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Eastmancolor

Trade name and color process for film

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Eastmancolor is a trade name used by Eastman Kodak for a number of related film and processing technologies associated with color motion picture production and referring to George Eastman, founder of Kodak.

Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950, was one of the first widely successful "single-strip colour" processes, and eventually displaced the more cumbersome Technicolor. Eastmancolor was known by a variety of names, such as DeLuxe Color, Warnercolor, Metrocolor, Pathécolor, Columbiacolor, and others.^[1][2][3]

For more information on Eastmancolor, see

• Color motion picture film, for background on Eastmancolor and other motion picture processes in general
• Eastman Kodak Fine Grain color negative films (1950 onwards), within the "List of motion picture film stocks" article

Eastman Color Negative[edit]

Eastman Color Negative (ECN) is a photographic processing system created by Kodak in the 1950s for the development of monopack color negative motion picture film stock. It is part of the Eastmancolor family of products sold by Eastman Kodak.

The original process, known as ECN-1, was used from the mid to late-1950s to the early to mid-1970s, and involved development at approximately 25 °C for around 7–9 minutes. Later research enabled faster development and more environmentally friendly film and process (and thus quicker photo lab turnaround time).

This process allowed a higher development temperature of 41.1 °C for around three minutes. This new environmentally friendly development process is known as ECN-2. It is the standard development process for all modern motion picture color negative developing, including Fujifilm and other non-Kodak film manufacturers. All film stocks are specifically created for a particular development process, thus ECN-1 film could not be put into an ECN-2 development bath since the designs are incompatible.

The ECN-2 process has normally been reserved for high volume labs involving hundreds or thousands of feet of film in a linear processor. With companies like QWD that have made this available in a kit form for home use, this process now can be done on a small scale.

Eastman Color Positive[edit]

Eastman Color Positive (ECP) is a photographic processing system created by Kodak in the 1950s for the development of monopack color positive print for direct projection motion picture film stock. It is part of the Eastmancolor family of products sold by Kodak.

ECP is not used for positive intermediate films because these are "pre-print" elements (e.g. archival or "protection" elements) and are never used for direct projection. One essential difference is the presence of an orange "mask" (i.e., effectively an orange base) on all films processed by Eastman Color Negative, and no "mask" (i.e., effectively a clear base) on all films processed by ECP.

The original process, known as ECP-1, was used from the 1950s to the mid-1970s, and involved development at approximately 25°C for around 7–9 minutes. Later research enabled faster development and more environmentally friendly film and process (and thus quicker photo lab turnaround time).

This process allowed a higher development temperature of 41.1°C for around three minutes. This new environmentally friendly development process is known as ECP-2. It is the standard development process for all modern motion picture color print developing, including Fuji and other non-Kodak film manufacturers. All film stocks are specifically created for a particular development process, thus ECP-1 film could not be put into an ECP-2 development bath since the designs are incompatible.

Originally, all Eastman Color films, ECN and ECP alike, were on triacetate base (no Eastman Color films were ever made on nitrate base), but recent practice has been for ECN elements to be on triacetate base, so these may be easily spliceable (using lap-type cemented splices, also called "negative assembly" splices), and for ECP elements to be on polyester base, so these are not spliceable (except by using butt-type splices with polyester splicing tapes).

Examples of films that use Eastmancolor[edit]

The 1959 British satirical comedy film The Mouse That Roared was filmed using the Eastmancolor process.

Eastmancolor became very popular in the South Indian film industry during the early 1960s.

References[edit]