Because orthochromatic film stock could not be used in low-light situations, blue became the most popular tint, applied to scenes shot during the day and when projected, signified night.
In it, Annabelle Moore, a young dancer from Broadway, is dressed in white veils that appear to change colors as she dances.
By the early teens, with the onset of feature-length films, tinting was expanded upon as another mood setter, just as commonplace as music.
His 1915 epic, The Birth of a Nation, utilized a number of colors, including amber, blue, lavender, and a striking red tint for scenes such as the "burning of Atlanta" and the ride of the Ku Klux Klan at the climax of the picture.
Manually tinting a film ran the risk of interfering with the soundtrack on a sound-on-film system, making it unusable.
But splicing together tinted sound prints interfered more with sound-on-disc processes such as Vitaphone, which needed to be frame accurate to keep in synchronization.
Tinting was utilized for years up until the early 1950s in select sequences, full monochromatic pictures and short trailers and snipes.
MGM invented an interference-free toning process, which was used in films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Warner Brothers' The Sea Hawk (1940).
Mighty Joe Young (1949) displayed a further concept of tinting by Technicolor, with various shades of red, orange, and yellow creating a fire-like effect for the last reel.
The Cinecolor Corporation also created similar effects, and sepia-toned several films as well as tinted select scenes in chapters of the 1951 Columbia serial Captain Video.
Toning was similar, but instead of aniline dyes, the film was immersed in chemicals to change the silver image into colored salts.