Messed Up, Man

[00:00] We are going to move to our UndaGoogables section this week.
[00:04] Coalson, again, I'd like to thank you for making the UndaGoogables spin-off podcast your brainchild.
[00:15] It's lighting the Internet on fire.
[00:18] That's right. If you haven't checked it out, go to our website, the UndaBeatables, and get the link to the UndaGoogables podcast,
[00:29] which comes out every Saturday morning.
[00:31] You can also find it on any of your podcast apps.
[00:34] So, shout out.
[00:36] It's usually 7 to 20 minutes long.
[00:39] It depends on how much we talked that week about a certain topic, but much shorter than this show,
[00:44] you can knock it out while you're taking a shower, doing the dishes, or...
[00:49] Walking the dog.
[00:50] Walking the dog.
[00:51] So, check it out, and you know, you leave knowing a little bit more than you did when you turned it on.
[00:57] Just a little bit.
[00:59] Should we do an UndaGoogables?
[01:08] That was the play of Super Excited.
[01:10] You told us we had to, sir.
[01:12] We said we signed up for it.
[01:15] In the end, it's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[01:21] So, the first one this week, Jason, I think you had a question for us that I'm hoping we can answer.
[01:27] I do have a question.
[01:29] Okay, so this is not a typical UndaGoogables, I guess.
[01:34] Okay, so my wife and I were walking around the Arboretum last week with our goddaughter and her mom.
[01:46] It's just beautiful fall foliage now.
[01:50] The colors are amazing.
[01:52] It's just ridiculous.
[01:54] We're taking pictures and stuff like that.
[01:57] And Jill asked what I thought was a really amazing question, which is how in the world do cameras capture all of this amazing color?
[02:11] Like, we can sense it and we see it, but how do cameras do it?
[02:16] And I kind of know the answer for the cameras that we use now.
[02:22] So, digital cameras have a, I don't even know what it's called, but a detector, right, that has X number of megapixels.
[02:36] And each of those has a photo diode in it, I think, that can detect different wavelengths of light.
[02:44] So, you got your reds, your blues, and your greens, or something like that.
[02:48] Depending on the intensity of each of those wavelengths, maybe you get a different color.
[02:53] My bigger question, so we need to verify that, first of all, but the thing that I had was, you know, originally, the cameras were film, right?
[03:04] Like, actual photographic film.
[03:07] And I vaguely understand how black and white film works, but I have no idea how color film could possibly work.
[03:16] You guys have any idea?
[03:18] So, the old film cameras for the younger listeners.
[03:24] Well, so, you probably are familiar, but you've got your, you know, your undeveloped film into the camera.
[03:31] And you take your pictures, you know, and then you need to go, you know, like the, you know, once on the spool, or a roll, or whatever, you take that in when you're done to go get developed.
[03:44] Developed at your local drugstore.
[03:48] Drugstore, yeah.
[03:49] Yeah.
[03:50] Or one of those weird, like, little ones in the middle of a parking lot.
[03:53] Do you guys ever use those?
[03:54] Yeah, I'm sure.
[03:55] Photo.
[03:56] Yeah, that little photo parking lot.
[03:57] Yeah, they were like just little photos.
[03:59] It's like one guy in there.
[04:00] And it's like the, you know, that, like, little, in broader bold, there's like that little snow cone stand where it's just like, basically, it's a building the size for one person.
[04:12] It's basically that big.
[04:14] But somehow there was like a photo developing lab, and it was usually in the middle of a parking lot somewhere.
[04:19] In a mall, usually.
[04:20] Yeah, near a mall.
[04:21] I love that Coalson knew immediately, and Jason has no idea.
[04:24] I love that.
[04:25] I'm assuming that they just collected your film.
[04:30] Oh, no, they did it right there.
[04:31] To someplace else and developed it.
[04:33] Nope.
[04:34] They did it right there.
[04:35] You come back in like an hour.
[04:36] The people working in that place have to be clinically insane at this point.
[04:41] The amount of fumes from the chemicals that they must have inhaled.
[04:47] But the trade-off is you get to see everybody's pictures.
[04:50] True, sure.
[04:51] It's true.
[04:52] So I think it's a special type, you know?
[04:55] Right, right.
[04:57] So on the mechanics of this, Coalson, do you have an insight?
[05:01] Well, okay, so originally, right, so you would put your film in, you basically, it's about how much light you're letting in, right?
[05:09] The light is coming in, and that's how you get your black and whites or your browns, right?
[05:16] I mean, it's on some level, right?
[05:19] Right, so original film, photographic film, yeah.
[05:25] Areas that got more light actually turned darker, and that creates a negative, right?
[05:35] And then you take the negative, and you shine light through that, and then you can print a picture, right?
[05:44] So that makes sense.
[05:45] That's how you get black and white.
[05:46] That's a binary thing.
[05:47] It's on level, right?
[05:48] So each little, they're not really like pixels, but every part of the film would be a shade of gray.
[05:57] It would be on some scale from white to black, right?
[06:02] And then, at some point, color film was introduced around the time of The Wizard of Oz, I think.
[06:08] Okay, and Kodak, right?
[06:10] Didn't they include the color?
[06:12] Right.
[06:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[06:14] Good, nice.
[06:15] Okay.
[06:16] I mean, I feel like it's still, you know, a very similar process, but there's just the medium is using materials that are able to...
[06:31] Absorb more color?
[06:32] Right, so you can absorb whatever color.
[06:35] Right, so the original film would be wavelength agnostic, right?
