Performing Kinemacolor: Between Film Restoration and
Presentation
Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Arts in Preservation and
Presentation of the Moving Image at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, Faculty of Humanities,
Department of Media Studies
Supervisor: Dr. Giovanna Fossati
Second Reader: Dr. Eef Masson
Thesis of: Ruxandra Blaga
ID: 11723106
June 23, 2019
Abstract ……….3
0.1. Introduction………..4
0.2. Theoretical framework……….….…….10
0.3. Methodology……….….…………16
0.4. Organisation……….….……….17
Chapter 1. Characteristics of the historical Kinemacolor performances and re-enactments of the performance mechanism (1992-2008)……….……18
1.1. Characteristics of the historical Kinemacolor performance………..… 18
1.2. Re-enacting the Kinemacolor performance mechanism (1992-2008)………..……….22
I. Re-enacting the performance mechanism Il Cinema Ritrovato festival (1992)……….. 23
II. Re-enacting the performance mechanism by David Cleveland and Brian Pritchard (2008)……..27
III. Conclusion………...29
Chapter 2. Restoring the performative surface of Kinemacolor films (1997-2018)...29
2.1. Restoring the performative surface on the film material (1997/8)………30
2.2. Restoring the performative surface in the digital medium (2015-2018)……….. 32
I. Stages 1-4 of the Kinemacolor Project (2015-2018)………33
II. Stages 5-7 of the Kinemacolor Project (2015-2018)……….… 39
Conclusions………..49
Suggestions for Further Research……….53
Bibliography………....54
Appendix A……….….55
Appendix B……….….61
Abstract:
While restoration has still remained a hybrid practice, a transition to digital presentation has occurred in recent years. Within this transition, the presentation of Kinemacolor films and possibly also other additive colour systems, is particularly relevant, due to the way in which the synthesis of the complete colour film depended on a custom projection mechanism.While Kinemacolor films were recorded in black and white, they appeared as colour films during their custom projection, by way of an additive colour process. In the past, Kinemacolor films were restored and presented to members of the archival community through projection mechanisms similar to the historical one. In recent years, digital presentations of Kinemacolor films have reached wider audiences. Between 2016-2018, a substantial number of Kinemacolor films have been restored by Bologna’s L’Immagine Ritrovata and presented digitally at Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna. In this thesis, I argue that by looking at the performative character of the Kinemacolor films, novel Kinemacolor performances can be carried out, by preserving different aspects of the historical performance through both analog and digital technologies. In this endeavour, presentation becomes an integral aspect to the restoration of the colour film.
0.1. Introduction
In a lyrical scenery of 1910, in the midst of Lake Garda, three men are depicted in a colorful musical act (Fig. 1). The image is a screenshot of a computer monitor as it was displaying the film Lake Garda (1910). On a closer look at the screenshot, the entire colour palette of the scenery varies between green-cyan and orange-red hues. On the right, a photograph of the nitrate print of the same film, taken at L’Immagine Ritrovata’ film restoration and conservation laboratory, shows the same scenery, only it is black and white (Fig.2). On a closer look of the film print, the subjects appear in distinct black and white densities between the two successive frames: the water seems brighter in the first frame, parts of the musicians’ clothing change densities, while the wooden guitar seems darker in the first frame. The first image is a result of an overlap between the two scanned nitrate frames, on which an orange-red and green-cyan digital filters were superimposed. The filters were separately applied one every two scanned frame, so that overlapped in transparency, they create a composite colour image. This digital intervention was created in 2017, by Bologna’s L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, to digitally simulate the colour of the nitrate prints, once produced through an early colour system known as Kinemacolor.
Kinemacolor was the first commercially successful ‘natural colour’ system, patented in 1906 by George Albert Smith, and exploited between 1908-1913 in most Western countries by Charles Urban through the company Natural Color Kinematograph Co. Natural colour systems were early colour film systems which aimed to reproduce the colour of subjects as close as possible to their appearance in nature. Early
Fig.2. Photograph of the Lake Garda (1910) nitrate print
Fig. 1. Screenshot from the digitally restored Lake
natural colour systems synthesised colour through an additive process, by mixing primary-coloured lights 1
(red, green, blue) during the film’s projection. In the Kinemacolor system, two of the primary colours were 2
used, red and green. Additive processes were different from other popular artificially coloured films of the time, known as ‘applied colour’ processes, such as hand coloured, stencil, tinted and toned films. In these processes, colour was applied directly on the surface of the black and white film print by either colouring parts of the film frame, or by soaking the film in dye baths through two distinct procedures, known as 3
tinting and toning. Unlike applied colour, in Kinemacolor, as in other additive colour processes, the 4
complete colour image was not perceivable on the surface of the film print.
In the Kinemacolor system, the subjects were recorded at 32 frames per second (fps), twice the speed used in early film, through a rotary disk comprised of red and green coloured filters. Panchromatic emulsion was used to record the colour information reflected from the subjects, a type of a black and white emulsion sensitised to all wavelengths of visible light. While colour was recorded on the panchromatic 5
black-and-white film, it was not perceivable to the eye. This is why the recorded images appear on the film print in alternate black and white densities, as seen in two consecutive frames of the Lake Garda nitrate print (Fig.2). The black and white frames were alternately shot through the red and green filters, so that each frame presents a different black and white density, corresponding to one colour record. While colour was recorded in the emulsion, it was only perceivable during the films’ custom projection.
The impression of colour of Kinemacolor films was produced during the film’s projection through a pair of red and green gelatine filters, similar to those used in the recording process. From 1910 the Natural Color Kinematograph Co., began selling specific Kinemacolor projectors (Fig.4). These projectors had a motor which controlled the speed of the film passing through the gate together with the rotating filters mounted between the film gate and the light source. Light would pass through the simultaneous rotation of the filters and the film, overlapping the colour filters with the colour records, to create the appearance on screen of one coloured image (Fig. 5). As G.A Smith notes:
While early natural colour systems were based on an additive colour process, from the 1920s on, natural colour
1
systems based on subtractive processes were popularised.
The earliest experiments with additive colour systems were carried out in 1898 William Friese-Greene who developed
2
four colour methods and in 1899 by Frederick Marshall Lee and Edward Raymond Turner, known as the Lee and Turner system used a three colour - red, green, blue- recording and projection system. However, these systems were not commercially successful. The Lee and Turner system’s patents were bought by Charles Urban, who developed the three colour system into the two colour Kinemacolor process. Barbara Flueckiger, Timeline of Historical Film Colours, Accessed 10 June, 2019,https://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1324/.
The earliest of applied colour techniques emerged around 1895 and consisted in hand colouring parts of the film frame
3
by the use of small brushes, and later on by the use of stencils, also known as the pochoir technique, popularised through systems such as Pathécolor, patented in 1908 and used until 1928. Stencil-colouring made use of pre-cut shapes, carved manually or later on by a cutting machine, to tint areas of the frame onto another identical print.
