When MIT students shout along with the previews of movies shown at LSC, “Next Sunday! In Technicolor!,” they are paying homage to fellow alumni—MIT put the “Tech” in Technicolor. Alumni Herbert Kalmus and Daniel Comstock, with their business partner W. Burton Wescott, became interested in filmmaking when their research firm was hired to consult on an early motion picture process. The three inventors founded Technicolor in 1915 and developed several different processes for making color films. The camera shown here uses a three-strip process, where a prism sends the image through filters to thin layers of film sensitized to different colors of light. Combining the three strips of film reproduces vivid colors. Technicolor^® film was used for both cartoons and live-action movies from the 1930s to the 1950s, including such influential films as The Wizard of Oz and Fantasia.

On loan from Technicolor.