Technicolor Films on DVD (1 Viewer)

[Jim Peavy]

^^
Good question!

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

No, it was most likely Kodachrome film, which was used for many years as the basis for 8mm/Super 8mm/16mm amateur cameras and for 35mm (and other formats) still transparencies. It couldn't be used for feature film production because it's a reversal film and not a negative film. The contrast would be too high when making prints.

 

[Robert Harris]

Kodachrome was used in the '40s for a number of Technicolor monopack productions, in which outdoors scenes which had a need for smaller / lighter gear used K'chrome as a taking mechanism, which was then separated.

 

[Jack Theakston]

Mr. Harris, I stand corrected. I knew it was one or the other.

Re: Kodachrome
For the most part, however, Kodak had no interest in producing 35mm on such a large scale, particularly for the film industry.

Other monopack films DID exist and WERE tested, but nothing was ever very significant for the number of negatives, internegatives and quality of release prints needed.

One of the most interesting variations of color film that I've found is LENTICULAR film, which is an additive process that uses a tri-color red/green/blue striped lens and a specially coated film with small lenses to produce the desired color. I have a lens mount and "Kodacolor" lens, but no film for 16mm. I would be very interested in running an example of this process. I know it was revamped in the early 50s for Kinescopes.

 

[Robert Harris]

I believe Pagnol shot a film in lenticular color.

 

[John Whittle]

Actually this is quite a bit of history here. There was an agreement between Kodak & Technicolor relating to the production of motion picture films for photography in 35mm and 16mm widths. The Technicolor monopack used on "Storm, Son of Flicka" was really just a 35mm version of Kodak's 16mm Kodachrome Commercial Film. While I can find no direct proof of this, it would appear it was developed by Eastman C&P on Las Palmas in Hollywood just five blocks west of Technicolor's main Hollywood plant on Romaine.

In reference to another question, Technicolor Cameras do still exist (there is one in the club room of the ASC in Hollywood). However there are several problems to actually using one. The first is film, special sensitized emulsions were required (Look at the DVD of Goldwyn Follies for an example of an operating 3-strip camera), specail processing of the black and white negatives would be required, then a matrix material would have to be manufactured and the IB printing machine put in storage by Technicolor-Hollywood would have to be pulled out and re-installed.

Then there's the problem Technicolor found, today's filmmakers aren't in love with the 1940-50 look of Technicolor. Eastman's Vision print stock can come close (falls a little short in "red") to a Technicolor print.

Also Technicolor IB prints are not very good for the purposes of making a video transfer. All the best examples of DVDs from Technicolor 3-strip camera productions comes from new IPs created from the camera negatives. Warner's new high-resolutions system by-passes the film IP and transfers the negatives directly and then colors and corrects them electronically.

Each Technicolor camera (I think they numbered less than 30) had a distinct "personality" based on the alignment and defects of the "prism" used to split the image in the camera.

Technicolor 3-strip rawstock was extremely "slow" and for a long time was about ASA 6 (although there are no records of a given ASA film speed since DP were given Cinex Strips which showed their printer lights in the morning for the previous days shooting). The number has been deduced based on lighting and footcandles of light necessary for exposure.

There is one big difference between IB prints and contact color positive prints that is often overlooked. IB prints had better high light detail and color positive prints better low (shadow) detail. If you think about the way the prints are made, it makes perfect sense. The matrix imparts dye and in shadow areas it blocks up quickly and has more detail in highlights from the thick negative. The color positive has better shadow from the dense part of the camera negative and burns out the high light from the thin part of the negative.

And remember that Technicolor continously evolved over it's entire life. In fact Technicolor would make specific formulations for a particular picture. "The Old Man and the Sea" is a classic example of a special Technicolor process.

John

 

[Hendrik]

FYI :

...here's a 1935 paper on (three-strip) Technicolor...

...and here's a 1999 article on the 're-invented' dye-transfer process...

...and more info (with some interesting tidbits!)...

...and then there is - of course! - this page (among many others!) on the one and only
American Widescreen Museum site...!...

. . . . . .

 

[PaulP]

That's really a shame, I must say. Can you imagine something like "Moulin Rouge!" in Technicolor, for example. I wish I was a filmmaker so I could make a Technicolor film. In a 1.33:1 ratio no less!

This is sort of veering away from DVD, so I'll just add that I'm very eagerly awaiting Meet Me in St. Louis next week. So that will be another Technicolor film in my collection. And if DeepDiscountDVD is to be believed, my 4-disc Treasures from the American Film Archives (along with The Movies Begin set, for good measure).

I wonder which other Technicolor films I should try getting next, and I'm wondering about transfer quality. I'm sure there are few that will even come close the WB's "Ultra Resolution" video quality though.

P.S.: Thanks for the links, Hendrik. A couple of those I read already, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technicolor is pretty interesting, since it mentions that The Godfather, Part II was the last American Technicolor film.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

This is one of the most fascinating threads
I have read in a long time.

Really learning quite a few things here.

I always wondered why nobody stepped up to the
plate to produce a Technicolor film today. Now
I realize why.

Thanks for the discussion guys.