Tinting and toning emerged around 1896 and comprised of colouring the full frame of the black and white films
4
through two distinct monochrome procedures. In the tinting process the immersion of the film into the coloured bath coloured the translucent parts of the film strip, while with toning the silver parts of the image chemically reacted to colour the darker parts of the image. For a detailed description of tinting and toning see Barbara Flueckiger, Timeline of Historical Film Colours, accessed 10 June, https://zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1216/.
Panchromatic emulsion was obtained by sensitising to the red spectrum an orthochromatic emulsion, a type of
5
If the speed of projection is approximately 30 pictures per second, the two colour records blend and present to the eye a satisfactory rendering of the subject in colours which appear to be natural. The novelty of my method lies in the use of 2 colours only, red and green, combined with the principle of persistence of vision. 6
As Smith notes, the rapid mixture of the recorded image and colour light would be perceived by the spectators as one coloured moving image. The illusion of colour was believed to be produced through the principle of persistence of vision. This principle refers to how human sight would perceive the light information coming from an object even after the light reflected from it has ceased to enter the eye, the same principle used to explain cinematic movement. Although the principle of persistence of vision has now been replaced by other theories regarding perception of movement and that of colour, it was through the viewer’s perception that the colour image was produced. Thus, the complete colour image manifested as a perceptual phenomenon during the film’s custom performance on screen.
!
Fig. 4. Kinemacolor 35mm projector, 1910 Fig. 5. Illustration of Kinemacolor projection The Kodak Collection at the National Media http://medium.com/@chaz_vickers/colour-processes
Museum, Bradford. -used-in-film-from-the-1900s-to-early-1940s-7046bb8
It is estimated that close to ten thousand Kinemacolor films were produced, yet only a few exist today. Since the closing of the Kinemacolor company in 1924, many of the films have now been lost, or 7
destroyed. Today the Kinemacolor system is obsolete, with very few of the films preserved in archives around the world. A large part of surviving Kinemacolor travel films, spanning from 1911-1916, have been preserved at the British Film Institute Archives, including the 165 minute documentary feature film Britain
George Albert Smith, Provisional Specification. Improvements in & relating to Kinematograph Apparatus for the
6
Production of Coloured Pictures.,1906. Brighton. UK Patent 26,671. Filed 22 November 1906.
Luke McKernan, ‘Surviving Kinemacolor,’ Charles Urban, Accessed April 21, 2019, http://
7
Prepared (165), which presents an interesting mixture between scenes shot with a Kinemacolor camera and
the rest of the reel filmed in black and white. Other Kinemacolor films are being preserved in the United States at the George Eastman House, in Rochester, New York, as well as the Library of Congress in Culpeper, Virginia. 8
In 1992, a substantial Kinemacolor collection was discovered in Italy, at the Archivio Cinetecario della Liguria and donated to the Cineteca di Bologna. Shortly after the acquisition of the collection, the Cineteca di Bologna commissioned the restoration of one of the films in the collection, Inaugurazione del
campanile di San Marco (1912). The restoration was undergone at L’Immagine Ritrovata, which was
founded that same year as a specialised restoration and preservation laboratory. This consisted in the duplication of Inaugurazione del campanile di San Marco on modern black and white film stock and its presentation through a modified projector to which red and green gelatine colour filters were attached, and projected the film at 32 fps. The film was presented in a one time performance at Il Cinema Ritrovato, a festival held in Bologna, Italy, dedicated to the presentation of archival film, in a novel section was introduced that year, ‘Found and Restored’ (‘Ritrovati e Restaurati’). This restoration and presentation was followed by a different Kinemacolor restoration, where the synthesis of the film and colour lights was simulated on the surface of a novel film print. Such is the example of Rive del Nilo (1911), where the black and white nitrate print and selected colour lights were printed onto a novel colour print. However, these Kinemacolor restorations have not been preserved. As the first second part of this thesis will show, (Chapter 2.1), the memory of these two different restorations have been only kept alive by archivists involved in the restoration in the 1990s, one of whom the author has been in conversation with. 9
As Giovanna Fossati noted in From Grain to Pixel, film restoration today is a hybrid practice. As Fossati 10
argued, similar to current film production, film restoration combines both digital and analog technologies. 11
While this was originally expressed by Fossati in 2009, it has remained relevant for restoration practices today. Since the 1990s, L’Immagine Ritrovata has become one of the most renowned restoration and conservation laboratories world-wide, known for its state of the art restoration facilities. The laboratory is particularly renowned for its expertise in both photochemical and digital restoration of film. Between 2015-2018 L’Immagine Ritrovata carried out the Kinemacolor restoration project through a hybrid restoration approach, which will be discussed in Chapter 2 of this thesis. While the films have been scanned and the colours digitally restored, prior to their scanning the films have been photochemically restored. This has included a series of chemical treatments, which have enabled the unwinding of some of the most fragile
Detailed accounts of preserved Kinemacolor films have been researched by Luke McKernan, film scholar and curator
8
at the British Library, which can be accessed on his website, https://lukemckernan.com/tag/kinemacolor/.
An account of the restoration performed in 1992 is documented in Raising the Colours (Restoring Kinemacolor)
9
(2002) by Nicola Mazzanti, director of Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, and one of the founding members of L’Immagine Ritrovata and Il Cinema Ritrovato festival. The author has been in conversation with Paolo Bernardini, one of the founding members of L’Immagine Ritrovata restoration laboratory and collaborator since 2006 with the
Cinemateca Portuguesa. His accounts have been key to provide insight into the 1992 and 1997/8 restorations of Kinemacolor films undergone at L’Immagine Ritrovata.
Giovanna Fossati, From Grain to Pixel, The Archival Life of Film in Transition, 3rd ed. (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
10
University Press, 2018), 146. Ibid.
and decayed nitrate prints. After scanning, the prints were restored digitally, following a 4K restoration workflow. Thus, the use of both photochemical and digital restoration methods is applicable today in the case of Kinemacolor restorations.
Tangential to the transition from analog to digital restoration, a shift to the digital presentation of restored films has occurred in recent years. One needs to look no further than Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, where the totality of restored films presented in 2018 in Piazza Maggiore have been digital projections. Before 2016, most restorations of early colour films, including those which have been digitally restored, were recorded on 35mm for the scope of presentation. This is the case of the 2012 Kinemacolor restorations presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato, where despite their digital restoration, carried out by the BFI, they were presented on 35mm colour prints. Since 2016, restorations of early colour systems have been presented at 12
Cinema Ritrovato exclusively as digital cinema packages, including Kinemacolor titles previously 13
presented analogically. Thus, a transition to digital projection concerns the presentation of Kinemacolor films.
