waves on our eyes and optical nervous system,
meaning that we perceive these different wave-
lengths of energy as different colors. Of these col-
ors, three are primary—red, green, and blue;
mixing them can produce all the other colors in the
spectrum, and when added together they produce
white. The subtractive process takes away
unwanted colors from the white light. So when one
of the additive primary colors (red, green, blue) has
been removed from the spectrum on a single strip
of film, what remains are the complementary col-
ors (cyan, magenta, yellow). How does it work in
practice? Technicolor works by simultaneously
shooting three separate black-and-white negatives
through three light filters, each representing a pri-
mary color. These three color-separation negatives
are then superimposed and printed as a positive in
natural color. Thus the final color results from the
removal of certain color components from each of
the three emulsion layers. The first films to be
made with the subtractive process were Walt Dis-
ney’s short “Silly Symphony” cartoons Flowers and
Trees(1932) and The Three Little Pigs(1933)—both
directed by Burt Gillett—and Pioneer Pictures’
live-action film La Cucaracha(1934; director: Lloyd
Corrigan). The first feature-length film made in the
three-color subtractive process was Rouben
Mamoulian’s Becky Sharp(1935; cinematographer:
Ray Rennahan).
Making a Technicolor movie was complicated,
cumbersome, and cost almost 30 percent more
than comparable black-and-white productions. The
Technicolor camera, specially adapted to shoot
three strips of film at one time, required a great
deal of light. Its size and weight restricted its move-
ments and potential use in exterior locations. Fur-
thermore, the studios were obliged by contract to
employ Technicolor’s own makeup, which resisted
melting under lights hotter than those used for
shooting black-and-white films, and to process the
film in Technicolor’s labs, initially the only place
that knew how to do this work.
For all these reasons, in addition to a decline in
film attendance caused by the Great Depression,
producers were at first reluctant to shoot in color.
By 1937, however, color had entered mainstream
Hollywood production; by 1939 it had proved itself
much more than a gimmick in movies such as
Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind(cinematogra-
pher: Ernest Haller), The Wizard of Oz(cinematog-
rapher: Harold Rosson), and John Ford’s Drums
along the Mohawk(cinematographers: Bert Glen-
non and Ray Rennahan), all released that year.
In 1941, Technicolor introduced its Monopack—
identical to Kodak’s Kodachrome color-reversal
film—a multilayered film stock that could be used
in a conventional camera. Because the bulky three-
strip camera was no longer necessary, Technicolor
filming could now be done outdoors. Eventually,
Kodak’s rival Eastman Color system—a one-strip
film stock that required less light, could be used in
any standard camera, and could be processed at
lower cost—replaced Technicolor. This single-strip
process, developed by Kodak and used also by Fuji
and Agfa, remained the standard color film stock in
use until 2010, when Kodak ceased color f ilm pro-
cessing. But just as Hollywood took several years to
convert from silent film to sound, so too the movie
industry did not immediately replace black-and-
white film with color. During the 1950s, HollywoodGone with the Windand color filmmaking Victor
Fleming’s Gone with the Wind(1939; cinematographer: Ernest
Haller) marked a turning point in Hollywood film production,
ushering in an era of serious filmmaking in color. Its vibrant
and nostalgic images of the antebellum South delighted
audiences and earned it a special commendation at the 1939
Academy Awards for “outstanding achievement in the use of
color for the enhancement of dramatic mood.”CINEMATOGRAPHIC PROPERTIES OF THE SHOT 235