In these early days of film coloring, dyes were used primarily to accentuate important objects in the frame. Much of the shot was left black and white, with hues adding blushing details: a blue hat, a pink dress, a yellow star. Colors became particularly popular in the genre of dance films—short pictures featuring female dancers, often wearing billowing dresses. In these films, vivid tones could be interpreted more abstractly, and the wavy inconsistencies inherent to hand-coloring felt less distracting. Soon, seeing at least three shades of color became standard when watching any of the popular “Serpentine Dance” films, popularized by the likes of Thomas Edison and the Lumière brothers in the late 1890s.

However, color film could be 70–80 percent more expensive than black-and-white film, and the longer the film, the more expensive the coloring process. As such, producers were more likely to pay to color shorter films. One could argue that coloring film was well worth the expense: Writings from the time tell us that audiences expressed profound delight at the vibrant world of color films. As David Hulfish noted in the trade paper Nickelodeon in 1909, “The color film has the most interest of all.…The audience literally ‘sits up and takes notice’ when the first scene of a colored picture film flashes on the screen.”