Technicolor prints from color negatives(1952–1978)

“Glorious Technicolor” reached its peak of popularity in the post-war era. However, in the next decade, the film industry faced competition from the developing television industry, which inspired the studios to increase the number of three-strip features to compete with the new encroaching medium. While there were experiments in color television broadcasts, with two incompatible proprietary systems offered by NBC and CBS, the majority of TV sets sold were still B/W, as was the production of most TV shows. 

Simultaneously, Kodak introduced a new system for color photography known as Eastman Color, in 1950. It was a photo-chemical dye-coupler system that could be used with standard 35mm cameras. The same system’s adoption by the moving-image industry was dramatic and directly led to the retirement of Technicolor’s cumbersome three-strip camera. Among the first uses of Eastman Color was the National Film Board of Canada documentary Royal Journey, released in 1951.  

Technicolor realized the future of principal photography lay with the new single-strip color negative and adapted their system to use it to make their dye-transfer release prints (known as “Technicolor Process 5”). 

The 1950s was a decade of technological innovation as new formats and processes were introduced to compete with television, and combat the resulting fall in audience numbers at theaters. Technicolor adapted its process for this proliferation of different systems, including: CinemaScope, VistaVision (optically reducing a large, horizontal 8-perforation frame for standard 35mm prints), SuperScope, 35mm reduction prints of Todd-AO features (70mm prints were on Eastman Color stock), Cinerama (for 1960s features and reissues), and 3-D. Dye-transfer prints were also made for in-house formats Technirama and Techniscope.

By 1970, the industry had abandoned many of the spectacular formats of the 1950s. Only Panavision, spherical 65mm, and flat cropped 1.85:1 release prints, were exhibited in cinemas. Technicolor continued to offer superior quality with their dye-transfer system, the equivalent of mass-produced first-generation prints, since the matrices were derived directly from the camera negative. Competing labs using Eastman Color still made first-generation showprints directly from the camera negative, but the bulk of the general-release copies were made from duplicate elements like Color Reversal Intermediates (second-generation prints), or internegatives derived from a interpositive (third-generation prints). In both cases, the “generation loss” resulted in inferior resolution and more grain than Technicolor's dye-transfer format, which, in terms of image quality, remained the ultimate choice for producers and distributors who could afford it.

However, by 1968, shifting demographics had led to significant changes in the number of release prints required for features. The film industry abandoned the Production Code in 1968, which kept most releases in the “general audience” category. The existing code was replaced with a ratings system that allowed complete screen freedom, but also restricted the number of pictures that were rated for general release to audiences of all ages, G or PG (originally classified as M or GP). An increase in adult-oriented movies in the R and X category followed. Many movie palaces and large-screen single cinemas folded, since they couldn't fill their seats with restricted product. The “targeted” demographics required fewer prints of specific films, and the dye-transfer process was only cost effective when mass producing release copies. 

Technicolor continued to offer the best quality, but by 1975, the company executives assumed the future was in limited-release print runs, so they shut down their famous process and switched to Eastman Color like the competing labs (e.g. Metrocolor, DeLuxe, Movielab, Guffanti). Among the last features printed in the dye-transfer process were The Godfather Part II (1974) and a re-print of Swiss Family Robinson (1960). It wasn't until 1979 that the industry began to realize what a mistake this had been. In several magazines, the “color fading crisis” was discussed. Only dye-transfer theatrical release prints were chemically stable. Eastman Color prints and negatives faded.

In American Film and Film Comment, articles detailed the controversy. Director, Martin Scorsese, started a petition, signed by many industry personnel, to demand that Kodak developed more-stable dye-coupler stocks. In 1982, Kodak introduced “low fade” Eastman Color negative and print stock (Kodak LPP). Low fade wasn't “no fade”, like dye-transfer, but it did represent a major improvement

The British dye-transfer plant in West Drayton, near London, shut down in 1978: as a result Technicolor prints of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977) were printed there, while all the US prints of the same films were made on the quick-fade Eastman Color stock. The Italian Technicolor plant also shut down its dye-transfer process in 1978.

The UK lab went on to oversee the installation of newly constructed dye-transfer equipment at a plant in Beijing, China, which became the only facility in the world to offer the original process, up until 1993. Technicolor in the US, revived its dye-transfer process in 1997, but using Kodak’s “Estar” (polyester) film base, rather than triacetate. The process was shut down again in 2001. 

Technicolor Process 5 was the best method of mass producing first-generation positive prints in 35mm derived from Eastman Color negatives. Release copies had superior color, contrast and sharpness, especially when reduction printed from large-format negatives in the VistaVision, Technirama and 65mm formats. The dyes were of archival quality and had no dark storage fading. The loss of this process resulted in a decline in the exhibition of the pre-digital motion-picture medium, from which it never recovered.