The 2023 Color in Film Conference returned with a splash, thanks to the organizational mastery of Ulrich Ruedel and Elza Tantcheva-Burdge who held the seventh annual color conference in the beautiful Film Archiv Austria/Metro Kinokulturhaus in Vienna.  For the first time the conference was themed around a fascinating new special topic in Color and underwater … Continue reading ‘Report of the 7th International Color in Film Conference, Vienna, Austria. 11th-13th December 2023’ by Dr Kirsten Moana Thompson.

Films and stars of the 1950s and 1960s are frequently referenced by today’s beauty writers and influencers, who often suggest that exuberant eye makeup was typical of the era. This rationale is supported by colourfully made-up eyes in advertisements and editorials in fashion magazines (fig.1), as evidenced in a 1969 edition of US Vogue: "Conventional … Continue reading ‘ “Blue is a Problem”: Hollywood’s Aversion to Coloured eyeshadow in films of the 1950s and 60s’ by Dr. Cathy Lomax

In 1982, working in the Production Library at the BFI National Film and TV Archive, I took a call from an elderly man enquiring about his Everest film. Little did I know that this film would play a continuing role throughout my career as an archivist, providing a unique perspective on the history of Everest … Continue reading ‘Captain John Noel – Everest and Beyond “The Affair of the Dancing Lamas”‘ by Dr Jan Faull.

Cave of the Silken Web (Pan Si Dong, Dan Duyu, 1927) is a remarkable, ethereal work of early Chinese cinema with a rich history of loss, discovery, and restoration. This projected screening at the Dundee Contemporary Arts, therefore, was a particularly exciting, rare opportunity, which the co-curators of the event - Kirsty Sinclair Dootson (University … Continue reading Grace Pollard reports from the ‘Colour Across Chinese Cinemas’ Screening of ‘Pan Si Dong/ Cave of the Silken Web (Dan Duyu, 1927) at Dundee Contemporary Arts.

Figure 1: Barbara Flueckiger and Elza Tantcheva-Burdge (with Ulrich Ruedel offscreen IRL). After a long Covid-induced pause, it was wonderful to see Barbara Flueckiger, Ulrich Ruedel and Elza Tantcheva-Burdge open the latest edition of the Colour in Film Conference at the Bern Lichtspiel Kinemathek, where in-person attendees also enjoyed a rare treasure trove of historic … Continue reading The ‘6th International Conference Colour in Film – Kinemathek Lichtspiel, Bern, Switzerland’, 25-28 September 2022. Dr. Kirsten Moana Thompson.

In Black Narcissus (Powell and Pressburger, 1947) Mr Dean (David Farrar) comments that at Mopu there is ‘something in the air that makes everything seem exaggerated’. The film was indeed noted for bringing out this quality, made possible through the ingenuity of production designer Alfred Junge, matte artist and special effects technician W. Percy Day, … Continue reading The ‘exaggerated’ colours of Black Narcissus (1947 and 2020) by Sarah Street

BAFTSS Colour and Film SIG members  - Sarah Street (University of Bristol), Liz Watkins (University of Leeds), Carolyn Rickards (University of Bristol) and Paul Frith (University of East Anglia) - recently wrote a piece on research methodologies and experiences of interviews with film directors, cinematographers, technicians and archivists for the International Association for Media and … Continue reading IAMHIST Blog: Views on Colour

The 1926 experimental fashion film, ‘L’Élégance’, was the first studio-shot, artificially lit film that used the Keller-Dorian colour process (Ede, 2013: 193). Produced by painter Robert and painter-cum-designer Sonia Delaunay, and camera operator Chevreau, this was not only the first public screening of the colour process, but it also served as a unique platform for … Continue reading ‘Sonia Delaunay’s ‘L’Élégance’ (1926) and the Keller-Dorian Colour System’ by Lucy Moyse Ferreira

Coronation Street is the longest running TV soap opera in the world. It follows the lives of working-class residents on a street in a fictious suburb of Manchester in the North of England. The Street began in December 1960 and remains a fixture of ITV’s primetime scheduling to this day. It was broadcast in monochrome … Continue reading Vicky Jackson: ‘Coronation Street, Class and Colour Television: “Me own colour telly. Oo just think, the changing of the guard in ‘livid’ colour.”’

During the Global Colour and the Moving Image Conference (10-12 July 2019), hosted by the University of Bristol as part of the AHRC-funded Eastmancolor Revolution and British Cinema, 1955-85 project, a special screening of John Boorman’s Point Blank (1967) at Bristol’s Watershed Cinema rounded off the events of the first day of the conference. The screening … Continue reading Screening ‘Point Blank’ at the Watershed, Bristol, 10 July 2019. by Paul Frith.