Friese-Greene
Year
1898
Principle
Additive 2 or 3 color: Alternately stained
Invented by
William Friese-Greene
Description
“In 1898 William Friese-Greene, a professional portrait photographer by trade, demonstrated in London ‘the first process of true natural-color cinematography.’ His program consisted of ‘a series of animated natural-color pictures,’ and although this demonstration aroused considerable interest at the time, Friese-Greene was unable to exploit this system on a profitable basis. Undaunted, he eventually developed a total of four different color methods [seeBiocolour]. Although each contained serious drawbacks precluding their commercial use, Friese-Greene’s experiments are important to study. Not only do they serve as a starting place for the evolution of color cinematography, but his work provided ‘the basic principles which…have served as the foundation for the operations of all the experimenters who have followed.’”
(Nowotny, Robert A. (1983):The Way of all Flesh Tones. A History of Color Motion Picture Processes, 1895-1929. New York: Garland Pub., p. 27.)
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Credit: Courtesy of BFI National Archive. Photograph by Barbara Flueckiger. Film:Kino the Girl of Colour (GB 1920, William Friese-Greene, Claude Friese-Greene).
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Credit: Cinémathèque française, conservatoire des techniques, Paris.
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Credit: Paolo Cherchi Usai. Source: Cherchi Usai, Paolo (2000):Silent Cinema. London: BFI.
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Original Technical Papers and Primary Sources
Bedding, Thomas (1909): “Moving Pictures In Natural Colors”. In:Moving Picture World, 4, February 27, 1909, pp. 230-231.View Quote
Secondary Sources
Allister, Ray (1948): Friese-Greene. Close Up of An Inventor. London: Marsland.
Anonymous (1910): Friese-Greene Color Process. In: The Moving Picture World, 7, 7.12.1910, p. 1413. Repr. from: Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly. London.
Anonymous (1911): The Friese-Greene Color Process, Moving Picture World, January 21, 1911, p. 146.
Anonymous (1923): British Colour Film Invention. In:The Bioscope, 898,LVII, Dec., p. 10.View Quote
Brown, Simon (2012): Technical Appendix. In: Sarah Street:Colour Films in Britain. The Negotiation of Innovation 1900-55. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 259-287, on pp. 271-272.View Quote
Brown, Simon (2013): “The Brighton School and the Quest for Natural Color” – Redux. In: Brown, Simon; Street, Sarah; Watkins, Liz (eds.):Color and the Moving Image. History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive. New York, London: Routledge, pp. 13-22.View Quote
Cherchi Usai, Paolo (2000): Silent Cinema. London: BFI, p. 28.View Quote
Cleveland, David; Pritchard, Brian (2015):How Films were Made and Shown. Some Aspects of the Technical Side of Motion Picture Film 1895–2015. Manningtree, Essex: David Cleveland, on pp. 206–207.View Quote
Hopwood, Henry Vaux (1915): Color cinematography. In: Henry Vaux Hopwood:Hopwood’s living pictures. Their history, photoproduction, and practical working. With classified lists of British patents and bibliography. London: The Hatton Press, new ed., rev. and enl. by R.B. Foster, pp. 253–273, on p. 262.View Quote
Hulfish, David Sherill (1913): Motion-Picture Work. Chicago: American School of Correspondence. First edition, pp. 262-277, on pp. 273-277. View Quote
Huntley, John (1949):British Technicolor Films. Cornhill, London: Skelton Robinson, on p. 17.View Quote
Klein, Adrian Bernhard = Cornwell-Clyne (1940): Colour Cinematography. Boston: American Photographic Pub. Co.. 2nd revised edition: p. 5.View Quote
Misek, Richard (2010):Chromatic Cinema. A History of Screen Color. John Wiley & Sons, on pp. 120–121.View Quote
Nowotny, Robert A. (1983):The Way of All Flesh Tones. A History of Color Motion Picture Processes, 1895-1929. New York: Garland Pub., pp. 27-38.View Quote
Street, Sarah (2012): Colour Films in Britain. The Negotiation of Innovation 1900-55. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, on pp. 32–36.View Quote
Talbot, Frederick A. (1923):Moving Pictures. Philadelphia: Lippincott 1923, p. 343.View Quote
Films
According to Simon Brown (2012): Technical Appendix: Friese-Greene Natural Colour process. In: Street, Sarah:Colour Films in Britain. The Negotiation of Innovation 1900-55. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, on p. 272:
Friese-Greene Natural Colour process:
Moonbeam Magic (1924)
Dance of the Moods (1924)
Quest for Colour(1924)2
The Open Road (GBR 1925, Claude Friese-Greene)1, 2
1 Watkins, Liz (2013): Interview. Sonia Genaitay. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.):British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 200–207, on pp. 201–205.View Quote
2 Cleveland, David; Pritchard, Brian (2015):How Films were Made and Shown. Some Aspects of the Technical Side of Motion Picture Film 1895–2015. Manningtree, Essex: David Cleveland, on pp. 206–207.View Quote
Downloads
Bedding, Thomas (1909): Moving pictures in natural colors. In:Moving Picture World 4, 27.2.1909, pp. 230-231.
Download PDF
Patents
E.P. 4,774 (Friese-Greene, William; filed Feb. 26, 1912; granted Feb. 26, 1913)
Download PDFE.P. 9,465 (Friese-Greene, William; filed May 5, 1905; granted Feb. 15, 1906)
Download PDFE.P. 13,883 (Friese-Greene, William; filed Aug. 2, 1900; granted June 15, 1901)
Download PDFE.P. 21,649 (Friese-Greene, William; filed Oct. 14, 1898; granted Oct. 14, 1899)
Download PDF
Links
Anonymous (1924): The Spectrum Films. In:Motion Picture Magazine, XXVII,8, Sep., p. 109.View Link
Restoration
Watkins, Liz (2013): Interview. Sonia Genaitay. In: Simon Brown, Sarah Street and Liz Watkins (eds.):British Colour Cinema. Practices and Theories. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 200–207, on pp. 201–205.View Quote
Contemporary Reception
Anonymous (1924): A New Colour Process. In:The Bioscope, 912,LIX, Apr., p. 22.View Quote
Anonymous (1924): F.-G. Colour Films. Topicals in Colour. Speed and Economy. In:The Bioscope, 937,LX, Sep., p. 71.View Quote
Anonymous (1924): The Spectrum Films. In:Motion Picture Magazine, XXVII,8, Sep., p. 109.View Link
The Open Road (GBR 1925, Claude Friese-Greene):
Anonymous (1925): Real Colour Film at Last. New All-British Natural Colour Process an Amazing Success. In:The Bioscope, 997,LXV, Nov.View Quote
Selected Analyses
Moonbeam Magic (GBR 1924, Felix Orman):
Street, Sarah (2012):Colour Films in Britain. The Negotiation of Innovation 1900-55. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, on p. 36.View Quote
The Open Road (GBR 1925, Claude Friese-Greene):
Street, Sarah (2012):Colour Films in Britain. The Negotiation of Innovation 1900-55. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, on pp. 34–36.View Quote
Timeline of Historical Film Colors by Barbara Flueckiger is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Quote as Flueckiger, Barbara (2012 ff.): Timeline of Historical Film Colors. (= https://filmcolors.org/).
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