Kodak 1922 Kodachrome Film Test 

That link no longer works.

The blog post is long gone but I was able to pull this from the Wayback machine: Recently I saw a piece of film at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film that mesmerized me. It was a test of Kodachrome color motion picture film from 1922. To provide context, the first full length color feature film did not appear until 13-years later (Becky Sharp). Watching this little film clip was like time travel for me! I thought that it would be interesting to share during Oscar® week. In order to share we had to scan the original piece of film to create the version you will see below. That is where Kyle Alvut came in. Kyle works in our Entertainment Imaging division, the movie people, and is an expert in motion picture film and digitization. I visited our labs to get the film scanned and was impressed with the technology there. I knew that this little piece of footage was in good hands. I learned that the flicker that you will see is a result of two different things. First, early cameras were hand cranked, or hand wound, to feed the film through. This could result in slight variations in speed. Second, there could be uneven densities in the film itself because of its age. These two physical characteristics combine to produce the "flicker" that you see. There are digital enhancements that can be made to address this but we thought it better to keep this in its original form. I wonder, who were the ladies in this test? Were they Kodak employees? What kind of lives did they lead? Those questions are lost to the ages. So without further adieu, here from 1922, a full 7 years before the first Academy Award ceremony, is some of the earliest color motion pictures that you will ever see. That was kind of like time travel wasn't it? What did you think? UPDATE March 11, 2010: This just in from friend and fellow film geek Mike C. more information on this piece of footage from a Silent Film Festival site. Well done! "In these newly preserved tests, made in 1922 at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, actress Mae Murray appears almost translucent, her flesh a pale white that is reminiscent of perfectly sculpted marble, enhanced with touches of color to her lips, eyes, and hair. She is joined by actress Hope Hampton modeling costumes from The Light in the Dark (1922), which contained the first commercial use of Two-Color Kodachrome in a feature film. Ziegfeld Follies actress Mary Eaton and an unidentified woman and child also appear. George Eastman House is the repository for many of the early tests made by the Eastman Kodak Company of their various motion picture film stocks and color processes. The Two-Color Kodachrome Process was an attempt to bring natural lifelike colors to the screen through the photochemical method in a subtractive color system. First tests on the Two-Color Kodachrome Process were begun in late 1914. Shot with a dual-lens camera, the process recorded filtered images on black/white negative stock, then made black/white separation positives. The final prints were actually produced by bleaching and tanning a double-coated duplicate negative (made from the positive separations), then dyeing the emulsion green/blue on one side and red on the other. Combined they created a rather ethereal palette of hues." Of Note: This footage is from the George Eastman House collections. Preservation was completed by the museum's Motion Picture Department, a project of Sabrina Negri, a student in Eastman House's L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation and a recipient of the Haghefilm Foundation Fellowship.

It would be nice to see a digitally restored version of this.

This must have been shot on 35mm stock as 16mm was not released until 1923. It is interesting that further R & D was not done using this bi colour system as it would have been a boon to the industry and surely cheaper than 2 color Technicolor. Does anyone have any comments to add to this intriguing subject? I would be grateful to hear from anyone.

Mr. Kodak, were any movies shot in Kodachrome? Every movies from 30s and 40s say Technicolor?

Travis Kale it's also crazy to think that this film was 20 years old during ww2

100 years by now

Mae Murry would have expected it I think.

@@lrobbinz I am about to get ahead of the game and declare - 150 years later!

cool, you're the best!

thank you for precious info this film is incredible seems filmed yesterday the colors and quality is astonishing !

I think that the woman in hat at 1:37 is Martha Mansfield

gukonni I think the unidentified woman in hat prior to :51 is actually Hope Hampton. If you look at pictures of her and her silent film performances, especially The Light in the Dark (1922), it looks just like her. I don't know if the woman you're calling Hope Hampton is the same woman in costume or not. Incidentally, sources I found say that Hope Hampton was wearing a costume from The Light in the Dark, which indeed does appear to match the second woman that you say is Hampton.

I am somewhat amazed that the names of all these women haven't been lost to time.

It is wonderful !

Even more amazing is that Mark Twain wrote a story featuring the internet (or a version of it) in 1898. He imagined pictures being sent via telephone cables around the world. "As soon as the Paris contract released the telelectroscope, it was delivered to public use, and was soon connected with the telephonic systems of the whole world. The improved ‘limitless-distance’ telephone was presently introduced and the daily doings of the globe made visible to everybody, and audibly discussable too, by witnesses separated by any number of leagues." "From the ‘London Times’ of 1904" by Mark Twain People were imagining these technologies long before they were possible :)

I so love the women of the silents

@Phil's Study Time Incredible foresight!