 

[John Whittle]

I'm looking forward to "Bandwagon" and all the other MGM musicals from 1940s and 50s. The Warner system is great in that it allows individual correction of each record without having to make multiple passes of old negatives to add corrections to each new IP.

There have been other techniques by other companies. WRS Labs before they went under had a special triple head optical printer that allowed them to align the three records by eye on the printer and made an IP in a single pass.

I think we'll find others offering a service like Warners uses and it's the greatest way so far to get back to the original Technicolor elements in making a transfer to DVD and HD-DVD. (Many transfers today are actually HiDef and downconverted to current DVD, NTSC and PAL standards).

I'd like to thank Hendrik for mentioning Marty Hart's Widescreen Museum. I've made several contributions to exhibits there myself (including some Technicolor two color examples as well as papers on Kinemacolor).

John

 

[MatthewA]

No one has brought up the rather tragic status of Fox Technicolor films: the fact that in the 1970s, they made CRIs from their three-strip negatives and junked the nitrate originals (same deal with their B&W films). Look at the rather mediocre DVD of the 1950 "Cheaper by the Dozen," and you'll see they had source material problems.

Modern cinematography, as some have argued, and I agree with them, does not lend itself to the use of dye-transfer printing. And the powers that be just don't care about presentation.

 

[John Whittle]

Well, the "powers" tried but there was no interest. Ron Jarvis made a valiant attempt at maintaining IB printing and it was included in the Technicolor "restoration" department but the cost of operation and lack of support doomed it. After the move, the equipment was never unpacked.

As for Fox, I haven't been through the vaults but I question the statement as being true for everything.

Remember when a film was shot in 3-strip Technicolor, there was the camera negative and Technicolor did all the optical work (fades & dissolves) cutting in black and white dupe negatives full scene for those effects. BEFORE the matrix was printed, a full finegrain of each record was made at one light for protection. Then printing proceeded to timing and matrix manufacture.

So in each case there was the camera negative and a fine grain on each title. Much is made of a couple of MGM titles, Gone With the Wind and Singin' in the Rain. It true that certain scenes of the former were removed when a widescreen Technicolor prints were made in the mid 50s re-release and that's what we have today. The Singin' nitrate was lost in a fire, but not the finegrain. MGM had made a CRI before the fire, but the current DVD is from the other elements.

It's necessary to research each and every title and often a world wide search is necessary for elements that were used for foreign release (Technicolor would ship FGs to London for matrix manufacture and printing over there for example and Fox who used Deluxe domestically did foreign release printing at Tech London).

"Cheaper" may be a victim of the NTA sub license just as Becky Sharp was a victim of a tv distributor that took elements to Cinecolor, but finally it was restored to it's original 3-strip splendor. I wish this version would be released on DVD along with the restored version of Nothing Sacred.

John

 

[DeeF]

John,

Wow, you are really an expert in this, at least in your descriptive language. You must be a cinematographer, or something.

I've read that entire piece at Widescreen Museum, but it stops quite precipitously before Gone With The Wind. We need to encourage the "curator" to finish what he started.

About shadows and light: the new DVD of Meet Me In St. Louis reveals a color palette quite astounding, and many of the scenes are surprisingly dark: the entire Halloween sequence, for instance, and the scene where Judy Garland and Tom Drake walk through the house, turning out the gas lights.

I'm wondering if this was a feat for the Technicolor artisans, or if it was just par for the course.

 

[PaulP]

Not to dead-horse this, but I'm quite baffled at the fact that "there was no interest"... Technicolor to me is amazing. Nothing else looks like it. The blacks are REALLY black, and each color is so saturated it's beyond beautiful. How I envy moviegoers of 1940s-50s... Reading the articles linked above, I see The 13th Warrior was filmed in Technicolor. Haven't seen it, but know what it's about. I'll rent it to see how it looks. Perhaps not all is lost. Here's hoping for Technicolor revival!

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Technicolor closed down its revived dye-transfer facility a couple of years ago (AN Redux or selected prints of Pearl Harbor were the last, I think). Hollywood studios weren't interested, so there will most likely be no more dye transfer prints.

 

[Robert Harris]

It is generally considered that the demise of the latest dye transfer facility, which had yielded superior results, was not brought about by "disinterest" from Hollywood.

But rather a lack of proper publicity by Technicolor, and an equal lack of direction and support for the new process from within beyond the technical staff. Both the decision making toward the choice of films to use the process and the internal decision to allow it to be used improperly did not help it move out into a more public eye.

Lastly, and possibly of most importance, was the necessity of a much longer than currently needed lag time for the proper creation of matrices and color timing, some six weeks, as opposed to 24 -48 hours for direct positive, did not allow the process to be used by the many productions literally making their way into muliplexes still wet.

The dye transfer process exceeded the quality of any other current process in every way technically. It's loss to the film community via a whimper and not a bang does not state the reality of the situation of the demise of the process.

RAH

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Mr. Harris' description is more complete than my simplistic "disinterested" comment above. He's correct that it wasn't publicised very well at all. As exhibitors, we were never told in advance if a film we were getting was going to have the dye transfer prints, so there was no angle we could exploit to promote it to the public, either.

I had the pleasure to run one of the new Rear Window prints last year and it was spectacular. It's a great loss that the process is once again mothballed.