While restoration practices are still essentially hybrid, as argued by Fossati, a number of archivists and scholars consider that digital projection of film-born films presents a more dramatic change. Scholars have argued that digital presentation conveys a different experience of the film image in comparison to analog projection. According to Alexander Horwath, former director of the Austrian Filmmuseum, digital projection marks a difference in the appearance of the image on screen. In analog projection, every film frame is preceded and followed by a with a brief period of black, resulted from how the frames are pulled to be projected. This implies that in a 24 fps projection, there are actually 48 images presented on the screen. With digital projection, the black periods are eliminated, and according to Horwath they mark a difference in how the film is perceived: ‘[…] it does make a big difference whether half of what your eyes see per second is black or not, as in digital.’ From this perspective, the shift to digital presentation would present a 14
substantial change in the way in which films are experienced.
For the specific case of Kinemacolor presentation and differently from Horwath, Benoît Turquety identifies a continuity between technologies used in the historical presentation of Kinemacolor films and digital presentation. Referring to the 2012 digital restoration of Kinemacolor films performed by Brighton’s Screen Archives South East, Turquety noted how as additive systems, both digital cinema and the Kinemacolor system share a similar mode of presenting colour. As Turquety notes, while Kinemacolor 15
Gian Luca Farinelli, Peter von Bagh and Paola Cristalli, eds., Il Cinema Ritrovato Catalogue XXVI Edition,
12
(Bologna: Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, 2012), 130-131.
Digital Cinema Packages (DCP) are a collection of digital files compressed and encrypted by standards set up by the
13
Digital Cinema Initiatives. The Digital Cinema Initiatives is a group of the most influential American film studios, established in 2002, which have created and established digital cinema specifications. The DCPs are sent to cinemas on media carriers such as hard disk drives, networks or satellite.
Horwath cited by Giovanna Fossati in From Grain to Pixel, The Archival Life of Film in Transition, 2nd ed.
14
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 129.
Benoît Turquety, “Why Additive? Problems of Colour and Epistemological Networks in Early (Film)
15
Technology,” in The Colour Fantastic, Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema, ed.Giovanna Fossati et al., (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 114.
films might be perceived differently through digital display, both media can synthesise colour additively, 16
bringing the mode of colour production between two different technologies closer. Another aspect which 17
would provide a continuity of past and current additive systems stands in their variable character. As Turquety notes, images presented through additive colour systems are marked by a variable appearance, due to their dependency on the viewing device: ‘additive processes, (such as Kinemacolor or Chronochrome, but also digital technology, our contemporary screens and projectors being also based on that principle) are viewing device dependent.’ Thus, the common characteristic of additive colour systems (both early and 18
digital ones) stands in how colour images are synthesised at the moment of their display, varying in appearance depending on their display system.
Regardless of the different opinions with regards to the reflection on digital projection in the film archival discourse, digital presentation has recently become the only platform of presentation of Kinemacolor films. Between 2016-2018, there has been a growing interest in the digital projection of Kinemacolor restorations in the section ‘In Search of Color in Film’ (Alla Ricerca del Colore’). This section was conceived in 2009, and has been dedicated to the presentation of restored obsolete colour processes. A total of twenty one Kinemacolor restorations have been presented alongside other early colour processes. If the early editions were dedicated to applied colour processes and only one Kinemacolor title featured, in 2017 the section was dedicated to the presentation of Kinemacolor films, denominated ‘In Search of Color: Kinemacolor & Technicolor’. In this section, a total of fourteen Kinemacolor films, restored at L’Immagine Ritrovata, were presented in a ninety minute program, the longest of any previous presentations dedicated to the Kinemacolor process. This was followed by the presentation of five other titles restored at the same laboratory in 2018.
The increase of these restorations and presentations has been motivated by the festival’s director, Gian Luca Farinelli, as a direct result of ‘digital technology’. As Farinelli noted in the festival’s catalogue:
To complete the selection, a 90-minute programme of Kinemacolor films, without doubt the longest to be screened in a cinema theatre since the 1910s! A programme that would not have been possible without digital technology or the careful work undertaken by the experts at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, who approached the work with a philological attention to the system’s original imperfections . 19
In the 2012 restoration, digital colour filters were applied to simulate the colour of Kinemacolor films. In a first
16
attempt, colour filters were alternatively applied on the scanned print. However, running the film at 32 fps, the resulting image conveyed a prominent ‘flicker’ effect, and, according to Turquety, ‘the colours would not blend.’ This has lead to the conclusion that the additive synthesis of colour through analog projection would have be perceived differently, from an additive synthesis of colour in the digital medium, mostly because with digital displays- computer screens- the images are backlit. This is why in a second attempt, the colour was synthesised within each frame, presenting the film at 16 fps instead of the original 32 fps. See Turquety, 114-116.
A similar experiment was carried out by L’Immagine Ritrovata for the 2017 digital restoration of Kinemacolor films.
17
Similar to the 2012 restoration, the application of digital colour filters every other scanned film frame conveyed a prominent flicker of the image, which has lead the archivists to create a composite digital image running at 16 fps.
Turquety, 116.
18
Gian Luca Farinelli, Alice Autelitano, Alessandro Cavazza, eds., Il Cinema Ritrovato Catalogue XXXI Edition,
19
Farinelli’s remark encapsulates the questions proposed for this thesis. How have Kinemacolor films been accessed at their origin? How did past restoration and presentation approaches accommodate the historical Kinemacolor performance? How can current restorations and presentations accommodate the historical Kinemacolor performance in a digital medium? What is the relation between restoration and presentation of Kinemacolor films?
While these questions are addressed particularly to Kinemacolor films, as they have been the most often restored and presented, they might also be relevant in the case of other additive systems. The presentation aspect of Kinemacolor films is important to address due the way in which the complete colour film was synthesised originally during the film’s exhibition. There is a discrepancy of insight regarding the relation between restoration and presentation of Kinemacolor films. While some scholars have reflected on the perceptual and archival implications of Kinemacolor restorations, the implications of past and current 20
restorations on the performative aspects of Kinemacolor films have not been addressed. In this thesis I investigate the relationship between restoration and presentation of Kinemacolor films in past and current projects, and reflect on how these approaches, carried out through both digital and analog media, can preserve the performative characteristics of Kinemacolor films. As I show in this thesis, presentation becomes an integral aspect to the restoration of Kinemacolor films, in both analog and digital worlds. Although I focus specifically on the case of Kinemacolor films, these insights can be valuable for further research in other additive colour systems.
0.2. Theoretical framework
The main concepts that inform the definitions I use in this thesis are Giovanna Fossati's simulation as restoration practice, her film as performance film restoration framework, and Giuliana Bruno’s conception of
surface as a place where the identity and materiality of an image manifests. Equally important for my
definitions are Barbara Flueckiger’s reflections on the material identity of film as a performative instance in projection and Paolo Bernardini’s reflections on the presentation of Kinemacolor films.
