WOULD you like to know how the color in a Walt Disney Silly Symphony or in “La Cucaracha” is obtained? Have you ever wondered how a motion picture film, in which each picture is about the size of a postage stamp, is colored so it can be magnified 35,000 or more times and still retain the beautiful coloring of a Silly Symphony?
The actual application of the color to the film is not unlike the method used in printing a page of type. In the printing process, the type is set or a plate is made for each of the colors appearing in the picture or the printed page.
The plates or type of a printing press are in relief and the high portions of the plate receive an ink which is pressed into contact with the paper. The ink is transferred to the paper. In the motion picture, they do not use plates in that sense of the word. Instead, a “matrix” is used. This “matrix” is very similar to the printer’s type or plate, and the color impression is made by dyeing the “matrix” and pressing it in contact with a motion picture film […]
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