Phil's Study Time Early fax machines existed even in the telegraph age. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantelegraph

What a great idea, playing this at the Oscars. It might help Hollywood to occasionally look beyond itself for just one minute and contemplate from whence they came.

I agree. I love watching it from time to time. The music they used is perfect. It gives it a ghostly feel.

+DiscoMatty McNiceness It is truly touching and it is if they are reaching from the past to us here in the future through this piece of fragile nitrate film. I feel their spirit.

It really is. Watching archive footage is like looking into another world.

The music is shit

Uriah Music is good.

Pro trick : watch movies on Flixzone. Me and my gf have been using them for watching a lot of movies these days.

@Lian Hank definitely, I've been watching on Flixzone for since november myself =)

@Lian Hank Definitely, I've been watching on Flixzone for years myself =)

Yes...it is like watching a high speed film of flowers blooming and then fading...such is the transitory nature of Beauty itself, not to mention Life itself!...if only we could transcend the restrictions that Time puts upon us!...these clips make me feel emotional.

+Patriotpower wow! 103, good for him. my grandpa was 9 but died in 95

Mine was 17 but he died in 1997 at 92 years old...

My grandpa was -23 at this time.

Patriotpower mine was 39 died in 1994

Mine was 10 passed away in 1995

Beautifully said ..

Right? I thought this would be more ghostly.

Every people is "people", even in old Egipt or something. We just can't see them, but they were much more similar to us than we use to think. They were just regular people going through their lives, shame we won't even see them in film.

It's the color.

The girl with platinum blonde hair is Mary Eaton she died of alcohol poisoning in the 40’s but her memory lives on forever in these early color films she has more than just this one short.

how old are you?

:( You're hitting me in the nostalgic feels here man.

Kodachrome was utterly unique - I miss it terribly. Heck, I miss Ektachrome. A different animal, but a lovely look in its own way. E100S 6x6 slides are a thing to behold. I'm sure medium format Kodachromes were pure magic.

Doug Elick Were getting ektachrome back eventually. Closest thing to Kodachrome, is essentially meant to be Kodachrome alternative.

Ektachrome was meant as a replacement for Kodachrome, but it wasn't. It's its own animal. Not nearly as stable as an archival medium, but more resistant to projection fading. Not nearly as fine grained as Kodachrome, but still very good and with a color palate I always enjoyed. A very respectable runner-up to Kodachrome. If you offered me one roll of E100S or an entire case of Fuji Velvia (with its ghoulish greens), I'd take the Kodachrome. Unless they bring Kodachrome back and make it available as roll film (120), it's of no use to me. @Gordon Ackerman It's no Kodachrome, but Ektar 100 is a damned fine color reversal film - it has a good deal of E100S's soul. Assuming they didn't discontinue that too. Portra gets most skin tones right, if that's your focus.

I was hoping someone would comment on this. The second piece - Kindle - is stunning. It's available from Universal Music, who bought Killer Tracks not long ago.

+Van Knutson interesting, thank you for your insight.

+Van Knutson Cool, now I wonder whats the deal with blue. Photocopiers also used to have a hard time "seeing" blue (that's why artist started using blue for sketching before drawing, so when they copied the drawing the blue color of the sketching lines vanished). And then with LEDs, it was blue the last color that was necessary to create a white LED, and it tooks years to create the technology and the guys that did it won a Nobel a few years ago.

Maximiliano Santander I had a professor who wouldn't let us use blue pens for this reason. He was in his late 70s.

Van Knutson So if someone was wearing blue, what would it be seen as when viewing the film?

I believe something closer to green.

Except that was in Technicolor not Kodachrome. Of course, it was years before full color movie film was viable.

@@ThreadBomb "Toll of the sea" is a Technicolor system ii film. That system was a two colour system; not full colour. Technicolor system iv introduced in 1932 was the first "full" gamut Technicolor system. "Flowers & Trees" a Disney animation was the first film to be made in Technicolor iv. "Cucharacha" in 1934 was the first Technicolor iv live action film. Gasparcolor ( a chromolytic system) was the first full Colour gamut subtractive print single film process (1932) , this had some limited success in Europe( mainly in animation). Gasparcolor was very "Slow" and could not be used as a negative, so beam splitter cameras/ successive exposure /colour filter wheel cameras had to used for the primary photography, so it was not really much of an improvement on Technicolor IV. Full colour gamut Kodachrome came on the market in 1935 ( & was the first chromogenic film process). Followed in 1936 with AGFA neu Colour chromagenic film with integral dye couplers.

@@martinhughes2549 there is no blue in this video. This early kodachrome is also a 2 color system.

