SCREEN-L Archives

October 1993

SCREEN-L@LISTSERV.UA.EDU

Options: Use Monospaced Font
Show Text Part by Default
Show All Mail Headers

Message: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Topic: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]
Author: [<< First] [< Prev] [Next >] [Last >>]

Print Reply
Subject:
From:
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 27 Oct 1993 13:03:45 EDT
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (36 lines)
On Wed, 27 Oct 1993 09:02:44 EDT Sandy Dwiggins said:
about PORTRAIT OF JENNIE
>It has always been a favorite of mine, and as I remember seeing it as
>a child, the color change was quite unusual for the time.  Thanks.
>Sandy Dwiggins
>
 
At about the same time as JENNIE, Hitchcock made a film (name unremembered)
which was totally in black and white except for final couple of seconds
-- the flash of a gunshot -- shown in color.
 
In a yet earlier era, ending with the coming of sound, more-or-less, there
was an elaborate aesthetic dealing with tinting and toning.  Tinting
consisted of coloring the gelatin base so that the whole image was suffused
with a particular color.  My memory is that JENNIE was tinted.  Toning
colored the silver emulsion so that highlights were clear and the remainer
of the image was colored to varying intensities.  "Combinations of tones
and tints are possible, and produce many beautiful effects," according to
the 1930 Cinematographic Annual published by the American Society of
Cinematographers.
 
For what it's worth, my comments about the fading effect of projection
likely applies to colored and tinted prints.  If any are extant
I suspect that Eastman House is the place to start looking for them.
 
Since the chemistry of film emulsions and bases has changed in the
intervening sixty years the chemical formulas given in the Annual for
achieving these effects are likely unusable.  I leave it to more
technically sophisticated people than I to say whether adaptations
of these techniques are possible in video.  My instinct says, probably.
But I've been wrong before.
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Cal Pryluck, Radio-Television-Film, Temple University, Philadelphia
<[log in to unmask]>  <PRYLUCK@TEMPLEVM>

ATOM RSS1 RSS2