To embark on a discussion of restoration and presentation of the Kinemacolor films, it is first necessary to establish what film restoration entails. According to the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) Code of Ethics, the restoration of a film entails an active intervention upon the archival film, to preserve an idea of its original nature:
Turquety has compared three strategies of reconstructing Kinemacolor films: the 1990s Kinemacolor restorations
20
performed at L’Immagine Ritrovata, based on the writings of Nicola Mazzanti in Raising the Colours (Restoring
Kinemacolor) (2003), a brief account of the 2008 Kinemacolor reconstruction of David Cleveland and Brian Pritchard,
and the 2012 digital restoration performed by the British Film Institute. Turquety noted how ‘each restoration strategy of Kinemacolor films articulates an implicit epistemological comment on the relative status of colour synthesis and quantification, on the question of the necessity of technological continuity, on the importance or non-importance of the viewing process for the coherence of a given work, etc’ (110).While Turquety has commented on the epistemological implications of these reconstructions, the analysis of these restoration cases has not regarded the relation between restoration and presentation of Kinemacolor films, nor have these strategies been assessed from a perspective which regards film performance. See Turquety, Why Additive? 110.
When restoring materials, archives will endeavour only to complete what is incomplete and to remove the accretions of time, wear, and misinformation. They will not seek to change or distort the nature of the original materials or the intentions of their creators. 21
As the Code of Ethics points out, restoration consists in a series of interventions upon the archival film, without changing the films’ ‘original nature’. Within this premise, restoration entails a process bound to reflect on one hand, on how can the ‘original nature’ of the film be defined, and on the other hand, the methods through which an idea of film’s ‘nature’ can be preserved. Thus, film restoration is conceived as a practice which can entail various approaches, which are subject to how the film artefact’s ‘nature’ is defined. While the possible definitions regarding the film artifact’s ‘nature’ and how it can be restored are multiple, I propose two definitions of Kinemacolor films’ identity, which can be recognised in four restoration approaches I discuss in this thesis. Accordingly, I begin this section by exploring the characteristics of Kinemacolor films, which I argue that can be seen as performative artifacts, (further discussed in Chapter 1.1), to then propose two distinct definitions regarding the ‘nature’ of the films as part of two performance situations: the film as part of a performance mechanism and the film as performative surface. In light of these definitions of film performance, the four case studies I discuss later on represent different approaches to restore these performance situations.
Reflecting on how restoration practice is informed by how film identity is perceived, Fossati noted how the performative character of a film can be considered as an integral aspect of its identity as a film artifact. As Fossati notes:
The performative character of film becomes of relevance, for instance, when discussing
avant-garde and experimental films. There, often the film dispositif goes beyond the traditional cinema dispositif, when, for example, multiple projectors, color filters and other forms of live improvisations are used during the film “performance.” 22
As Fossati notes, the performative character of a film might be considered essential for films which are displayed through custom-made projection situations. In this view, the notion of performance entails a mode of film presentation which involves elements other than the ones used in traditional film projection. As Fossati notes, the conception of film performance would extend traditional understandings of the film
dispositif. The term cinema dispositif refers to a situation where the viewer encounters the film. The term
was coined by Jean Louis Baudry to indicate a traditional film viewing situation composed by the projector, the dark room and the human agency to which the projection is directed, the spectator23. Thus, if one considers cases where the film artifact was part of a dispositif beyond the traditional one, the film artifact’s performative character would become of relevance when discussing its restoration. This could regard especially, but not exclusively, films which were originally presented through non-traditional projections.
Fédération Internationale des Archives du Film, FIAF Code of Ethics, 3rd ed., (London, 2009), 6.
21
Fossati, From Grain, 2018, 160
22
Fossati, From Grain, 2012, 129.
While Fossati discusses the importance of the performative character of films in relation to the restoration of avant-garde and experimental films, the film as performance framework is relevant for conceptualising the identity of Kinemacolor films within their performative system. More than the traditional cinema dispositif, Kinemacolor films were synthesised as colour films during their presentation through a custom projection mechanism, where the film element was projected at a non-traditional projection speed, 32 fps, through a pair of gelatine colour filters chosen by the projectionist in each performance. In this situation, the identity of the complete colour films manifested during the film’s custom-made presentation or, performance. The fact that the complete Kinemacolor colour film was synthesised only during the film’s custom-made presentation positioned the Kinemacolor films as performative artifacts, whose identity as colour films is conceived in the moment of film performance. As I discuss in Chapter 1.1. the Kinemacolor projection mechanism varied with each performance, entailing that the appearance of the colour film image on screen changed between projections.
As the colour of Kinemacolor films is lost in the film’s past performances, a restoration of the film’s colour might entail a process of simulation. According to Fossati, in the case of obsolete colour film processes, restoration is simulation:
As I discussed already elsewhere with regard to early color films (Fossati, 1996), restoration is simulation. Film restoration is based on the best possible simulation of the original film artifact (where original is something in between the material artifact, as it has survived, and the idea of what it originally looked like), carried out using different technologies. 24
As Fossati notes, in the case of early colour films, where the colour referent is lost, restoration entails a process of simulation of the film’s historical colour. This process involves the interpretation of how the preserved material artifact might have looked like in the past, through technologies other than the historical ones. As Fossati mentioned, the simulation of a film’s colour can be carried out through both analog or digital methods. Similar to other obsolete colour processes, while the Kinemacolor material artifacts have 25
been preserved in black and white, their colour is obsolete. In line with Fossati, to restore the colour of Kinemacolor films would involve a process of complete reconstruction of the historical colour or, simulation, through different technologies. The simulation concept is most suitable for the restoration of colour in the specific cases of restoration of Kinemacolor films discussed in this thesis. Thus, in this thesis I will talk about restoration of the colour film, keeping in mind that for Kinemacolor and other additive colour systems restoration entails a process of simulation.
In the case of Kinemacolor films, and possibly also other additive colour processes, presentation becomes an integral aspect to the restoration of the colour film, due to the film’s performative character. Fossati noted how generally the restored film’s presentation is an important aspect to be considered. As Fossati notes, ‘[...] a necessary requirement for a restoration to be complete is also to be in a form that can be shown to an audience.’ While presentation is relevant for conveying access to the restored films in general, 26
Fossati, From Grain, 2012, 142.
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid., 71.
in the case of Kinemacolor films where the complete colour film was synthesised during its performance, presentation becomes an integral aspect to the restoration of the colour film. Distinct from applied colour processes, where colour would be restored according to an idea of how colour would have looked like on the surface of the material artifact, in the case of Kinemacolor films, as well as other additive colour systems, colour is restored according to an idea of how colour was synthesised during the film’s custom-made projection, or performance. Through this view, consideration to how the colour film was synthesised during its past performance, should be considered when attempting to restore the colour film. In this situation, presentation becomes an integral aspect to the restoration of the colour film.
