Agfacolor
Template:Sister project Agfacolor was a series of color film products made by Agfa of Germany. The first Agfacolor, introduced in 1932, was a film-based version of their Agfa-Farbenplatte (Agfa color plate),<ref>The glass-based Agfa color plate was announced in 1916, but because of World War I and its aftermath, the product was not properly introduced until the early 1920s.</ref> a "screen plate" product similar to the French Autochrome. In late 1936, Agfa introduced Agfacolor Neu (New Agfacolor), a pioneering color film of the general type still in use today.<ref>Based upon the patent no. 253335 of Dr. Rudolf Fischer, 1911, Berlin</ref> The new Agfacolor was originally a reversal film used for making "slides", home movies and short documentaries. By 1939, it had also been adapted into a negative film and a print film for use by the German motion picture industry. After World War II, the Agfacolor brand was applied to several varieties of color negative film for still photography, in which the negatives were used to make color prints on paper. The reversal film was then marketed as Agfachrome. These films use Color Developing Agent 1 in their color developer.<ref name="Lifetime">Template:Cite thesis</ref>
History
Development
Agfa was formed in 1867, and part of IG Farben from 1925 to 1945. Its Wolfen plant, which was the sole producer of Agfacolor film until the end of World War II, was constructed in 1909.Template:Sfn
Legacy of World War II
Towards the end of World War II, large quantities of raw Agfacolor stock were seized by the Soviet Union and served as the basis for the Sovcolor process,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> which was widely used in the USSR and other Eastern bloc nations;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> such films produced in Poland were also described as Polcolor, the first being Adventure at Marienstadt (1954).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> One of the best-known Sovcolor films is War and Peace (1965–67) and many of Andrei Tarkovsky's films used it as well.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Sovcolor was known for the variable quality of its colors, which led to continuity errors as colors changed between scenes; more prestigious productions used imported Eastman Kodak stock instead.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Agfa was divided into Agfa-Werke, a subsidiary of Farbenfabriken, in West Germany and Agfa Wolfen in East Germany after World War II and the division of Germany. Agfa-Werke opened a plant in Leverkusen. Agfa Wolfen sold the Agfa brand rights to Agfa-Werke in 1964, and changed its name to ORWO. Agfa-Werke merged with Gevaert that same year to form Agfa-Gevaert.Template:Sfn
Agfacolor consumer products were also marketed in North America under the names Ansco Color and Anscochrome (from Agfa's then-US subsidiary, Agfa-Ansco). Prior to World War II, the film had been imported from Germany. After the War began, the American subsidiary was seized by the US Government. At the request of the War Department, Ansco then developed a similar color film, which it produced in its own factory in Binghamton, New York. Anscochrome was widely distributed, but met with limited commercial success in competition with Kodak product.<ref>Anscochrome and Ansco color transparencies slides. Template:Webarchive June 11, 2010.</ref><ref>About Ansco. February 07, 2008.</ref>
Ansco Color was also used in Hollywood films, including some produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Films shot in Ansco Color included The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949), Bwana Devil (1953), Kiss Me, Kate (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), Brigadoon (1954), and Lust for Life (1956), the final film shot on this film stock. Anscochrome films for still photography were manufactured until 1977.<ref name=BillsHistory>Camp, William L. Ansco Chronology, From a Binghamton, N. Y. point of view. Template:Webarchive July 14, 2011.</ref> Agfacolor<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> was used in one of the first color French comedy and topless films with Louis de Funès called Women of Paris<ref>Women of Paris is a translation of title for the Spanish market.</ref> (fr. Ah! Les belles bacchantes) dated 1954.
Agfacolor during the Second World War
Famous professional early works made in Agfacolor were war photo reports made during Invasion of Poland (1939) by Hugo Jaeger;<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Paris during German occupation (1940-1944) by André Zucca; Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) by Zbigniew Borowczyk (3 photos), Karol Grabski (1 photo) and Rosemarie Lincke (1 photo);<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Warsaw Uprising (1944) by Ewa Faryaszewska and Gerhard Wiechmann;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Prague uprising (1945) by Oldřich Cerha<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and during Hungarian Revolution of 1956 by Jeno Kiss.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
References
Works cited
Further reading
- Coe Brian, Colour Photography: The First Hundred Years 1840–1940, Ash & Grant, 1978
- Gert & Nina Koshofer, Dr. Rolf Giesen, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Wiesbaden, 2005
- www.pixpast.com a source for collectors of original 35mm and 16mm agfacolor film from 1936 to 1945.
External links
- Color photo report from car journey to Paris, Monaco and Rome made in 1938 using Agfacolor process by Polish racing driver Witold Rychter from Warsaw.
- Agfacolor on Timeline of Historical Film Colors with many written resources and many photographs of Agfacolor prints.