Early Color Film BEFORE The Wizard of Oz

Long before The Wizard of Oz amazed audiences with its Technicolor creation of the fantastical world of Oz in 1939, filmmakers had already been using color for over 40 years. Whether hand painted each frame of a film to add color or using natural color process made by companies like Kineamcolor and Technicolor, these early color films reveal are a oft-forgotten but visually stunning piece of history that deserves much more attention.

Starting with the very first uses of color onscreen in the 1890s, I explore the inventions and films of silent and early sound cinema that filmmakers experimented with to slowly learn how to make color look natural, emotional, and cinematic just as it appears in The Wizard of Oz and color films that came after.

CHAPTERS

00:00 - Before the Wizard of Oz
00:32 - The First Color Films
04:32 - Natural Color Processes
10:32 - Me in Technicolor
10:47 - Two-Strip Technicolor
13:22 - Three-Strip Technicolor
20:46 - The Wizard of Oz and Beyond
23:51 - More Silent Movies

SEIZURE WARNING
Flashing lights at 07:17 for recreation of Technicolor's first natural color process.

CREDITS
Thank you to FilmColors.org for being an indispensable resource while putting together this script and finding archival resources to tell this colorful story. And huge thanks to Scott Higgins' 2007 book "Harnessing the Technicolor Rainbow : Color Design in The 1930s" for his essential discussion of color design of the early 1930s Technicolor films.

Animation (13:41-13:53) adapted from:    • The Dye Transfer Printing Process - Techni...  

Creative Commons Music by Jason Shaw on Audionautix.com used in this video:
Tangerine
Majestic Piano
Atlantis
Event Horizon
Emily Walks Away
Antarctica
A Tall Ship
Meditation