Elisabeth Thuillier
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Elisabeth Thuillier, described on business letterheads as Mme. B. Thuillier, was an early French film colorist who's part in early filmmaking was her work on film colorization during the earliest years of cinema. While other film colorists at the time later discovered better methods, such as Pathé's stencil-color, Thuillier's work relied entirely on hand-painting each frame of the filmstrip, using colors she herself chose and hiring workers to create an assembly line. She is particularly remembered today for her colorization work on the films of Georges Méliès, especially his "A Trip to the Moon" from 1902, but also known to work on films of his from 1897 to 1912. Other films by Méliès colorized by Thuillier include "Le Château Hanté" (1897) (his first film colorized by her studio), "La Lune à un Mètre" (1898), and "La Danse de Feu" (1899). Despite a claim that she had supposedly colored his 1909 "Les Illusions Fantaisistes", an interview taking place in 1929 disproved this theory. Indeed, while many of Méliès's surviving colored works are said to be colored by her studio specifically, several of them in fact use the stencil-coloring technique.
Thuiller was also known to have employed the Spanish director Segundo de Chomòn's wife, Julienne Mathieu, to work as a supervisor in her hand-coloring studio. Ironically, Mathieu would later work as an actress for the Pathé company, where colorization work was done by the stencil-coloring method. At one point, Thuillier even agreed to run her studio for this company exclusively, but backed out when she realized she would have to share authority over the colorization with a Mme. Florimond. All told, her hand-painting studio produced approximately 60 copies of a film, costing about 6 or 7 francs for 300 meters of film. For the 1929 Gala Méliès, a gala celebrating Méliès's life and career, she had two of her pupils colorize the ten copies of the films that were to be shown at the celebration, using positive and negative prints. Her last client for the business was Georges Drufayel, owner of a department store which housed a theater and other additional attractions.
Except that she was described as a widow around 1900, little is known of Thuillier's personal life. Apparently, the identity of her husband remains a mystery.
Thuiller was also known to have employed the Spanish director Segundo de Chomòn's wife, Julienne Mathieu, to work as a supervisor in her hand-coloring studio. Ironically, Mathieu would later work as an actress for the Pathé company, where colorization work was done by the stencil-coloring method. At one point, Thuillier even agreed to run her studio for this company exclusively, but backed out when she realized she would have to share authority over the colorization with a Mme. Florimond. All told, her hand-painting studio produced approximately 60 copies of a film, costing about 6 or 7 francs for 300 meters of film. For the 1929 Gala Méliès, a gala celebrating Méliès's life and career, she had two of her pupils colorize the ten copies of the films that were to be shown at the celebration, using positive and negative prints. Her last client for the business was Georges Drufayel, owner of a department store which housed a theater and other additional attractions.
Except that she was described as a widow around 1900, little is known of Thuillier's personal life. Apparently, the identity of her husband remains a mystery.
