Paint has responded to a changing world since its earliest beginnings and now plays a crucial role in protection as well as decoration. This documentary uses archive footage to illustrate the evolution of paint's fabrication and usage from stone age to modern day.30,000 years ago the first painters used hot animal fat for binding simple earth colours. The paste dried to form a thin waterproof film of colour, which was both decorative and durable. Early civilisations of Mesopotamia used the protective properties of bitumen, a pigment and binding medium in one, to waterproof boats. The Egyptians originated paint technology, creating the first synthetic pigment by fusing together silica, malachite and calcium carbonate at a critical temperature.12th century monks illustrated books, using linseed oil and varnish, but their sticky, slow-drying properties made fine decorative detail difficult. 15th century Flemish artists perfected the technique of fine painting in oils by using resin tapped from pine trees and distilling it to produce turpentine, a solvent, to thin paint for detailed work.Until the end of the 17th century apothecaries or pharmacists, supplied craftsman with paint making materials but as decoration became more elaborate and sophisticated the demand for paint increased and apothecary shops gave way to oil merchants and distillers.The influence of foreign trade brought new innovations such as gums and resins imported from Africa and India and turpentine derived from the pine forests of North America. The popularity of lacquered wares from China and Japan resulted in the building of factories to produce Far Eastern goods in quantity. Varnish making emerged as an enterprise in its own right, marking the beginnings of the modern paint industry.The industrial revolution saw paint used on a large scale as protection against rust on its great iron structures. Manufacturers experimented with new lead and zinc based paints to combat corrosion and with the onset of mass production, craftsmanship gave way to chemistry. Paint evolved from laboratories and was processed through chemical plants on an industrial scale.Paint is older than the wheel and serves a unique purpose in controlling corrosion and advancing the speeds of mass production. Its manufacture has helped establish a major industry based on science, though its existence is owed to art.