Kinemacolor was the first commercially successful colour motion picture process. Used commercially from 1909 to 1915, it was invented by George Albert Smith in 1906. It was a two-colour additive colour process, photographing a black-and-white film behind alternating red/orange and blue/green filters and projecting them through red and green filters. It was demonstrated several times in 1908 and first shown to the public in 1909. From 1909 on, the process was known and trademarked as Kinemacolor and was marketed by Charles Urban's Natural Color Kinematograph Company, which sold Kinemacolor licences around the world.
Process
Edward Raymond Turner produced the oldest surviving colour films around 1902. They were made through three-colour alternating-filters. Turner's process, for which Charles Urban had provided financial backing, was adapted by George Albert Smith after Turner's sudden death in 1903 into Kinemacolor."World's First Colour Film Discovered", BBC News (12 September 2012) Smith was also influenced by the work of William Norman Lascelles Davidson. He was granted a patent for the Kinemacolor process in 1907.
"How to Make and Operate Moving Pictures" published by Funk & Wagnalls in 1917 notes the following:
To shoot Kinemacolor films, cameramen had to choose between a variety of red/orange and blue/green filters depending on the subject. Despite this, the films were projected through a single set of red and green filters. Modern research has matched the red projection filter to 25 Sunset Red (with a peak transmission above 610nm) and the green projection filter to 122 Fern Green (with a peak of around 510 to 540 nm). Projected frame rate was also confirmed to be between 30 and 32 frames per second.
Kinemacolor faced several issues, including its inability to reproduce the full color spectrum due to being a two-colour process. Other issues included eye strain and frame parallax because it used a successive frame process, as well as the need for a special projector. The color filters absorbed so much light that studios had to be built open-air.
Developed during a time of growing scientific interest in how people see and perceive color, Kinemacolor was part of early twentieth-century efforts to recreate human vision using additive color processes. Ideas about color perception and visual experience influenced early filmmakers as they tried to make motion pictures appear more realistic.
Premiere At the press opening of the Urbanora House in London on 1 May 1908, Charles Urban presented Kinemacolor films which he stated were not taken with the intention to be shown in front of an audience. A second demonstration in England took place once again in the Urbanora House on 23 July 1908, in front of the Lord Mayor of London as well as 60 other guests. Kinemacolor was shown in Paris on 8 July 1908, featuring a film of the Grand Prix motor race taken the previous day. Among the guests were the Lumière brothers, inventors of the autochrome color photography process. George Albert Smith presented Kinemacolor before the Royal Society of Arts on 9 December 1908.
On 26 February 1909, the general public first saw Kinemacolor in a programme at the Palace Theatre in London. By this time, the process was known as Kinemacolor, a suggestion from Arthur Binstead, a journalist at Sporting Life, after Urban offered a £5 prize to anyone who could come up with a name. The programme consisted of 21 films mainly shot around Brighton and the French Riviera.
On 6 July 1909, George Albert Smith presented a programme of 11 Kinemacolor films at Knowsley Hall before King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. The films included military subjects as well as a party at Knowsley Hall and the King himself. Edward was pleased with the films.
The process was first seen in the United States on 11 December 1909, at an exhibition staged by Smith and Urban at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Success and decline In 1909, Urban, who had acquired the Kinemacolor patent from Smith, formed the Natural Color Kinematograph Company, which produced most Kinemacolor films. Urban sold Kinemacolor licences around the world through the Natural Color Kinematograph Company. Outside of the United Kingdom, the only successful Kinemacolor companies were located in Japan and the United States.
The Natural Color Kinematograph Company produced The Funeral of King Edward VII (1910), the first notable Kinemacolor film which proved to be a financial success. That year, the company released the first dramatic film made in the process, By The Order of Napoleon. In 1911, the Scala Theatre became Urban's flagship venue for showing Kinemacolor films, which included From Bud to Blossom (1910), Unveiling of the Queen Victoria Memorial (1911), Coronation of George V (1911), The Investiture of The Prince of Wales (1911). The company also produced the documentary films With Our King and Queen Through India (1912) and the notable recovery of £750,000 worth of gold and silver bullion from the wreck of P&O's SS Oceana in the Strait of Dover (1912). The dramas The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1914), and Little Lord Fauntleroy (1914) were among the last feature films released in Kinemacolor.
Kinemacolor enjoyed the most commercial success in the UK where, between 1909 and 1918, it was shown at more than 250 entertainment venues. Kinemacolor was popular with members of the British royal family. Pope Pius X saw Kinemacolor films in 1913.Victoria Jackson, "The Distribution and Exhibition of Kinemacolor in the UK and the USA 1909–1916" (University of Bristol, 2011).
The Natural Color Kinematograph Company re-purchased the French rights for Kinemacolor. In 1913, Urban built the Théâtre Edouard VII in Paris for the purpose of showing Kinemacolor, but the process remained commercially unsuccessful in France.
In April 1910, the Kinemacolor Company of America was formed, which initially relied on showing British Kinemacolor films. They filmed The Clansman in 1911, based on the controversial novel of the same name by Thomas Dixon. The film was finished and never released or left unfinished, and inspired D. W. Griffith to produce The Birth of a Nation (1915). The Kinemacolor Company of America produced several narrative and documentary films, such as Making of The Panama Canal (1912) and The Scarlet Letter (1913). The company had studios in Hollywood from 1912 until 1913 and ceased production in 1915.