From a perspective which regards the historical projection mechanism as integral to the restoration of the colour film, much is lost when Kinemacolor films are presented through a projection mechanism other than the historical one. Comparing the 1992 projection through red and green filters at 32 fps of a duplicate Kinemacolor film, Inauguration of the Bell of San Marco (1912), with the photochemical restoration of Rive
del Nilo (1911) where colour was restored on the film print, Paolo Bernardini argued that it was the former
method which preserved the characteristics of the system:
I would say that perhaps only in the first case (The Bell of San Marco) can we speak of a "correct" preservation process [...] i.e. creation of an element of conservation / matrix for the production of new copies and of a positive copy with characteristics as faithful as possible to the original, letting the magical reproduction of colour take place (as was the case with the use of Kinemacolor) thanks to the use of a mechanic artifice (artificio mecanico). 27
As Bernardini’s comment indicates, the restoration of the colour film through a projection mechanism different to the one used in the historical performance would not preserve the Kinemacolor film’s original characteristics. Particularly, he refers to the ‘mechanic artifice’ through which the synthesis of the colour film was produced. The ‘mechanic artifice’ entails a projection situation, or mechanism, which goes beyond the traditional projection dispositif (comprised of the film element, projectionist, and a light source), requiring elements in addition to those used in a traditional projection, such as the gelatine colour filters. In a historical Kinemacolor projection, these projection elements enabling the synthesis of the colour film on screen. On the other hand, the ‘mechanic artifice’ can refer to the film’s identity within a specific projection act, carried out tangential to film’s performance on screen. This performance involves the interaction between the projectionist, the film material and the projector with its variable elements, which are selected and adjusted by the projectionist. In this situation, the film is (physical) element, in a performance mechanism or situation, formed by the human agency and the custom-made projector. While this performance might not be visible to the audience, it is one which is remarked by archivists and restorers, interested in film projection, as is the case of Bernardini. From this perspective, one could argue that a second performance act takes place tangential to the performance of the film on screen, which is comprised of the film element as a material artifact, and the custom made projector, as operated by the projectionist. I refer to this aspect of film performance as performance mechanism.
Email exchange with Paolo Bernardini, April 1, 2019, See Appendix A, section I.
Thus, I propose the use of the term performance mechanism to define the custom made-projection situation comprised of the projectionist, the film element and the custom-made projector. While these aspects can be considered as integral to the restoration of the film’s colour synthesis, they are also elements which are obsolete: Kinemacolor projectors and their component elements such as the gelatine colour filters and carbon arc lamps are no longer used in current film projection, while the nitrate film prints are either in advanced states of decay, too fragile, or simply considered as not safe to be projected. As it will be discussed in Chapter 1.2, even if these elements have been preserved they cannot be used for projection in their current condition. In this situation, the restorers introduce elements of contemporary manufacture (the projector with its gelatine colour filters and light source, the film element) which to imitate the function of the historical ones. In this case, the re-enactment of the Kinemacolor performance mechanism involves the restoration of the film element, and the adjustment of the projection mechanism. In this context, the colour film is restored during the re-enactment of the Kinemacolor performance mechanism.
In light of this definition, the re-enactment of the performance mechanism can be recognised in two restoration approaches discussed in this thesis: the 1992 Kinemacolor restoration at Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in 1992, and the Kinemacolor restoration coordinated by Brian Pritchard and David Cleveland in 2008. As I argue in relation to these restoration cases, while they produce different Kinemacolor performances, they have both restored the colour film by preserving one aspect of the historical Kinemacolor performance, the Kinemacolor performance mechanism. As I indicate in Chapter 1.2., the re-enactment of the performance mechanism might be of particular relevance to the archival community, or viewers interested in the mechanisms of projection taking place behind the performance of the film on screen.
While the performance mechanism can be considered as integral to the restoration of the colour film, from a perspective which positions the viewer’s interaction with the film image, the Kinemacolor colour film is experienced as a performance on the surface of the screen. In her analysis of film materiality, Barbara Flueckiger argues that by looking at film as a performative instance in projection, film identity is perceived independent from its carrier, where ‘the material experience of film is neither celluloid nor its electronic variants such as magnetic tapes or circuits, but rather the flow of light that reaches our eyes’. As Flueckiger 28
notes, regardless of the carrier, when projected, the materiality of film is experienced as flow of light. From this perspective, the materiality of film during projection is different from that of the material artifact, the film element. Within this premise, the film as performance on screen is also distinct from the projection mechanism which produces it. During a film projection, the viewer’s attention is directed at the performance of the film on screen, and not the projection act carried out by the projectionist, where the film element us run through the projector. This conception would distinguish between the identity of Kinemacolor films during their performance on screen, and the Kinemacolor film’s performance as film elements, part of the projection mechanism, what I defined earlier as performance mechanism, a situation comprised of the film element (the black and white Kinemacolor film print) the custom made projector and the projectionist. Thus, the material identity of the film artifact within its performance on screen is different to that of the film element within the performance mechanism.
While Fluckinger notes how the materiality of film during its projection is perceived differently from its carrier, the screen also becomes the novel carrier of film as a performance of light, or, what I define as
Barbara Flueckiger, “Material properties of historical film in the digital age,” Necsus, Tangibility, November 22,
28
performative surface. Giuliana Bruno’s conception of surface argues that the identity of an image is
experienced as a material exchange with the viewer:
For Lucretius, the image is a thing. It is configured like a cloth, released as matter that flies out into the air. In this way, as the Epicurean philosopher and poet suggests to us, something important is shown: the material of an image manifests itself on the surface... It is as if it could be virtually peeled off, like a layer of substance, forming a ‘bark,’ or leaving sediment, a veneer, a ‘film’. 29
As Bruno notes, the surface is a place where the materiality of an image is experienced by the viewer, and it is this materiality which forms the identity of the image. Reflecting on the cinema screen, Bruno argues that ‘the cinematic screen is a luminous, reflective surface that refracts not only light, but motion.’ In this 30
conception, the screen, once activated by light, constructs an environment of motion and materiality. While Bruno attributes performative aspects to the surface of the screen, within a conception that the screen is ‘transformed’ by the images projected upon it, I argue that during its presentation, film acquires a novel identity as a performative surface, the very surface of light perceived by the viewer. In this context, the screen is not transformed by the film but becomes the film’s novel carrier. As a novel carrier, the screen is the surface where the complete film image is synthesised, enacting a performance. With performance I intend not the narrative of the film, or the movement perceived as the film performance on screen, but the film as a synthesis of light. Thus, the synthesis of the film image as light is the performance of film as perceived by the viewers. In this way, the film artifact acquires a novel identity as an ephemeral, performative surface.
