Colour

In the early days of cinema, films were made solely in black and white, or MONOCHROME. In the early decades of the 20th Century, film making technology quickly advanced, and film makers started to experiment with colour. At first, this involved effectively painting specific colours onto the black and white film reel itself - a technique referred to a ADDITIVE COLOUR.

By the 1930s, however, a company called TECHNICOLOR had developed a far more sophisticated means of applying colour to film, a technique used to particularly dazzling effect in 1939, in THE WIZARD OF OZ. Since then, colour has become the norm, and an expectation of the audience - first just in cinemas, and now on TV too. This means that when monochrome film techniques are used nowadays, they are used for a specific reason.

Spielberg's SCHINDLER'S LIST is a particularly interesting example of this, relying, as it does, on monochrome throughout, apart from the beginning, the end, and a startling use of additive colour with the little girl's red coat as a MOTIF throughout.

Examples: >