The Japanese Kinemacolor rights were acquired by the Fukuhōdō film studio in 1910 and were passed on to Toyo Shokai. Emperor Taishō was presented with a three-hour long Kinemacolor programme in August 1913. Two months later, the first Kinemacolor programme was shown in Tokyo. Toyo Shokai reformed itself as Tenkatsu in March 1914 and produced primarily fiction films. With World War I film stock became more expensive, so the company limited production of Kinemacolor films. The last Japanese film produced in Kinemacolor was Saiyûki Zokuhen (1917).
In 1913, after years of dispute, William Friese-Greene, inventor of the rival Biocolour system, challenged Smith's Kinemacolor patent at the Royal Courts of Justice. Although the court initially favoured Kinemacolor, the original verdict was overturned in March 1914. Consequently, Kinemacolor lost not only its patent protection but its commercial value and exclusivity.
Urban liquidated the Natural Color Kinematograph Company in order to protect the shareholders. He took the case to the House of Lords and continued the company as Color Films Ltd., which produced the documentary With The Fighting Forces of Europe during World War I. In April 1915, the House of Lords upheld the Court of Appeal's decision and the patent was revoked. Charles Urban filmed the British fleet in Kinemacolor for the documentary film Britain Prepared in late 1915. Most Kinemacolor films are now considered lost.
With his associate Henry W. Joy, Charles Urban continued his research in colour cinematography and developed a process called Kinekrom, an improved version of Kinemacolor. Kinekrom was shown to the public in New York in November 1916. The process was intended to enable Urban to continue showing his vast library of old Kinemacolor films. However, public interest for Kinemacolor had faded and there were few screenings.
The first (additive) version of Prizma Color, developed by William Van Doren Kelley in the U.S. from 1913 to 1917, used some of the same principles as Kinemacolor.
List of films made in Kinemacolor
The Adopted Child (1911) "Advance Styles of Ostrich Plumage" (1911) Aldershot Views (1912) All's Well That Ends Well (1914) Alpes-Maritimes – Cascade de Courmes (1912) The Alps (1913) An American Invasion (1913) The Amorous Doctor (1911) Artillery Drill at West Point (1910) Atlantic City (1912) The Baby (1910) A Balkan Episode (1911) Band of Queen's Highlanders (1909) "Barnyard Pets" (1910) "Beads of the World" (1911) Big Waves at Brighton (1912) "The Birth of a Flower" (1910) The Birth of a Nation (1911, uncompleted) Biskra and the Sahara Desert (1910) The Blackmailer (1911) Boys Will Be Boys (1911) "Britain Prepared" (1915) Brown's German Liver Cure (1911) The Bully (1910) The Burglar as Father Christmas (1911) Burial of the Maine (1912)The New York Times, 2 April 1912: 24. ("Display Ad 28 – No Title"). Butterflies (1913) By Order of Napoleon (1910) By the Side of the Zuyder Zee (1912) Caesar's Prisoners (1911) Cairo and the Nile (1912) The Call of the Blood (1913) The Cap of Invisibility (1912) Carnival at Nice (1914) Carnival in Ceylon (1913) Carnival Scenes at Nice and Cannes (1909) Cart Horse Parade – May 31 – Regent's Park (1912) Castles in the Air (1912) Cat Studies (1908) Charles Barnold's Dog and Monkey (1912) Checkmated (1911) "The Chef's Preparations" (1910) Children Forming United States Flag at Albany Capitol (1912) Children's Battle of Flowers at Nice (1909) "Choice Bouquets" (1910) Choosing the Wallpaper (1910) A Christmas Spirit (1912) Church Parade of the 7th Hussars and 16th Lancers (1909) A Cingalese Fishing Village in Ceylon (1913) A Citizeness of Paris (1911) The Clown's Sacrifice (1911) Coney Gets the Glad Eye (1913) Coney as a Peacemaker (1913) Coronation of George V (1911) The Coster's Wedding (1910) The Crusader (1911) Dandy Dick of Bishopsgate (1911) "A Day at Henley" (1911) A Detachment of Gordon Highlanders (1909) Detective Henry and the Paris Apaches (1911) A Devoted Friend (1911) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913 British) Egypt (1910) Elevating an Elephant (1913) An Elizabethan Romance (1912) Entertaining Auntie (1913) Esther: A Biblical Episode (1911) The Explorers (1913) The Fall of Babylon (1911) Farm Yard Friends (1910) Fate (1911) "Feeding Poultry at Prowse Jones Farm" (1911) Fifty Miles from Tombstone (1913) The Fisherman's Daughter (1911) Floral Fiends (1910) The Flower Girl of Florence (1911) Following Mother's Footsteps (1911) For the Crown (1911) "Forces of Europe" (1914) "Fording the River" (1910) A French Duel (1911) "The Freshwater Aquarium" (1911) From Bud to Blossom (1910) From Factory Girl to Prima Donna (1911) The Funeral of Edward VII (1910) Galileo (1911) A Gambler's Villainy (1912) Ganges at Benares (1913) "Gems and Jewels" (1911) The General's Only Son (1911) George V's Visit to Ireland (1911) Gerald's Butterfly (1912) Girl Worth Having (1913) Gladioli (1913) Grape vineyards in Piedmont, Italy (1914) "The Harvest" (1908) Haunted Otter (1913) Hiawatha (1913) A Highland Lassie (1910) The Highlander (1911) His Brother's Keeper (1913) His Conscience (1911) His Last Burglary (1911) The House That Jack Built (1913) How to Live 100 Years (1913) The Hypnotist and the Convict (1911) Ice Cutting on the St. Lawrence River (1912) In Gollywog Land (1912) In the Reign of Terror (1911) Inaugurazione del Campanile di San Marco, Venice (1912)