Processed by Technicolor R"

  • From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 09:00:14 -0700


----- Original Message ----- From: "David Sadowski" <dsadowski@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, August 08, 2014 4:23 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: ...Kodachromes taken 50 years ago "Processed by Technicolor R"


When you made a movie in Technicolor, you had to hire a color consultant.
In the early days, it was usually Natalie Kalmas.

The color consultant was supplied by Technicolor. The process was very tricky and did not reproduce many colors correctly. For that reason lighting, makeup, set painting, costume, all had to be designed with knowledge of how the process would affect their on-screen appearance. Natalie Kalmus was the divorced wife of Herbert Kalmus, one of the founders of Technicolor. She had nothing whatever to do with the productions; her name appears in the credits as a condition of the divorce settlement. The credit is something like color director. If you look at the credits you will find another name among the technical credits for color consultant. These men worked for Technicolor and you will usually see the same name for each production company, i.e., the same fellow worked with M-G-M or Paramount, etc. Tech also had their own directors of photography who were available for producers who wanted them. They were often credited along with the producer's DP or sometimes alone. My memory is no longer clear but I think W.Howard Green was the chief DP for Tech. Even after Tech began using multi-layer film for original photography they still supplied a "color consultant". Some type scenes, particularly low-key, were very difficult in the original process because the color tracking was not very good. Nonetheless some very good low-key stuff was done. See for instance "Margie" a 20th-Fox movie. I once asked the DP about it but he had no memory of making it. "Margie" despite being a very charming movie was actually a B picture; amazing!


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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