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1928 Kodacolor Party 3 1/2 minutes (excerpt)
16mm
1928, Rochester NY
Shown at:  Synopsis:
Scenes of George Eastman, Thomas Edison and other dignitaries, commemorating the release of Kodacolor, Eastman Kodak's first color process for 16mm film.
Historical Background:
From Alan Kattelle’s Home Movies: A History of the American Industry, 1897-1979 (pp. 179-180). Used with Permission of the Author.
A system that avoided the use of multiple lenses for (or used conventional lenses at leas) or multiple frames, was devised by the Alsatian Albert Keller-Dorian in 1908 and made operational by Keller-Dorian’s associate R. Berthon in 1922. The process began with the embossing of a series of fine cylindrical ridges, 22 per millimeter, running lengthwise on the back of the film support. The film was threaded into the camera with the ridges facing the lens, which was covered with a tri-color filter.
The ridges, acting as lenses created minute images of the tri-color filter on the emulsion. When the film has been reversal processed, a monochrome film results, but when threaded through the projector equipped with an identical tri-color filter, a color image appears on the screen.
The rights to the K-D-B process, as it was known, were purchased by Eastman Kodak in 1925 and a development program begun under the direction of J.G. Capstaff. The impetus for this program appears to have come from George Eastman himself. In a remarkable letter written while he was on his way to his first African safari in 1926, Eastman described to Frank W. Lovejoy, his second-in-command, a dream that he had had in which [Eastman scientist] C.E.K. Mees had come across a new full-color process of movie photography which could easily be used by amateurs. Eastman went on to describe the process, how the film was to be manufactured and marketed, and forecast enthusiastic reception by consumers, and a run on film, cameras, and projectors.
Since all authorities assert that the company had acquired rights to the process the year before, the “dream” may have just been Eastman’s way of impressing his management team of his strong desire to see the program come to fruition.
To make the process commercially viable, a number of obstacles had to be overcome, including the development of an emulsion which would be sensitive to red and green, a standardized embossing procedure, and the design of suitable optics, all of which were achieved in a remarkably short time.
Kodacolor, as it was christened, was offered to the public in 1928. Mr. Eastman was so proud of the product and the company’s achievement that he staged an elaborate party to celebrate the introduction. Invited to his mansion on East Avenue were Thomas Edison, General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Force of World War I, (a “Norman Schwarzkopf” of the day), Adolph Ochs, founder and publisher of The New York Times, and other notables of the time.
The guests were assembled in Eastman’s rose garden, whose plants were in full flower, where a Ciné-Kodak Model B was loaded with the new film and passed among the guests, who were invited to try their hand at filming the colorful scene. After a sumptuous luncheon, the hastily developed film was shown to the company, to universal admiration of the remarkable fidelity of the colors. This gathering led to the oft-reproduced photo of George Eastman and Thomas Edison, both looking quite somber, apparently examining a professional camera and a length of 35mm film. What that had to do with the introduction of a 16mm color film is unknown.
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