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The statement that the blue screen has been eliminated will doubtless provoke discussion as
to how the hues of a pronounced blue or purple effect so common in nature can be obtained. If
one picture is photographed through the red screen and the second through the green screen, this
alternation of exposure being continued throughout the film, it seems certain that the result will
be pictures wherein only green and red tones exist, since no combination of these colours will
give purple. This, in fact, is the case, and it constitutes the foremost imperfection in Kin-
emacolor; the pictures do have a prevailing green or red tone. But these tints become modified
slightly. The essential blue tone is partially supplied in two ways. In the first place there is a
certain proportion of blue associated with the green screen; secondly, when the electric arc
light is used there is a pronounced blue tone in the light. The combination of these factors, to a
certain but very small degree, compensates for the absence of the blue screen.

On the other hand, resort to the two screens serves to emphasise the direct colours. The red
and green tones do stand out with startling purity—“unnaturally vivid” is a criticism that I have
often heard—but the intermediate tones, particularly those of the browns, are strikingly soft.
Some of the pictures are assailed as being unnatural in tone; and to a certain extent the criticism
is a just one. In some instances, however, it is due to the fact that the spectator has never actually
concentrated his attention upon colour effects in Nature. His eye has never given him a faithful
report of their quality.

That Kinemacolor has severe limitations cannot be denied, especially when it comes to
dealing with Nature direct. Fidelity to the myriad hues of Nature, ranging from one extreme end
of the spectrum to the other, cannot possibly be obtained by recourse to two screens. One
searches in vain for the true blue and the rich, deep purple, while the pure yellow also is absent,
being represented by varying tones of orange. So far as the blues and purples are concerned, they
never can be obtained by resort to the two screens—red and green respectively— because what
is known as the lower end of the spectrum is lost entirely by Kinemacolor. The hues stop short
at the boundary where green meets blue.

The public has sometimes drawn attention to another defect in colour cinematography. It
appears to photograph the subject in a brilliant sunlight, regardless of the fact that sunlight kills
colours. Every amateur photographer knows that if he exposes his plate upon a brilliantly lighted
subject the tones are hard, everything being practically resolved into an intense white and black,
while the leaves of trees appear to be covered with snow. When such a disadvantage afflicts the
black and white worker, what can be said of a colour subject taken under the same conditions?
The brilliantly lighted points are lacking in tone, and some very bizarre effects are produced in
consequence. When an essentially scenic subject is thrown upon the screen these defects are very
manifest, but when it is applied to such a subject as the Coronation of the King the flaws are
overlooked, because public interest is concentrated upon the principal actors.
It cannot be denied that from the popular point of view, Kinemacolor records of the
Coronation, the Investiture of the Prince of Wales, and other Royal subjects of the same time

22 REEL DEALS September 2017