Natural Colour: Another Cinematic Milestone

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 3 October 1936, Page 9

Natural Colour : Another Cinematic Milestone

NEW COLOUR PROCESS BRINGS REAL HUES “THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE”

During the last twenty years of motion picture science many great inprovements have been achieved, such as sound by disc, sound on film, then third dimension (stereoscopic) and now the most important and greatest achievement of any film laboratory comes in Natural Colour. At last the long uphill battle waged by motion picture technicians to achieve natural colour photography has been won. This success has been applied to “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine” which marks another milestone in motion picture science. Colour has been applicable to indoors in the past

and has been done with a certain amount of success and beauty, but • this is the first attempt on outdoor | natural colour and it has reached the [pinnacle of film achievements. Robert G. Bruce a noted authority on colour photography for films doesn’t believe in too much colour on the screen. Too ■ much colour,- he says, detracts from ; the story: being unfolded on the screen as colour- is only one of the many units that make up a motion picture. In the film in question, colour was

used judiciously, rather than lavishly. It is the first picture in which it is taken as a matter of course and subordinated to the story interest. Henry Hathav/ay, who won fame through direction of “The Lives of a Bengal Lancer,” revolutionised ac-. cepted technique in his direction of “The Trail of the Lonesome Pine” by insisting that bright colours be eliminated because they detract from the story and characters. He accentuated the realism of the setting by employing only natural shades, with mountaineers’ cabins of weatherbeaten lumber and rough-hewn logs;

costumes of dull shades; and make-up of the players reduced to a minimum. The film reveals how all the manifold shades of a particular colour are brought out. It becomes evident that such things as sunsets and sunrises, almost meaningless in the present black and white, are honestly represented through the medium of the optical system. Because of the complete naturalness of the reproduction, the spectators’ eyes experience no fatigue whatsoever.