Color Film Footage From 1920s London is the Coolest Thing You'll See Today

In 1927, Claude Frisse-Greene shot a series of film around London based on a color (or colour) technique that his father had experimenting with. His father, William Friese-Greene, was an early pioneer of cinematography. His process was called 'Biocolour' which produced the illusion of color by exposing alternating frames of black and white film with color filters, then staining the film again with red or green.

It produced a pretty decent illusion of color, but its downfall was a noticeable flicker and red and green fringing on objects in motion, so the films needed to be sped up.

Due to early legal issues with another color film process called 'Kinemacolor,' Biocolour was never developed to its true potential. After William died in 1921, Claude renamed the process 'Friese-Greene Natural Colour' and went on to be a cinematographer for over 60 films from 1923-1943.

Via Bank Holiday and Wikipedia

Chris Knight's picture

Residing in New York City, Chris is an internationally published photographer whose work has appeared in Vogue, People, MSNBC, ABC, Ocean Drive, GQ and others. He is an instructor of Photography and Imaging at Pratt Institute and the New York Film Academy.

Log in or register to post comments
7 Comments

Wow, amazing footage! But where are all the Pakis?

That's pretty awesome stuff!

wow! nice!

What's the song? It's really great!

Notice how no one is fat and obese?

Its crazy to see this, I live in London for last 9 years, and to imagine this much have changed in 90 years makes you feel kind of.... well you know what I mean.

Ah yes! The pre muslim days... when everything was fine and dandy