@@reviewgodusa9613 That's right. Two color systems had to compromise a lot, usually with an orange and cyan filter giving ok skins tones; but odd looking other colors. They also where not that sharp either using duplicized film stocks or two films stocks glued together( Tech ii). Cinecolor for example; used a bipack film camera system ( two films back to back, one Othorchromatic ; for blue/green, ( front of the film) with an orange dye base( back of the Orthorchromatic film) behind the Ortho film they had a strip of Panchromatic film pressed tightly up against the Ortho film in the film gate. This film could only record what the filter on the back of the Ortho film let through= Orange/red). This was then printed on a duplicised print film stock, each side of the film had one compromise color after processing. It looks ok ..ish. but lasted until the early 1950s. They managed to adapt this process to a three Color process called SuperCineColor, which looks quite nice. It's a fascinating subject! This two colour version of Kodachrome was on the market for still photography around 1915 I believe. It was technically better than Tech ii; so I'm not sure why Hollywood seemed to have ignored it?

I get your sentiments...I would love to be able to give those ladies a hug, from the future, and let them know that their essence will be celebrated 100 years in the future.

@@curbozer5006 they knew my friend, they knew

Well they were beautiful but bear in mind they’re all actresses so then as now the most conventionally beautiful are the only ones you’d be seeing on film. It’s like someone in 100 years watching screen tests of today’s starlets thinking omg women in the 2020s were stunning - erm they’re like 0.0001% representative of the majority of women who surprise surprise don’t look like that. Ultimately all women and men are beautiful from the Neanderthals to now!

@@moominmay I imagined people from the 2100s thinking "Those TikTok stars were so beautiful and classy compared to girls nowadays!". Hahaha, it was a funny thought.

@@moominmay too bad your theory doesn't stick. Accept Jesus Christ and Repent all your Sins.

The most disgusting part is that there are hardly any films there. Back then it was natural to find this in the 1920's, always sources of ingenious amazement. Automobiles, fashion, and film. But now, people are convinced color was just popular in 1960. It is hideous that this is the modern world, always proving how good they are compared to the past, yet never having anything actually revolutionary that they bring up beside a project.

I do believe it is.

James Zeruk Jr. good call, thank you. i have watched this clip on and off for years, wondering.

+Rawson Gordon II Thanks, but I must give credit for that to my editor, author and film historian Eve Golden, who is an image archivist! Eve confirmed when I sent her this video!

Amazing how nobody seemed to notice this or credit her.

Mae Murray was one of the most famous women in the world by the mid-twenties. She made a tragic mistake in '26 when she married a bogus "prince," probably because she was pregnant. He took control of her affairs and convinced her to make decisions that would eventually destroy her career. Within a matter of a few years the estimated 3 million dollars she'd made had vanished or was stolen by her husband. She would end up a destitute relic of the forgotten silent era; mentally unstable; obsessively planning her "comeback" up until the day she died (1965), penniless, at the Motion Picture Home she'd been part of creating 40 years before.

IKR!!!!

A bit mixed eh?

Bitch, my entire channel was filmed with the 6s, AND I THINK IT LOOKS FINE.

because its use large format duh

You can’t really compare film to digital, the two are completely different. Technically your iPhone 6 is better, but film has an amazing aesthetic and look that no digital camera could ever produce. 😉

the last model is Mae Murray she discovered Rudolph Valentino talent

She’s saying, “ Rudy, you gotta suck the spaghetti thru pursed lips”.

To me it look like she said “ok” to the director a couple of times and then “yeah, of course.”

I think I would’ve had more luck with the ladies in those days. I get the impression that women had more values and were loyal to their partners in those days. And there wasn’t such a thing as feminism.

@@teleaddict23 found the inc3l

Nah.. look at her right arm. She's taking a selfie. Not my type. At all.

@@teleaddict23 you do realise that feminism was giant back then

@@teleaddict23 whats hilarious is many girls say the exact same thing about guys back in those days. Guess we all just need to work and focus on our own problems and not the other genders

very good!

@@teleaddict23 shut up incel trash

R.I.P to her

R.I.P

***** How do you Know?

***** Dude I suppose evefry pearson that has died in your family is fake rufus im sorry for your loss.

Rufus Masters RIP in peace

they had color footage in 1902.

It must have been recently colourised as it looks too damn good. If it really was from 1922, how come colour films didn't exist at that time but the technology existed perfectly for a 5 minute reel of random women?

southlondon86 i think it was how the early color films degraded over time. something to do with the film material they had to use that warped under the heat of the projection lamp or was too fragile or something like that. too expensive to mass produce.

southlondon86 its a Kodachrome test. The chrome part of the name means color. Yes, its color film from back then.

Stupid fuck!

