Page "James Wong Howe" Paragraph 14

Howe's earliest discovery was the use of black velvet to make blue eyes show up better on the orthochromatic film stock in use until the early 1920s.

Orthochromatic film was " blue blind "; it was sensitive to blue and green light, which showed as white on the developed film.

Reds and yellows were darkened.

Faced with the problem of actors ' eyes appearing washed out or even stark white on film, Howe developed a technique of mounting a frame swathed with black velvet around his camera so that the reflections darkened the actors ' eyes enough for them to appear more natural in the developed film.