Black and White to Color

[Kevbo]

Early color TVs were spectacularly complicated. About 3X more so than a B&W set. Three times as many tubes to fail, and three times as many tubes generating heat to cook and cause failure or at least drift in other components. 3 dot color CRTs also generate a ton more heat than monochrome because they have a mask that blocks 2/3 of the electrons leaving each gun. (fixing this was part of why Sony’s trinatron tube was a big deal)

I am an electrical engineer with a lot of RF and analog experience, and I still can’t work out how the hell a convergence board worked…

By the 1960s, B&W TVs pretty much just worked, maybe needing a tweak to the V.hold once in a while. Color TVs through the 1970s required regular futzing if you wanted anything near true colors, and most consumers just learned to live with poor convergence causing colored auras in part of the picture.

[Kent_Clark]

@Schnitte

I don’t quite get what you’re getting at. Do you think what was prohibitive was the cost of processing color film because this process is technologically more elaborate than that for B/W? While this is certainly true, I still think - although I admit I don’t have robust figures at hand - that these extra costs are negligible, considering the overall costs of shooting and distributing a movie. The cost of the actual physical stock is just too small an item there.

Or do you want to say that Technicolor kept processing costs artificially high as compared to B/W, higher than what one would expect considering the difference in technology and the actual process? Well, while Technicolor pioneered color film, it certainly had no monopoly on it unless for the first few years of color film. As early as the 1930s and 1940s, several competing companies sprung up offering color film solutions, making it impossible for Technicolor to charge monopoly prices (which Technicolor as a monopolist would presumably not have set at a prohibitively high level anyway).

Or do you want to say that what was prohibitive was the expense of having two technologically different processing lines parallelly, one for color and one for B/W? I can see the point in that, this might explain while it was difficult for color to get started; but once a critical mass of productions in color had been reached, this effect would be more likely to accelerate transition to an all-color movie industry, rather than having the two technologies in parallel for decades, as was the case.

What I was trying to say was that simply calculating the cost of raw film stock for color vs. black and white does not fully explain the cost difference between making a movie in color vs. making one in black and white.

The lighting requirements for color were different. That required a soundstage that had the extra lighting, as well as a cinematographer who knew how to deal with that much light.

Until Eastmancolor came along in the early 1950s, Technicolor was pretty much the standard for color production in Hollywood. Technicolor required special cameras, which in turn required specialized camera operators, so you couldn’t assign just any camera operator the director wanted. (Kinemacolor, the technique developed in England, also required special cameras.)

Then there was the issue of the slightly but not negligable cost difference of color prints vs. black and white for distribution to thousands of theaters.

Using beowullf’s cite for GWTW, let’s say the entire added cost was 10-12 percent. The extra cost might be worth it for GWTW, but not for the dozen Andy Hardy films that MGM cranked out on the stock sets and back lots.

[Squink]

@Captain_Midnight

Why didn’t the Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind revolutionize color films?

The Wizard of Oz, filmed in three-strip Technicolor:

One major drawback of Technicolor’s three-strip process was that it required a special, bulky, and very heavy Technicolor camera. Film studios could not purchase Technicolor cameras, only rent them for their productions, complete with camera technicians and a “color supervisor” to ensure sets, costumes and makeup didn’t push beyond the limitations of the system. Often on many early productions, the supervisor was Natalie Kalmus, ex-wife of Herbert Kalmus and part owner of the company.[citation needed]

The process of splitting the image reduced the amount of light reaching the film stock. Since the film speed of the stocks used were fairly slow, early Technicolor productions required a greater amount of lighting than a black and white production. It is reported that heat on the film set of The Wizard of Oz from the hot studio lights frequently exceeded 100 °F (38 °C), and some of the more heavily costumed characters required a large water intake. Some actors and actresses claimed to have suffered permanent eye damage from the high levels of illumination.[citation needed]

Because of the added lighting and triple amount of film necessary, Technicolor’s productions demanded a high budget film for its usage.

It was a long slog getting to something that didn’t make filming in color an expensive pita.

[installLSC]

Another reason it took so long for color broadcasting to become the norm was corporate infighting. When the color standards were being debated before the FCC in the late 1940s, there was a contest between systems backed by CBS (a partly mechanical system that would couldn’t be received by existing TVs) and NBC (an all electronic system that was compatable with B&W sets). The CBS system at first gave a superior picture and was originally approved by the FCC. When NBC used its manufacturing and lobbbying power to get the FCC to overturn the decision in 1953, CBS in a fit of pique kept almost all its programming in B&W. At that time CBS was the clear No. 1 in the ratings. With ABC having very little color programming either (mostly due to its chronic funding problems), very few people in the fifties would put up with the troublesome color TVs just to get one channel. The book “Tube” by David and Marshall Fisher gives a great account on the struggle for color TV.