What Replaced Technicolor Film?
Technicolor film coloring was surely popular for its time. But considerable production costs and a cumbersome coloring process largely guided by the Technicolor company itself. Would make the expensive technology of Technicolor films something that certainly wouldn’t last long. Many competitors worked behind the scenes to come up with their own alternatives to film coloring. Some successfully and others not so successfully. Although Technicolor films were very popular in the 1930s and 1940s. By the 1950s there would be several companies coming forward with new technology to replace Technicolor. But what replaced Technicolor film exactly?
By the 1950s, several companies had emerged with processes that provided an opportunity to color films at a fraction of the cost for Technicolor film technology.
In fact, DeLuxe, TruColor and Warner Color would all emerge during this time as Technicolor films would slowly become obsolete.
Eastman Kodak’s Eastmancolor would ultimately become the choice in coloring after Technicolor film, and it would then be re-branded under the name WarnerColor.
What is EastmanColor?
EastmanColor films represented a multilayer film process in which the layers of film were not separated after exposure.
Also called the Monopack, which would become incredibly popular in the film industry, and a term that would be associated with the processes originally employed by Technicolor films.
Many other descriptive terms would soon come about in reference to EastmanColor technology including Integral Tripack and Multilayer. In the end, the term integral tripack was used most frequently in describing Eastman Color Films.
Eventually, EastmanColor films would be made up of two distinct and standardized coloring processes:
- Eastman Color Negative 2
- Eastman Color Positive 2
Color Internegative Films
Eastman Color Negative film products were produced as the picture negative material in the camera.
Color Internegative films would be used in duplicating negative film similar to the black-and-white processing. And color print films would be used to prepare prints from a color negative or a color internegative process.
In Summation
Eastman Color Films utilized a dye-coupling development process in conjunction with a colorforming coupler to produce the desired image colors.
The process involved insoluble dyes that would form a local reaction dying the image in high resolution silver which would then be removed at a later stage to reveal the coloring.
You might recall the following films which were produced using Eastman Color Film processing: Bad Day at Black Rock, Rebel without a Cause, and 2001 A Space Odyssey as well as A Clockwork Orange.
So, what replaced technicolor film? Eastman Color replaced Technicolor films providing an entirely new process in which films would be colored. The process would be known as Eastman Color Films, but also was branded as WarnerColor.