[06:40] Okay, yeah.
[06:41] Any form of light, I guess it could capture.
[06:47] But in color film, you would have to have individual, I think, parts of the film or individual elements of the film that could capture different wavelengths of light.
[06:57] That's the only way that you could get color, I would assume.
[07:01] But I have no idea how that would work, right?
[07:04] Would you make, like, an amalgam of molecules?
[07:13] I don't even know.
[07:14] It's so weird.
[07:15] Yeah, I mean, what if you...
[07:17] I mean, weren't the negatives pretty thick for a while?
[07:22] Like, couldn't you have...
[07:23] Or, like, think of, like, a Polaroid, right?
[07:25] Like, maybe they're...
[07:28] Each individual...
[07:30] The negative has its own color, right?
[07:32] And they're layered on top of each other?
[07:34] So the film might actually be three different thin layers of...
[07:38] Yes, different RGB.
[07:40] Each sensitive to different wavelengths of light.
[07:44] Yes.
[07:45] Ooh, that's really clever.
[07:46] That's what I'm going with.
[07:47] I like that idea.
[07:48] Yeah, yeah.
[07:49] With the way the colors work, right, you could just use primary colors, right?
[07:53] I would think so.
[07:54] I mean, because they blend, right?
[07:56] I mean, that's the thing.
[07:57] That's...
[07:58] They make all the other colors.
[07:59] That's why they're primary.
[08:00] Right.
[08:01] Right.
[08:02] I like that idea.
[08:03] I like that it was three individual sheets that they just smacked on top of one another.
[08:08] Yeah, and then they'd collect whatever color they're seeing.
[08:11] Yeah.
[08:12] Right.
[08:13] And then as you...
[08:14] So you still create a negative, right?
[08:16] So your negative would be freaky looking, but then you shine light through it and you
[08:22] would get the original colors, right?
[08:25] Yeah.
[08:26] In fact, the colors would be the opposites of what they're going to end up being.
[08:32] Yes, exactly.
[08:33] Yeah.
[08:34] Yeah.
[08:35] In color, too.
[08:36] The negative, yeah.
[08:37] Right.
[08:38] So it's negative...
[08:39] So it's going to be negative on the white to black scale, like the light to dark scale,
[08:46] and then it's going to be negative for the RGB.
[08:49] I would think so, yeah.
[08:51] Yeah.
[08:52] Yeah.
[08:53] It's messed up, man.
[08:56] Do we have guesses as to when this came about?
[08:59] Like, certainly it must have been...
[09:01] I mean, Wizard of Oz was like one of the first color...
[09:05] Yeah.
[09:06] ...motion pictures, right?
[09:07] Right.
[09:08] But there must have been people experimenting with still photographs.
[09:12] But I assume once you like had...
[09:15] Once you got the film, you got the film.
[09:17] ...still photographs, like people were immediately making movies out of it.
[09:19] Right.
[09:20] So this is mid-30s, late 30s.
[09:22] I'm thinking, yeah, I'm thinking mid-late 30s.
[09:24] Okay.
[09:25] Yeah, I don't really see another...
[09:28] Because, I mean, I don't really...
[09:29] I mean, you think about pictures in the 20s and stuff.
[09:32] I don't remember seeing any color pictures, you know?
[09:35] Right.
[09:36] I don't really see a lot of...
[09:37] God, do you see a lot of color pictures from World War II?
[09:41] Weirdly, no.
[09:45] Yeah.
[09:46] They were all...
[09:47] I think it was just hyper-expensive, right?
[09:49] Yeah.
[09:50] Yeah.
[09:51] I'm sure right away.
[09:52] Sure.
[09:53] But by the 50s, everything's in color.
[09:55] Right.
[09:57] Because everyone had more money.
[09:59] That's right.
[10:00] Make America Great Again.
[10:03] All right, yeah.
[10:04] Well, what I'm seeing is that Coalson is absolutely correct.
[10:08] Yes!
[10:10] That basically made film that had three different layers, basically.
[10:16] Yeah, that's wild.
[10:21] And it was the era, right?
[10:23] Oh, wow.
[10:24] The first color photograph was produced by Thomas Sutton in 1861.
[10:31] Oh, my goodness.
[10:33] The first movie made in color was Cupid Angling in 1918.
[10:38] Wow.
[10:39] But so Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind were made using Technicolor.
[10:47] Okay, yeah.
[10:48] The foundation for all practical color processes,
[10:52] the three-color method, was first suggested in an 1855 paper
[10:56] by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell.
[11:01] And Thomas Sutton produced the first color photograph in 1861.
[11:07] Wow.
[11:09] So Kodachrome comes along in 1935.
[11:14] Eastman Kodak introduced the first modern, integral, tri-pack color film
[11:19] and called it Kodachrome.
[11:22] Cool.
[11:24] Yeah, and digital photography color-wise seems to work the way that I describe,
[11:31] is that you have each pixel is responsive to one of the three wavelengths of light
[11:42] and then you just have them in a similar pattern, basically.
[11:49] So you crushed that then?
[11:51] Yeah.
[11:52] Well, that I knew from, like, microscopy and stuff like that,
[11:56] so that was kind of a new, basically, the answer to that.
[12:01] We did a good job.
[12:04] Thank you.
[12:05] Yeah, you nailed it.
[12:06] Good work.
[12:07] The more you know.
[12:10] Oh, I think we stole that one from somebody else.
[12:12] Nah, I think it ran out.
[12:14] I had trademarks expired by now, right?
[12:17] They're not Disney.