Kinemacolor type: 2 or 3 Colour analysis/additive synthesis/2 or 3 colour additive projection.

In the silent period most colour systems were additive. Separate records of each colour, red, green and blue, were made by exposing three separate frames through three coloured filters. When projected, each positive image (containing the information of a single colour) was projected back through the original coloured filter. On the screen, an image reproducing natural colours was obtained because of the addition of the three colours.

In some cases, in order to simplify the process, only two colours were used (orange-red and blue-green) which resulted in an imperfect colour reproduction but probably still quite striking in the cinema. The two-colour systems derived from this principle have mostly left us with negatives and print in black and white. These are only recognisable because each frame is slightly different in rendering one from the other. For example, a red flag appears to be transparent in the red frame and opaque in the green and blue ones, or from the unusual geometry of some of these inventions. In some, the two separations were inversions of each other, since one was exposed through the base, and the other not.

Several different systems based on this principle were developed. Gaumont Chronochrome, developed in France by Gaumont, was a system using three different frames (red, green and blue) taken at the same time with three different lenses placed one under the other. Behind each one of the three lenses was placed a filter of the corresponding colour. The film was projected in the same way, using a projector with three lenses. Chronochrome frames were shorter than those of standard 35 mm films and had only three perforations per side.

The Kinemacolor system, developed commercially by the Englishman, Charles Urban, was designed to shoot two different frames through a rotating filter that alternated between blue-green and orange. The film (standard 35 mm) ran at a speed of 32 frames per second and the rapid sequence of the pictures in the two different colours produced a plausible, even if imperfect, colour effect.

Another English inventor, Friese-Green, had developed a system similar to that of the Kinemacolor, but which was based on shooting of three successive pictures through three filters.