Multicolor

This article is about the use of multiple colors in cinema. For multicolor in textiles, see Pied (multicolor).

Multicolor is a subtractive natural color motion picture process. Multicolor, introduced to the motion picture industry in 1929, was based on the earlier Prizma Color process, and was the forerunner of Cinecolor.

For a Multicolor film, a scene is shot with a normal camera capable of bipacking film. Two black-and-white 35 mm film negatives are threaded bipack in the camera. One records the color red (via a dyed panchromatic film), and the other, blue (orthochromatic). In printing, duplitized stock is exposed and processed with one record on each side. In a tank of toning solution, the film is floated upon the top of the solution with the appropriate chemical. The cyan record is toned a complementary red with a copper ferrocyanide solution, and the red being toned blue/cyan with ferric ferrocyanide solution.