This conception is particularly relevant in the case of Kinemacolor films, because it can grasp the ephemeral aspects of the film artifact’s identity during its performance on screen, as a synthesis between the film image and the colour lights. The intersection of the film image and colour on the screen enacts a performance, perceived by the viewer as the complete film image. This perspective conceives film identity as ephemeral, taking form during presentation, on the surface of the screen and in the presence of the viewer. The film as a performative surface is also separate from the identity of film element within its performance
mechanism, where film is part of a separate performative act, which most often is concealed from the viewer.
Thus, the screen becomes a novel carrier of the film performance, the location where colour light and the film synthesise, as performative surface, but also separates it from the performance enacted by the projection mechanism.
The film as performative surface is relevant to understand how the film’s performative character can be preserved through the film’s digital presentation, which I discuss in Chapter 2.2. As I note in this chapter, after scanning, the film as a digital image is composed as a numeric representation, requiring a system to read the data and display it as an image readable to the human eye. In the digital medium, the viewer perceives the image directly from the light source, such as the computer monitor or the screen on which the 31
Giuliana Bruno, Surface: Matters of Aesthetics, Materiality, and Media, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
29
2014), 2. Ibid., 96.
30
Steven Bradley, “Color Systems-Part 1,’’ Vanseo Design, March 17, 2014, Accessed June 21, 2019, https://
31
digital image is projected, in the case of digital projection , where the film image is synthesised on the 32
surface of the screen. In this context, with digital display, the film image is presented to the viewer as a surface of light. From this perspective, similar to a historical Kinemacolor projection, where the complete film was synthesised during its performance on screen, in a digital medium, the film as performative surface is not perceivable by the viewer until it is performed on the digital screen. In this context, on which I elaborate more in Chapter 2.2, the digital medium in which the film was restored and presented, can convey a novel performative life to the film artifact, while preserving the characteristics of the Kinemacolor film as a
performative surface.
In conclusion, I envision the historical Kinemacolor system as a performance, where Kinemacolor films are performative artifacts. This entails a perspective where the film’s performative character is important to preserve during the film’s restoration. Through this view, any attempt at the restoration of the (Kinemacolor) colour films entails the production of novel performances, which can preserve aspects of the historical one. In this context, presentation becomes an integral aspect to the restoration of the colour film. As I discuss later on in this thesis, depending on what aspects of film performance are prioritised, the
performance mechanism or the performative surface, novel Kinemacolor performances can be carried out in
both analog and digital worlds.
0.3. Methodology
In the following chapters, I address the issues of the restoration and presentation of Kinemacolor films, from the perspective which envisions the Kinemacolor films as performative artifacts. My methodology includes theoretical investigation and study of technical and historical literature, records and documentation of restoration workflows of L’Immagine Ritrovata, my own analysis of fragments of the Kinemacolor nitrate print, Lake Garda (1910), (restored in 2017), to which I provide photographs, and conversations with restorers involved in the restoration cases I include in this thesis. My research has been guided by past and current staff members of L’Immagine Ritrovata, which I came into contact with during and after my six month internship at L’Immagine Ritrovata. To discuss the restorations and presentations of Kinemacolor films, I first inquire into the characteristics of the Kinemacolor system by consulting accounts of the period such as the patents, manuals and reviews. Within the discussion of these characteristics, I propose definitions of two situations of the Kinemacolor performance in which the film as performative artifact is found: the
performative surface and the performance mechanism. I then reflect in the following chapters on how these
situations can be recognised in four restoration and presentation case studies. In these discussions, I reflect on conversations held with restorers involved in the specific case studies, my own research findings and the definitions of film performance proposed in this thesis. Finally, I suggest that the restoration methods
A digital projector is a specialised computer display that projects an enlarged image on a given screen surface,
32
rendering the image through an additive principle. Most common digital projectors are DLP (Digital Light Processing) and LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) systems, which translate the digital signals by combining in various proportions red, green and blue digital filters by filtering a white light source passing through them to create separate red, green and blue colours. Carl Jenkins, “DLP Vs LCD : The Ultimate Answer – Picking Hut,
analysed in the case of Kinemacolor films can be applied in the restoration and presentation of other additive colour processes.
0.4. Organisation
Chapter 1
In Chapter 1.1, I discuss the characteristics of Kinemacolor films and how they were accessed in the past. I propose the distinction of between two aspects of the Kinemacolor film performance which I define as:
performance mechanism and performative surface. I discuss these definitions in the light of historical
descriptions and instruction manuals for projecting and selecting equipment for Kinemacolor films, as revealed by written sources of the time such as photography journals, guides to ‘Kinematograph’ projections, and trade journals for the American film industry. In the light of this discussion, I conclude that Kinemacolor films can be envisioned as performative artifacts, where any attempt at their restoration entails the production of novel performances, which can preserve aspects of the historical one.
In Chapter 1.2. I reflect on the second question proposed for this thesis: How did past restoration and presentation approaches accommodate the historical Kinemacolor performance? I propose two restoration approaches in which the colour film was restored during the re-enactment of the performance mechanism, through the example of two case studies. The first is L’Immagine Ritrovata’s Kinemacolor restoration in 1992, presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato festival the same year. The second case is the 2008 Kinemacolor restoration by David Cleveland and Brian Pritchard, presented in separate shows in 2008. While these two restorations created different Kinemacolor performances, their objective was similar, as they both aimed to restore the colour film during the re-enactment of the historical performance mechanism. This involved the presentation of a duplicate Kinemacolor print through a custom made projection mechanism, similar to the historical one. In this process, both restorations preserved the Kinemacolor performance mechanism.
Chapter 2
In Chapter 2.1, I provide a second answer to the question: How did past restoration and presentation approaches accommodate the historical Kinemacolor performance? I propose that different from the restorations which preserved the Kinemacolor performance mechanism, past photochemical restorations such as the restoration of Rive del Nilo (1911) carried out in 1997/8 at L’Immagine Ritrovata, and supervised by Paolo Bernardini, restored the colour film without re-enacting the performance mechanism, but by simulating the film’s performative surface on the surface of a novel film print, intended to be projected through a traditional projection mechanism. In this restoration, the performative surface was as the main aspect of the Kinemacolor performance to be preserved, but also provided several limitations.
