Colour Pictures

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 892, 8 February 1930, Page 25

Colour Pictures

WOMAN EXPERT’S WORK Elaborate Selection of Tints SOME of the problems associated with the growing practice of making films in colour are discussed by Mrs. N. M. Ivalmus, of New York, who has been appointed “colour director” for a number of big pictures. This is the first post of its kind created since the birth of pictures. Her task is to guide producers in making the best use of the “technicolour” process by»selecting backgrounds and costumes.

M RS. KALMUS began her career in the Techuicolour Corporation’s laboratory, and her first assignment on a feature-length production was the Warner Brothers’ picture, “On With the Show." Since that time she has worked as colour director in such pictures as “Paris,” starring Irene Bordoni; “Sally,” starring Marilyn Miller; Colleen Moore’s “Footlights and Fools,” “The Dance of Life,” “The Hollywood Revue.” “Song of the West,” “Texas Moon,” “Gold Diggers of Broadway” and “The Vagabond King.”

COLOUR EMOTIONS In -the producing of this film, Mrs. Kalmus made an effort to employ colour as a means of causing emotional and mental reactions in keeping with the spirit of the plot. Weeks before "The Vagabond King” entered production, she conferred with the studio fashion designer and the art director, with the result that no settings or pieces of wardrobe were planned without her advice. Red, a warm colour, symbolising revolution, strife, violence, danger, was agreed upon as the colour to predominate in the garb of the vagabonds of the picture. In one scene, an interesting use

was made of the conflicting qualities of red hues. Mortal enemies, Dennis King and Warner Oland. fight a duel. To heighten the dramatic effect of the conflict, Mrs. Kalmus decided to costume the two men for that climactic scene in violently antagonistic shades of red. Where red is diluted to rose and pink, it symbolises beauty and love; consequently red was chosen as the dominant colour in.rose garden scenes where the aim was to create the spirit of romance.

Eight girls appeared in filmy rosetinted gowns for these scenes. Rose also was used extensively in the wardrobe of Jeanette MacDonald, King’s leading woman in the picture.

Black, through its association with night, is the symbol of gloom, menace and terror, and this effect was sought in a throne room scene where Burgundian heralds enter and demand that the French King surrender. Three men of gigantic stature were chosen for the heralds, and they were clad completely in black, even their heads being enveloped in close-fitting black hoods.

Mrs. Kalmus employed contrast to achieve dramatic effect in this scene by dressing King, when he entered the throne room to give the answer of France to, the Burgundian emissaries, in a costume of warm gold,

which cast a defiant gleam of light at the menacing black of the enemy heralds.