Kodak Test Films
I forget her name but she was a employee at Kodak, and because of her perfect skin they used her for years to test skin tone reproduction in their films during the R&D phases (you will often see that she is wearing bright clothing for example, testing colour reproduction while maintaining accurate skin tones). The reason they chose a real person was because they had the actual live reference right there at Kodak, they could compare the film results to her directly that very same day and make formula adjustments as needed. Apparently she was later replace by another woman at Kodak, and then shortly afterwards that woman was also replaced, by a mannequin.
In the Kodachrome test film video (link on left) the following details are provided ...
“In these newly preserved tests, made in 1922 at the Paragon Studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, actress Mae Murray is joined by actress Hope Hampton modeling costumes from The Light in the Dark (1922), which contained the first commercial use of Two-Color Kodachrome in a feature film. Ziegfeld Follies actress Mary Eaton and an unidentified woman and child also appear.”
The pulsating lights were to test the films ability to hold colour accuracy in both over and under exposed lighting situations. You will notice both colour temperature changes and pulsating light intensity tests in the Kodak video link to the left ... colour temperature tests are more obvious in the first part of the video, and towards the end of the video it is obvious what they are testing for with the second woman turning and moving to show the red coat as they pulse the lights to watch for colour shifts. A lot of comparison R&D went into films at that time.
Polaroid did the same of course, but they started out with a mannequin, her name is Betsy, and today she resides in the window next to the entrance at Impossible Project in the Netherlands.
- Brian Martin, Feb 2013
PS - 'Impossible Project' are the 15 or so people who are remaking Polaroid film today. Try their films, they are really quite good!