Cutting - Text 4
But this operation must also take into account tinting and toning because “negatives whose positive prints must be tinted and toned the same way are grouped together.”[1] Reels of negatives were thus made up, each bringing together tableaux to be tinted or toned in the same colour, and in the order in which they would appear in the future film narrative.
These reels then had to be cut up for the fragments to be placed in the definitive order of the narrative, alternating with pieces tinted or toned differently, in order to make positive exhibition prints – an assemblage which took place in the “assembly” or “inspection” departments. One cuts not only in order to assemble, therefore, but also to disassemble, to create a temporary assemblage to be sent out for a number of photographic operations (printing, tinting, etc.). This assemblage underwent a number of cuts in turn in order to put each positive print back in the correct order. As a result, every positive print from cinema’s so-called silent period contains joins.