(单词翻译:单击)
You know this scene from The Wizard of Oz.
大家应该看过《绿野仙踪》里的这个镜头吧 。
It happens just after Dorothy croons in sepia-toned Kansas, Toto wags his tail, and the house gets caught in a tornado.
这个镜头的前一秒,多萝西还在怀旧风的堪萨斯浅吟低唱,托托正摇着它的尾巴,随后一场龙卷风就卷走了她的房子 。
She travels from a faded film strip to a Technicolor world.
龙卷风将她从黑白胶卷世界带到了特艺七彩的世界 。
But there are three things about this scene you might get wrong.And each one helps show the real history of Technicolor.
然而,这个场景有三个展现了特艺七彩的真实历史但大家可能并没意识到的地方 。
These misconceptions explain what the “Technicolor triumph” really was,
这些误解能够从不同的角度解释“特艺七彩”为何会取得成功,
from the technical aspects that made it work to exactly why it took over the movies,
包括特艺七彩依赖的技术,特艺七彩为何能成为制作彩色电影的主要技术,
to the way in which the technology shaped the look of the 20th century.
以及技术如何改造了二十世纪世界面貌三个方面 。
Lie #1 - Wizard of Oz is not the first Technicolor movie. Not even close.
误解一:《绿野仙踪》并非甚至远非首个运用了特艺七彩的电影 。
You might know that, but a lot of people don’t.
这一点你可能已经知道了,但不知道的人也不少 。
Come on Maryland Science Center, you’re better than this.
马里兰科学中心,拜托,你们就这水平吗?
Historian Barbara Flueckiger has an exhaustive timeline of color in film,
历史学家芭芭拉·弗路基格尔为彩色电影绘制了一个详细的年表,
from hand-painted film to the first movie filmed in “kinemacolor,” A Visit to the Seaside.
从手绘彩色电影到第一部自然色彩的彩色影片《海滨之旅》一应俱全 。
But Technicolor stood out, and even it has a history that long predates The Wizard of Oz.
然而最终还是特艺七彩更胜一筹,其运用甚至也远远早于《绿野仙踪》 。
Herbert Kalmus, Daniel Frost Comstock, and W. Burton Wescott founded the company in 1914,
1914年,赫伯特·卡姆斯,丹尼尔·弗罗斯特·康姆斯托克以及W.伯顿·维斯科特携手创办了特艺公司(Technicolor),
with the “Tech” referring to MIT, where Kalmus and Comstock met.
「Tech」代指麻省理工学院,卡姆斯和康姆斯托克相遇的地方 。
It started by merging red and green into a new image that roughly looked like this.
最初,这种技术只是将红色和绿色调和成一种类似于这种颜色的混合色 。
You can see the look in this range of movies from the late 1920s and early 30s.
二十年代末三十年代初的电影就是这种色调 。
It could do passably well with skin tones, but there’s no blue in these dresses for a reason.
这一处理虽然能够很好地衬托人物的肤色,但还是无法显示出服饰上的蓝色 。
Blue came into the mix in 1932, when Technicolor added the key third strip.
蓝色终于在1932年出现在了荧幕上,因为特艺公司添加了至关重要的第三条胶卷 。
They showed off the process in Walt Disney’s Flowers and Trees,a gorgeous animated feature that was a botanist’s nightmare.
他们在迪士尼出品的《花与树》,就是那部色彩华丽对植物学家而言却是一个噩梦的动画片,那部影片中展示了这种技术 。
You know, there are evil trees in Wizard of Oz, too.
要知道,《绿野仙踪》中也有心地不纯的树角色 。
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“你以为你在干嘛?”
Anyway, in order to get Technicolor to work, it was an insanely difficult process.
总而言之,特艺七彩的成熟一个无比艰难的过程 。
Technicolor distributed guides like these and we can make a reasonable simulation digitally, with a scene like this.
特艺公司还推出了这种操作指南,按照这些指南我们也能对这种场景做出合理的数字化模拟 。
So here’s a scene of some Lego people who are apparently worshipping Lawrence of Arabia?
这里有一些乐高人,他们貌似在膜拜“阿拉伯的劳伦斯”(马斯·爱德华·劳伦斯)?
Not sure what’s going on here, but it’s our starting image.
我也说不准,管他呢,反正我们就拿它当我们的初始场景 。
A technicolor camera would typically take that picture and shoot it through a prism
一般来说,拍摄时特艺摄影机通过分光镜头,
that split the light into red, blue, and green negatives for the picture.
在负片上记录光中的红、绿、蓝三原色 。
Those negatives were then flipped into positive “matrices,”
随后,这些负片被翻转成正像的Matrix胶片,
which eventually got soaked with dyes of the complementary colors.
最后被浸入彩显补充液 。
So the red matrix turned cyan, the green one magenta, and the blue one yellow.
红色胶片就会变成青色,绿色变成品红,蓝色变成黄色 。
Then the dye was transferred,
接下来是颜料转印,
this was called a “dye transfer process” to create a final gorgeous Technicolor image.
这就是所谓的“颜料转印法”,颜色鲜艳的特艺七彩图像就是用这种工艺实现的 。
So if you’re anything like me, that explanation might make you feel like the scarecrow.
如果你跟我一样,这种解释也会让你觉得自己像《绿野仙踪》里的“稻草人” 。
“Oh I’m a failure because I haven’t got a brain.”
“啊,我好失败,我连脑袋都没有 。”
So let’s try it again, but only look at that red channel.
那我们换种说法,这次我们只考虑红色的部分 。
So keep your eye on the View-Master, the red in the Rubik’s cube,or maybe the Lego guy’s hat.
请注意红色的小V博士VR眼镜、魔方上红色的这面或者乐高人的红帽子 。
It is all kind of dark now, because that’s just the red color in the negative.
负片的色调有点暗,因为这个负片只记录了红色光 。
Now flipped in the matrix, that red is really bright,
翻转到matrix胶片上以后,红色就变亮了,
which means that when it’s dyed, it won’t get a lot of cyan.
意思就是染色的时候,这些地方不会附着太多的青色 。
And that makes sense. Cyan is the complementary color — it’s the anti-red.
这也说得通,因为青色是红色的互补色,是抵消红色的颜色 。
So where you want a lot of red, you do not want a lot of cyan.
所以,如果你想要很红的颜色,那就要避免放入很多青色的颜料 。
That way, when it comes together, you get a ton of magenta and some yellow.
这样,定影之后,就能达到高明度的品红色和黄色 。
You don’t have a lot of cyan, because the cyan cancels out the red.
留下来的青色不多是因为红色抵消了青色 。
In the earlier days of Technicolor, they also had to amp up the contrast.
早期的特艺七彩也需要加强色彩的对比度 。
The company would add a black and white layer underneath the matrices to serve as something called "the key."
特艺公司会在Matrix胶片下垫上一张黑白胶片作为“钥匙” 。
You can see the results early, in films like 1934’s La Cucaracha,
这一技术早在《绿野仙踪》之前就已经得到了运用,
The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, and Robin Hood, all of which came out well before the Wizard of Oz.
例如1934年的《蟑螂》、 《孤松林径》和《罗宾汉》 。
It’s easy enough to roughly copy the technology that “Technicolored” the Wizard of Oz.
粗略地复制《绿野仙踪》里的特艺七彩技术并不难 。
RGB split, color bath, mesh, repeat.
三原色分割,染色,配合、重复 。
But the film strip processes are just part of the story.
然而,胶片处理只是故事的一部分 。