BRITISH COLOUR FILM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 261, 4 November 1933, Page 5 (Supplement)

BRITISH COLOUR FILM.

RIGHTS FOR N.Z. BOUGHT,

The rights for New Zealand, Australia and the East of the British Kaycol film colour process, which it is thought in England will revolutionise the picture industry so far as colour is concerned, as drastically as sound did the silent pictures, have been bought for early distribution •by British Empire Films, Ltd., according to an announcement by Mr. Stuart Doyle, managing director of Cinesound Productions (A*sia) and also of British Empire Films.

The difficulty of coloured film by recognised processes has always been the excessive cost of each print of the film itself. Experiments have been going on in England for some time to find a simpler and less expensive process, and the firm of Courtaulds, the artificial silk manufacturers, who took the process up, are reputed to have spent over £150,000 in perfecting the Kaycol process in their laboratories.

The advantage of the Raycol process is that, instead'of the expensive process of colouring the film itself, ordinary black and white film, which has'been taken with an attachment on the sound camera and chemically treated in the laboratory, when projected on the screen, through a simple prismatic attachment, presents the picture on the screen in soft, natural colours, entirely free from "fringing" or merging of colours, and gives as clear a definition as black and white film. Moreover, it enables the exhibitor, without the colour attachment, to show the

picture in black and white. The chemical system can also be applied to "still" photos, television and sub-standard film. Already a number of travel pictures have been produced in Raycol, as well as a full-length feature, "The Skipper of the Osprey," by W. W. Jacobs. A number of British pictures will be released in colour next year. It will be applied in Australia first to the Cinesound Review feature of supporting pro-, grammes, then later to full-length pictures. The first of such will probably be a Great Barrier Reef study by Captain Frank Hurley.