Pathécolor, later renamed Pathéchrome, was an early mechanical

stencil Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface, by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object, to create a pattern or image on a surface, by allowing the pigment to reach ...

-based

film tinting Film tinting is the process of adding color to black-and-white film, usually by means of soaking the film in dye and staining the film emulsion. The effect is that all of the light shining through is filtered, so that what would be white light bec ...

process for movies developed by

Segundo de Chomón Segundo Víctor Aurelio Chomón y Ruiz (also Chomont or Chaumont ; 17 October 1871 – 2 May 1929) was a pioneering Spanish film director, cinematographer and screenwriter. He produced many short films in France while working for Pathé, Pat ...

for

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

in the early 20th century. Among the last feature films to use this process were the British

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film ''

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'' (1930) and the

Mexican Mexican may refer to: Mexico and its culture *Being related to, from, or connected to the country of Mexico, in North America ** People *** Mexicans, inhabitants of the country Mexico and their descendants *** Mexica, ancient indigenous people ...

film ''

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'' (1954) by Spanish

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. The Pathécolor stencil process should not be confused with the later Pathécolor, Pathé Color and Color by Pathé trade names seen in screen credits and advertising materials. Like Metrocolor, WarnerColor and Color by DeLuxe, these were simply rebrandings, for advertising purposes, of the use of

Eastman Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

's Eastmancolor color negative film for the original photography. However, the stencil process was not a

color photography Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of ...

process and did not use color film. Like computer-based

film colorization Film colorization (American English; or colourisation [British English], or colourization [Canadian English and Oxford English]) is any process that adds color to black-and-white, sepia, or other monochrome moving-picture imag ...

processes, it was a way of arbitrarily adding selected colors to films originally photographed and

printed Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

. Each

frame A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

of an extra print of the black-and-white film to be colored was rear-projected onto a sheet of

frosted glass Frosted glass is produced by the sandblasting or acid etching of clear sheet glass. This creates a pitted surface on one side of the glass pane and has the effect of rendering the glass translucent by scattering the light which passes through ...

, as in

rotoscoping Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, animators projected photographed live-action movie images onto a glass panel and traced ov ...

. An operator used a blunt

stylus A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a writing utensil or a small tool for some other form of marking or shaping, for example, in pottery. It can also be a computer accessory that is used to assist in navigating or providing more precision w ...

to trace the outlines of areas of the projected image that were to be tinted one particular color. The stylus was connected to a reducing

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

that caused a sharp blade to cut corresponding outlines through the actual film frame, creating the

for that color in that frame. This had to be done for each individual frame, and as many different stencil films had to be made as there were different colors to be added. Each of the final projection prints was matched up with one of the stencil films and run through a machine that applied the corresponding

dye A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution an ...

through the stencil. This operation was repeated using each of the different stencils and dyes in turn.

External links

Pathécolor on Timeline of Historical Film Colors
with many written resources and many photographs of Pathécolor prints.

Pathecolor at IMDB
Film and video technology Silent film {{filmmaking-stub

See also

External links