Open Access version: doi:10.5281/zenodo.2605321
BIRK WEIBERG
Functional Colors:
The Varied Applications of Complementary Hues
ABSTRACT: Film scholars in recent years have identified a differentiated landscape of color systems in terms of looks and processes that represent natural color phenomena with
increasing fidelity and automation. Here, I propose extending the concept of film colors
to techniques that deploy colors in order to produce effects that do not show color but
use it for other means. Stereoscopy and compositing are two applications from the 1920s
that employed complementary colors and that were often developed by the same parties
that helped create representational color systems. These correlations have, thus far, not
been the subject of color studies because research is organized according to the intended
applications of techniques and does not follow the work of the technicians and artists. I
argue that techniques that use colors for other purposes have been ignored due to a focus
on color primarily in relation to human perception and understanding. To extend the
scope of research to nonrepresentational applications of color, as I propose, thus implies
a methodological critique of the existing discourse on color as being anthropocentric, that
is, as ignoring functional relationships of colors that do not relate to humans.
KEYWORDS: technology, color, optical effects, stereoscopy
YET ANOTHER COLOR CONCEPT
The increased interest in the historical colors of motion pictures in recent
years has substantially enriched the very notion of color in cinema. However,
two basic categories have been described by scholars like Tom Gunning, Paul
Read, Richard Misek, and others under varying names. There are, on the one
hand, “natural” colors, which are inter alia conceived as “indexical” phenomena that are caused by specific qualities of objects in front of the camera.1 On
the other hand, there is a class of “unnatural” colors.2 These colors result from
processes such as tinting, toning, stenciling, and hand painting that add dyes
to monochrome film footage to varying degrees. In his book Chromatic Cinema,
Film History, 29.2, pp. 91–107. Copyright © 2017 Trustees of Indiana University. doi: 10.2979/filmhistory.29.2.04