When Pantone announced that their 2025 Color of the Year was 17-1230 Mocha Mousse, we determined quickly that the best Rosco match to this trending color was #R99 Chocolate. Knowing that people would be interested in the origin story of this popular warming filter that looks great on almost every skin tone, we are sharing the story behind why the color was created for Gordy Willis on The Godfather and how it has evolved into a favorite for cinematographers and lighting designers around the world.
The late Gordon Willis ASC is perhaps best known for his photographic work on all three films in the Godfather franchise. While working on the first Godfather film in 1971, Willis struggled to find a camera filter that would create the sepia-toned look he desired for the daytime exterior shots of the wedding scene. His only choice was to light it that way – which not only would require a lot of light but also A LOT of gel! Willis approached Rosco, and we worked with Gordy to create a custom run of Rosco Gelatine that fit his specifications. This filter plunged the Godfather into a world of sepia tones that expertly strengthened Coppola’s themes.
After filming, there were 2500 sheets of Willis’ custom sepia-toned filter left over. These became Gelatine #282 Chocolate, which is the base color for Roscolux #R99 Chocolate.
Once the color found its way into the Roscolux swatchbook, lighting designers began to discover this unique color and noted how it could warm up a scene without being "sunny" like yellow and straws. Lighting Designer Cris Dopher celebrates the flexibility of #R99 as he uses it to create many different looks, and frequently returns to the color when working on dance productions. The filter creates sepia tones without stripping reds and blues of their vibrance, or destroying skin tones. To put it simply, #R99 Chocolate provides “mood and flavor without overspicing the look,” shared Dopher.
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While color-mixing LED fixtures are wonderful for creating pure hues, traditional RGBW and RGBA lights cannot produce more complex colors like #R99 Chocolate. When we released our six-chip MIX LED technology back in 2018, it was important to us that every single color in GEL mode matched the output of a traditional fixture with that gel color in front of it – and that includes #R99. Thanks to the phosphor-converted Amber, Red, and Lime chips inside our DMG Lighting fixtures, these lights are able to MIX together the chocolate lighting tones lighting designers, cinematographers, and gaffers have come to know and love.
#R99 Chocolate is just one of the 139 True Rosco Color™ gel matches you can create thanks to the MIX technology inside all Rosco DMG Lighting Fixtures. |
You can also find #R99 Chocolate - and ALL of Rosco's gel colors - in the free myColor™ App. Download it here: www.rosco.com/mycolor-app.
Do you have a color story about #R99 Chocolate that you’d like to share? You can either email your color story to Spectrum@rosco.com – or @ tag us in a post on social media.