Truth Sayer fuck off mate they're all wearing a clowns worth of makeup

Straight men are so Hypocritical. Who do you think imposed these beauty standards? MEN! You think shes beautiful, but men back in the day were a lot more entitled and assholes then, and put beautiful women like these down constantly. Why do you think showgirls were popular back in the day? Because they wore a lot if makeup, bared their skin, and shimmied their assets. Regular women tried keeping up with the pinups and starlets, and here we are today!

Jacob Cannon Way to cast a net over a whole group of people. If the cosmetic surgeries we have available today were around back then, they'd likely be just as popular. The 1920's saw an overall relaxing of pre-war social norms.

Oh. 9years ago! Hello lost account One day some one will read this

+hamsterdunce maybe she's a vampire and you will eventually meet her :F

Unfortunately, she's been dead for probably 30 years.

+Vincememe It's like looking at time through a microscope...

She is Mary Eaton. Mary Eaton (January 29, 1901 - October 10, 1948) was a leading American stage actress, singer, and dancer in the 1910s and 1920s. A professional performer since childhood, she enjoyed success in stage productions such as the Ziegfeld Follies and early sound films such as Glorifying the American Girl and The Cocoanuts, but found her career in sharp decline by the mid-1930s. A battle with alcoholism led to her death in 1948 from liver failure.

How sad she died at the age of 47. Just shows how we are only here for a short while. One life, live it.

No, I don't think this is two-strip Technicolor. It's Kodacolor. It reproduces the full spectrum, but it's very slow. You don't want to set the actors on fire while you're trying to photograph them.

it's because they wore proper clothes and not bi*ch theirselves out, i believe :)

its just you. these women are only 3 generations back and they are wearing makeup. thats just an eyeblink of time.

+Dave simply because they selected pretty ones for filming. It has always been this way.

LOL that slipped my mind! you are absolutely correct.

+Dave yeah, they werent exactly filming the pigs of the day lol

Well one of the ladies is Mae Murray. You can wiki her name to learn more about her.

iMiKE23 I 'm trying to figure out who all the other women are---maybe lesser known actresses, or maybe even some models?

cfila1 Hope Hampton, Mary Eaton and Mae Murray.

Marylouise Fraijo Ambriz Who is the second girl, reclining blonde?

Stakker I believe this to be Hope Hampton. www.silentsaregolden.com/photos/hopehamptonphoto.html

What's scary about that?!?!?

I think they're sexy. ;3

then you should throw away your bills.

Why? My grandmother was born in 1907, she is still alive today

***** Well, the kid in the video would be like 102 if he lived until today at least, 2014

Moosetta Mary Eaton

Especially her smile at 1:21. :)

DATalt I know, my heart melted

I wonder who she was, she gave me the tinglys.

I wondered what her life had been like, considering that she's surely passed away by now.

BangMan007 Apparently she is none other than "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, who was actually Canadian. She lived to the ripe old age of 87 and died extremely wealthy. She was a co-founder of United Artists. The color footage really accentuates her beauty.

Is it that hard to click the "see more" tab?

shes saying "get me the hell out of the 20's."

+George Strum I have no idea where the original blog post from Kodak went, but here's an excerpt: "In these newly preserved tests, made in 1922 at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, actress Mae Murray appears almost translucent, her flesh a pale white that is reminiscent of perfectly sculpted marble, enhanced with touches of color to her lips, eyes, and hair. She is joined by actress Hope Hampton modeling costumes from The Light in the Dark (1922), which contained the first commercial use of Two-Color Kodachrome in a feature film. Ziegfeld Follies actress Mary Eaton and an unidentified woman and child also appear.George Eastman House is the repository for many of the early tests made by the Eastman Kodak Company of their various motion picture film stocks and color processes. The Two-Color Kodachrome Process was an attempt to bring natural lifelike colors to the screen through the photochemical method in a subtractive color system. First tests on the Two-Color Kodachrome Process were begun in late 1914. Shot with a dual-lens camera, the process recorded filtered images on black/white negative stock, then made black/white separation positives. The final prints were actually produced by bleaching and tanning a double-coated duplicate negative (made from the positive separations), then dyeing the emulsion green/blue on one side and red on the other. Combined they created a rather ethereal palette of hues."

+raleighman3000 You...made me laugh hard right out loud...that was hilarious... Thank you 👏😂👏

+WhirledPeace yw

I'd love to know, too.

but these women hadn't any. Other than makeup. I don't consider that narrow; these women had a beauty that wasn't manufactured. It was just captured.

human is human but who is really human?? you know something about the kind of human you are? what changes is the consciousness we have about our self… and the knowledge.

probably a slapper

My history professor said flappers were "lovely, expensive, and about nineteen"