projects

SuperCinecolor LUT

YBM: yellow, (Prussian) blue and magenta.

This LUT set simulates SuperCinecolor's "full color" process, used from 1951 to 1954 until Cinecolor closed due to over investments in UK labs and operational losses. In it's short run, not many films were shot on SuperCinecolor, but it had the potential to be a cheaper version of Technicolor's full-colour process.

SuperCinecolor was limited by an interesting technical necessity. Cinecolor prints had a blue optical soundtrack instead of black. Projectors tuned for blue soundtracks had a yellow/orange filter on the optical head to compensate. For YCM colour, mixing yellow and magenta needs cyan for a complete colour spectrum, but instead of asking already reluctant theatre owners to re-installing a filter for a cyan soundtrack, SuperCinecolor just went with blue and made adjustments to their printing colours to compensate.

This compromise created the "look" of SuperCinecolor. There's something delightfully off about the prints. Flesh tones are a little more yellow/orange, greens are toned down, and skies get a little more print density.

SuperCinecolor was able to be tuned in the printing process by filtering the blue record, which would increase the yellow print dye density. I've made a set of three variations of the LUT to reflect different amounts of yellow added.

This and my other LUTs can be though of as colour transformation processes. They aren't designed with specific cameras in mind, or to transform log-encoded footage. They digitally apply the colour transform process that colour and density would go through in a SuperCinecolor process.

Apply the LUTs using your favourite LUT utility. Comes as a 3D 32-bit LUT, so it works in all LUT situations like Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop, monitors and even iPhone/Android apps.

The LUT comes as a zip file and includes the following variations of yellow dye density.:

SuperCinecolor 1951-1954 040

SuperCinecolor 1951-1954 060

SuperCinecolor 1951-1954 060