The Stunning Evolution of Color in Film | WIRED

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Published 2017-07-14

Before they figured out how to shoot film in color, filmmakers were painting their footage, frame-by-frame. Fast forward a century and the HDR technology available to colorists means we are to see more detail than ever on our screens. From technicolor to color grading, color in the movies has had a fascinating 116 year history.

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The Stunning Evolution of Color in Film | WIRED

All Comments (21)

@alexandrecotetessier9959 7 years ago

2:00 So people should know that despite the fact it looks like the movie goes from sepia to color, they actually shot the whole shot in color. They painted the interior of the house and use a double for Dorothy with a sepia colored costume. You can actually see the trick: Dorothy's double, after opening the door, gets out of the frame for letting Judy Garland's Dorothy getting into it.
@TheStockwell 6 years ago

Worth mentioning: the earliest surviving color footage - which begins this film - was never seen until recently. The inventor shot it with a camera which placed a different colored filter in front of every third frame. He managed to get images on film, but never came up with a way to project the film with three different filters on the projector. A few years ago, his film was scanned and digitally "projected" following his instructions. It worked - but it took a over a century to get it to.
@timchalamet1211 4 years ago

I thought when I was young the world was black and white in the 1900s lol 🤦‍♂️😂
@patrickroelant5171 7 years ago

That wizard of oz scene was amazing to look at
@GabrielDalposso 7 years ago

Colors are DOPE.
@Nukle0n 6 years ago

Not gonna name that Japanese movie at 2:32? Ok...
@RustyB5000 7 years ago

guys remember that time we tried doing 360 videos on youtube?? ohhh man... wtf were we thinking?!?!! ... those were the days....
@ToonGrizzly 7 years ago

we have a Dolby theater in Arlington Texas! and the colors are absolutely amazing
@FerintoshFarmsPhotography 7 years ago

That was pretty groovy; I always wondered why movies looked so different as a kid, the just suddenly completely changed in viewing quality
@PaulGPixelBike 6 years ago

Why didn't they mention teal and orange trend in color grading? Essentially all recent blockbusters are graded like that.
@TheMovieMyLife 7 years ago

So much in this video that I didn't fully know about before. This video also makes me wonder about how long the list of jobs for any given movie must be. Crazy long is my thought. I'm certainly happy to live during this time in the evolution of film; not that I'd have known too much about what I was missing had I been born much earlier in the 20th century, of course. :-)
@brothaNblue 7 years ago

Something good came out the Mario Bros. movie? Shocking.
@dekatonkheir 7 years ago

solid vid. nice work
@eddie4324 2 years ago

I'm sure I noticed improved film around the early 2000s. I remember watching Black Hawk Down and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) thinking that the blacks look really black, not a sort of grey black like I had seen in previous movies!
@SammyKikwai 7 years ago

I love such history
@Nerdmor 7 years ago

Great mini documentary
@alexabadi7458 4 years ago

Thanks !
@acdnan 7 years ago

this video was very informative
@Spsuperstar 7 years ago

well how about converting black and white movies to color movies? that I really wanna see.
@christantoseno 2 years ago

This is why old movie are better than modern movie,no shaky cam and no over-graded like orange and teal look,cyan-ish look,yellow-ish warm look,green look like matrix,or a low contrast and underexposure,old movie looks colorful