Multicolor

Natural color motion picture process Color test footage filmed during the production of Animal Crackers (1930) Multicolor scene from "His First Command" 1929 depicting Dorothy Sebastian and Helen Parrish Multicolor is a subtractive two-color motion picture process. Multicolor, introduced to the motion picture industry in 1929, was based on the earlier Prizma Color process, and was the forerunner of Cinecolor. For a Multicolor film, a scene is shot with a normal camera capable of bipacking film. Two black-and-white 35mm film negatives are threaded bipack in the camera. One records the color red (via a dyed panchromatic film), and the other, blue (orthochromatic). In printing, duplitized stock is exposed and processed with one record on each side. In a tank of toning solution, the film is floated upon the top of the solution with the appropriate chemical. The cyan record is toned a complementary red with a copper ferrocyanide solution, and the red being toned blue/cyan with ferric ferrocyanide solution. Multicolor enjoyed brief success in early sound pictures. The following features included sequences in Multicolor: Red Hot Rhythm (1929), His First Command (1929), This Thing Called L