So today on the podcast, part two of our story about Walt Disney and the evolution of color.

In the first part, Herbert Kalmiss and Dan Kompstock developed an experimental process

to create color movie presentations using only black and white film.

The filming process involved using colored filters inside the camera to create black and white records

of colored light. When we last left off, the Kalmas team was focused on creating a film in Florida

to capitalize on the bright light there, to demonstrate their new process. This process wasn't full color, but rather limited color that

presented reds, yellows, and greens, though left blues and purples out of the mix. To have

full color using black and white film and colored filters, a camera would need to have at least

three film records, one with a red filter, another with a yellow,

and a third with a blue. But in 1916, three identical film records was simply beyond the

ability of these young inventors. Two filtered records with limited but precise color,

they believed, would cause enough of a stir in the young film

community to interest producers in color presentations, so long as their test project was

well received. Eventually, the success of the Kalmas process, or what would soon be called

the Technicolor process number one, would in part rely on Disney animation.

But at the time that Kalmas and Comstock were starting out, Walt was still a teenager,

living with his parents in Kansas City, where he took art classes on the weekend,

classes that taught him basic skills of drawing, cartooning, and

caricature, though in the years ahead, the success of Disney would in part rely on Herbert

Kalmas, and the success of Herbert Kalmas' company would also rely in part on Walt.

And so now, if you're up to speed, let's go.

In terms of creating a test film, something that the Technicolor company would present to the world, the initial plan

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