In Chapter 2.2, I reflect on the implications brought by the digital medium in the restoration and presentation of Kinemacolor films, as a response to the third question proposed for this thesis: How can current restorations and presentations accommodate the historical Kinemacolor performance in a digital medium? I argue that digital restoration and presentation of the Kinemacolor films can restore the colour film by restoring one of the aspects of the Kinemacolor performance, the film’s performative surface. In this process, which is described in six main stages, the restoration procedures were hybrid, involving both
photochemical interventions upon the film elements, the original nitrate prints, as well as digital restoration of the scanned films. Through this combined approach, I show how the film as material artifacts were restored, and how these photochemical interventions enabled the restoration of the film as performative
surface. In this process, the colour film was synthesised during its digital presentation on screen in the
editing room, as coordinated by the restorers. I then discuss the film’s presentation as a seventh stage which continues the film’s performative life.
Chapter 1. Characteristics of the historical Kinemacolor performance and
re-enactments of the performance mechanism (1992-2008)
1.1. Characteristics of the historical Kinemacolor performance
In this section I address the first question proposed for this thesis: How have Kinemacolor films been accessed at their origin? A response to this question entails an investigation into the characteristics of the Kinemacolor films and their performance. This reflection will enable discussions regarding their restoration and presentation in the following sections.
In this section, I argue that Kinemacolor films were accessed as part of a performance, positioning Kinemacolor films as performative artifacts of a variable character. While the Kinemacolor performances were variable and ephemeral, two recurring performance situations stand as integral to the historical performance as a whole. The first is the performance mechanism, comprised of the film element, the custom-made projection mechanism with its variable light source and gelatine filters, and the human agency involved in their coordination, the projectionist. In this performance situation, the film artifact is one element part of the performance mechanism. Tangential to this performance act, a second performance took place on the surface of the screen as perceived by the viewer, where film identity was an ephemeral, consisting in the synthesis between the film and the colour lights, which I define as performative surface. Due to the variability of the projection mechanism, whose component elements were changed between screenings, such as the properties of the gelatine colour filters and the projection light, the appearance of the synthesised film on screen, the performative surface, was not uniform across performances, but variable. While the
performative surface varied in appearance, one recurrent characteristic of its appearance on screen was
colour fringing, an aspect which, as I note in Chapter 2, should be preserved when embarking on a restoration of Kinemacolor films. Due to these aspects, I argue that the unique restoration and presentation of Kinemacolor films is contradictory with the artifact’s ephemeral, performative nature. In this context, the restoration of the Kinemacolor films would entail the production of novel performances, which can preserve characteristics of the historical one.
Kinemacolor films were presented through a custom-made projection mechanism, whose elements varied between performances, as selected by the projectionist. There were a variety of hues of red and green projection filters available at the time, selected by the projectionist, and often adapted to the subject matter of the film. For example, in the 1911 July supplement of The British Journal of Photography Colin Bennett noted how the orange-red and blue-green filters used in Kinemacolor were divided into two categories based
on their brightness, for rendering sky and water effects, or grass and foliage, each having different effects on the appearance of colour these subjects on screen:
For brilliant rendering of sky and water effects the pioneers of Kinemacolor had resort to the "light" series filters, consisting i'i, respectively, orange—transmission to about D i E—and an over light edition of tricolour green, passing distinctly more greenish-blue than the regular or darker tint. With these "light" filters blues are rendered far brighter than before, as are also artificial greens, by virtue of their large blue-green content […] On the other hand, grass and foliage green are reproduced in the resulting two-colour image as a bronze brown. 33
As Bennett notes, the choice of colour filters informed the colour appearance of the recorded subjects. With the lighter filters, blues could be rendered brighter, but the image would present green coloured subjects in brown tints. On the other hand, the lack of blue components of the image were one of the main limitations of the system. This was sometimes compensated with modifications in hue brought to the filters. Bennet proposed to correct the brown hues by replacing the blue-green filter with a light yellow-green filter and add an additional ‘blue-violet’ or ‘pure blue’ light:
The solution was found to lie in the employment of a small proportion of pure blue, or even blue-violet, light in the form of a restricted transmission band in the green filter wherein to make the necessary records of the blue subject [...] screens so dyed were a light yellow-greenish hue, much the colour of spring foliage itself. On spectroscopic examination they could be seen to pass an inconsiderable but yet sufficient amount of pure blue light.’ 34
The blue-violet light Bennet mentions was attached to the green filter to enable the projection of the blue components of the recorded image. The colour filters informed the appearance of the colour image on screen, requiring the projectionist to carefully select the ones which could render best the colours aimed to be presented. The projection mechanism was customised by the projectionist with each screening, responsible with adjusting its elements to produce a different appearance of the image on screen across projections. Thus, the projection mechanism consisted in a variable performance act carried out separate from the performance of the film on screen, as witnessed by the viewer.
The last element selected for each performance which informed the appearance of the synthesised film on screen was the projection light. Depending on the colour temperature of the projection light, the warmth and intensity of the colours on screen could appear colder or warmer in hue. As projection handbooks of the time show, there were numerous types of carbon arc lamps used for projecting film. Their colour temperature varied from ‘soft-yellow light restful to the eyes’ found in carbon filament lamps to ‘very bright and pleasing pinky-white colour’ produced by metallic filament lamps such as the gas-filled or
Colin N. Bennett, ‘Filter Absorbtions for Two-Colour’, in The British Journal of Photography, 5, no.55,(July 1911),
33
45. Ibid.
watt lamps. The green filter often had to be adjusted depending on the colour temperature of the projection 35
lamp. The projection light properties would significantly influence the appearance of colour on screen. As 36
Brian Pritchard observed during the testing of a Kinemacolor original projector, which I discuss in the following section, ‘if not adjusted properly, then the light might go brown or blue, as the carbons became further apart, or too close.’ Thus, the arc lamp had to be supervised and adjusted by the operator as the 37
carbons burned away. The variability of the projection lamp used across Kinemacolor projections, together with the adjustments required to make it function, are factors which are integral aspects of the Kinemacolor performance, but are also ephemeral ones, which impede a unique mode of (re)enacting the Kinemacolor projection situation.
Due to the variability of the projection mechanism, a precise reconstruction of the performance
mechanism is not possible. While Bennet indicates that the screens resulted were a green-yellow hue, as
described above, there is no indication towards the precise combination of tints used to produce the green filter hue, the quality and intensity of blue light or to the application of this method on specific film titles. Reviews from The Moving Picture World criticised the vagueness in describing the Kinemacolor colour filters:
A two-color process, however, as worked out by Mr. Smith, is certainly open to ordinary photographic criticism and the purist may reasonably object to such vague terms as ‘red’ and ‘green’ filters. Reds and greens are very numerous; and the spectroscope, I may say, is a very useful instrument. 38
As Bedding notes, the vagueness of colour specifications of Kinemacolor system positioned the Kinemacolor also as a system difficult to reproduce by other operators interested in the process. As described before, there were different types of colour filters used according to the subject matter, to which adjustments were often made. Thus, with each performance, the projection elements shifted, entailing a different performance act with each screening. In this context, the variable materials used in the projection produced distinct looks of the colour film on screen.
