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FROM THE PAST…
Popular Hobbies July 30, 1930

New Ideas Sweep Movie Studios
By Michel Mok

It should be noted that this article was written in 1930, and it refers to the two-color
Technicolor process. The modern three-color system was not in use until 1932.

"In a year and a half all
motion pictures will be
wholly or partly in colour.
Three years from now the
black and white photoplay
will be as rare as the silent
picture is to-day.”
With these words, the head
of the production
department of one of
America's largest motion
picture corporations
recently gave me a glimpse
into the literally brilliant
future of the film industry.

His prediction was based
upon a new and
revolutionary development
in picture-making. Producers have discovered that the public is enthusiastic over colour, and that
it means money at the box office. Hence, "colour” is the watchword in the world of the cinema
to-day, just as “sound” was three years ago.

Four all-colour musical motion pictures photographed and printed by the so-called technicolor
process are attracting huge audiences on Broadway, New York City, as this is written. Many
other talkies, and “singics", mainly in black and white, have tinted sequences. A year ago “On
With the Show,” the first all- colour talking and singing picture, started the colour rush. This year
no fewer than 100 feature-length pictures entirely or partly in colour, will be shown in theatres
throughout the country.

To meet the heavy production schedule, the Technicolor Corporation which makes the coloured
movies for the various producers, has just completed a fifth large plant in Hollywood. It has two
other laboratories in the picture colony and two in Boston. Eventually the new plant, costing more
than a million dollars, will have a capacity of 47,000 feet of coloured film a day, or about 14

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