From March 29 to 31 the Colour Fantastic Conference will be held at EYE Film Institute Amsterdam, and it is co-organized by Sarah Street (University of Bristol) and Joshua Yumibe (Michigan State University/University of St Andrews) with researchers Vicky Jackson (University of Bristol) and Bregt Lameris (Utrecht University) in collaboration with the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and the Amsterdam Centre for Cultural Heritage and Identity (University of Amsterdam).
The Colour Fantastic – Chromatic Worlds of Silent Cinema conference […] brings together multidisciplinary specialists to share contemporary research that will inspire the next twenty years of research on colour in silent film. A diverse range of themes is explored in the conference reflecting the chromatic richness of silent film. Topics include: archival restoration, colour film technology, colour theory, experimental film and intermediality.
DIASTOR will be present with three presentations by team members David Pfluger, senior researcher, Claudy Op den Kamp, senior researcher, and Barbara Flueckiger, project leader. The team will provide insights into their research conducted with the digitization of early applied colors:
Based on two early cinema examples from the 1910s from the collections of both EYE Film Institute Netherlands and the Deutsche Kinemathek, the paper will present several areas of that particular focus, which resonate with contemporary archival debates.
On the one hand, it will highlight specific problems in scanning early film colors, on the other, it will concentrate on the subsequent reproduction of tints in the digital domain. By reflecting on the ‘Desmet method’ as an analog method for preserving early cinema and by attempting to remodel it for digital workflows, issues of color reference come to bear on a wider scope of how evolving technologies shape the aesthetics and interpretation of filmic source material.
Comparison of different scans of the tinted film “Aan de Kust van Istrië” (1910), projected in DIASTOR partner cinegrell’s color grading suite. In collaboration with EYE Film Institute, Sound and Vision und Haghefilm Digitaal.
DIASTOR 