From a perspective which regards film experience, the Kinemacolor films were synthesised as performances on screen, when presented to the viewer. As G.A Smith described in a preliminary Kinemacolor patent of 1906:
If the speed of projection is approximately 30 pictures per second, the two colour records blend and present to the eye a satisfactory rendering of the subject in colours which appear to be natural. 39
Colin N. Bennett, A Guide to Kinematography Projection, 2nd ed. (London: Sir Isaac Pitman& Sons Ltd. 1923). 141.
35
Barbara Flueckiger, Kinemacolor. Timeline of Historical Film Colors, Accessed June 10, 2019, https://
36
zauberklang.ch/filmcolors/timeline-entry/1214/
David Cleveland, Brian Pritchard, Re-creating Kinemacolor on the Screen, 2008, http://www.brianpritchard.com/
37
Recreating%20Kinemacolor%20on%20the%20Screen.html (accessed June 6, 2019).
Thomas Bedding, ‘Moving Pictures in Natural Colors’, in Moving Picture World, 4, no. 2 (1909): 30-31.
38
Smith, Provisional.
As Smith suggests, the complete Kinemacolor film was synthesised during exhibition, from a sensory contact with the viewer. The synchronous rapid movement of colours and film image would convey a sensation of ‘natural’ colour to the viewer. During projection, colour would ‘blend’ before the eyes of the viewer, to ‘present’ an illusion of colour images. This description of the nature of Kinemacolor films position the film artifact as one which enacts a performance on screen, having the images blend to produce an ephemeral appearance of a colour film.
Kinemacolor films were experienced by the viewer as colour films during their performance on screen, what I defined as performative surfaces. As mentioned in the previous section, the conception of the surface as a place of contact with the viewer is relevant for conceptualising the performative character of Kinemacolor films, as light synthesised on the surface of the screen. Reflecting on Smith’s description above, the ‘subject in colours’ presented to the viewer is rendered as a performance of light, identified by the viewer as the complete, synthesised Kinemacolor film. Unlike other performances, the Kinemacolor performance synthesises the colour film records with colour light, to produce a unique surface, the complete ‘film’ as perceived by the viewer. This performance is constructed as a surface of light, supported by the screen as its carrier. In this context, the Kinemacolor (colour) film manifests as a performative surface, an ephemeral artifact whose identity is conceived when it is experienced by the viewer. 40
While the film as performative surface presented to the viewer was ephemeral, one recurring characteristics across performances was the appearance of colour fringing. Considered as a limitation of the Kinemacolor recording system, colour fringing was a perceived misalignment of the synthesised film, due to the differences in position of the recorded subjects when synthesised on the screen with the red and green colour light. Urban acknowledged this issue in a 1912 patent:
If the object photographed be rapidly moving, the color intensity or value of such subject is recorded on the successive negatives in different positions, or out of register, so much so that the respective images do not sufficiently overlap to produce color harmony, so giving rise to what is known as color “fringing”. 41
As Urban notes, colour fringing was a recurrent aspect of the Kinemacolor performances, revealed when the film and colour light synthesised on screen. To diminish colour fringing, Urban’s 1912 patent introduced a focal length correcting device . However, it is difficult to retrace the performance of this focal correcting 42
device within specific projections, and, as historical sources indicate, colour fringing occurred to the While the complete colour film was synthesised on the surface of the screen, the way in which this image was
40
perceived was through a perceptual process. To this aspect one could argue that the complete Kinemacolor film was experienced in the mind of the viewer. However, this notion would entail an analysis of a different aspects of film experience, the perceptual implications of film, which are beyond the scope of this thesis.
Charles Urban, Complete Specification. Improvements in Kinematograph Apparatus for the Production of Coloured
41
Pictures. 1912. London. UK Patent 3034. Filed 27 April 1912.
‘The employment of two reflecting mirrors, one of which is transparent and arranged to receive the whole light
42
pencil, and to pass an image thereof to a non-transparent reflector for the purpose of obtaining a duplicate image of one object, substantially as described and illustrated. In combination with the apparatus as claimed in Claim 1, the
employment of a focal length correcting device, referred to as an interceptor herein, disposed in the part of the reflected beam, substantially as described and illustrated’. February 6 1912.
majority of Kinemacolor projections, becoming a recurring aspect of their ‘look’. Thus, while colour 43
fringing might be viewed as a limitation of the Kinemacolor system, it is also an aspect integral to the film’s appearance as a performance on screen, what I define as performative surface, recurring throughout Kinemacolor performances. As I discuss in Chapter 2, colour fringing is one aspect which should be considered when embarking on a restoration of the Kinemacolor films’ performance on screen.
In conclusion, from a perspective which regards film experience, the film artifact’s identity is one which is ephemeral, as a performative surface on screen, while from the perspective which regards the film’s performance as part of the projection mechanism, the film’s identity is that of the material artifact, the black and white film print, a component part of a what I define as performance mechanism. This performance entailed running the film material through the custom projection mechanism, a performance which varied across screenings. This projection situation can be considered a performance act in itself conducted by the projectionist. Due to the variability of the performance mechanism, the appearance of the film on screen was not uniform across performances. The colour hue of the image on screen was changed depending on the type of filters used for projection, while the colour temperature of the projected image varied depending on the intensity and warmth of the projection light. While the performance of Kinemacolor films on screen was ephemeral, colour fringing was one aspect recurring throughout Kinemacolor performances, revealing the moment of synthesis between the film and colour on screen. Due to these characteristics, Kinemacolor films can be viewed as performative artifacts of a variable character, where any attempt at their preservation would entail the production of novel performances, which can simulate aspects of the historical one.
1.2. Re-enacting the Kinemacolor performance mechanism (1992-2008)
In section 1.2, I address the question: How did past restoration and presentation approaches accommodate the historical Kinemacolor performance? To reflect on this question, I discuss how Kinemacolor films were restored as colour films during the re-enactment of the performance mechanism in two cases: the restoration of L'Inaugurazione del campanile di San Marco (1912) carried out by L’Immagine Ritrovata in 1992, and the restoration of Entrainement Des Boyz Scouts (1912), Les Lacs Italiens - Lac Garde 1910, along with some of the test films made by G. Albert Smith, carried out by David Cleveland and Brian Pritchard in 2008. As I discuss below, in these cases the colour of the films was restored through the presentation of duplicate print through a projection mechanism similar to that used in historical Kinemacolor performances, which I defined as performance mechanism. In this context, the film’s presentation became an integral aspect of the restoration process. While these two restorations have created different Kinemacolor performances, they have both preserved the Kinemacolor performance mechanism, an integral aspect of the historical Kinemacolor performance.
See Barbara Flueckiger , ‘Kinemacolor,’ in Timeline of Historical Film Colors, Accessed June 10, 2019, https://
43
