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Topic: platter overturning

Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-22-1999 04:18 PM

The guy who told me that story about the platter getting pulled over onto its side by the projector was a trainer for Cinemark.
(That's where I work.) If it's the same guy, then the story must be true. (His initials are S.W.)

Second; How did you like the quality of Gone With the Wind? (I like the movie but the print quality stunk.) They spent all that money restoring it and it looks like that??
I'm told that the original matrices (Technicolor "negatives" for the uninitiated.) shrunk slightly, and at different rates so they didn't line up when they were reprinted. You'd think that the computer technology we have these days could correct that!

------------------
K.Y.S.O.T.I.
Randy

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Christopher Seo
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 530
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-22-1999 05:59 PM

The recent IB Tech print I saw of "Gone With The Wind" was pretty bad. Yes, the one I saw was misregistered, but this is more a result of the problems they've been having with the Technicolor process itself and the three separate yellow, cyan, and magenta matrices that must be lined up precisely. (I heard that the recent IB Tech prints of "The Wizard of Oz" were misregistered as well.)

As for shrinking of the camera negative, I think it was discovered that the problem was actually a misregistration of a prism in the camera while it was being photographed.

While we're on the topic, I have conflicting reports on how GWTW was printed. Was it full-frame Academy 1.33 or some sort of reverse-letterboxing? I was under the impression that the movie had been anamorphically squeezed within the normal Scope frame to allow for projection in theaters without 1.33 lenses, but I've been told that the anamorphic adapter can be removed from the regular prime lens and thus allow for more or less normal projection of an Academy image. Is this true of all anamorphic lenses?

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Bruce McGee
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1776
From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular.
Registered: Aug 1999

posted 06-22-1999 06:15 PM

I saw GWTW in IB. We used the anamorphic lens in projection. The picture was full frame with a black border on the sides of the image. The print we had varied in quality from reel to reel. Some were beautiful. Some were dark and ugly.
Still, it looks better than the 1967 edition that I have. (1967 ver. was cropped and chopped, and generally sucked.)

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Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 06-22-1999 06:16 PM

The fellow from Cinemark who told me was also a booth trainer (initials C.J.). I'm sure it was true.

As to GWTW prints, I never actually ran one nor saw it. However, I had an IB Tech Bulworth that was FANTASTIC!!! Unfortunately Fox got so many complaints on those extremely few IB prints that the head print controller said he would not print in that process again.

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Christopher Seo
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 530
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-22-1999 08:39 PM

So the GWTW image was as tall as an anamorphic frame but squeezed horizontally? Is there any reason why they did not print it as a regular Academy frame and tell the theaters to take the Scope adapter off their Scope lens? That would approximate a flat 1.33 lens.

It's a shame people complained so much about the IB Tech "Bulworth" prints; after all, without some trial and error how can Technicolor rediscover the process? Were other prints simply not as good?

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 06-23-1999 12:13 AM

I just watched a reel (R13) of the 1998 reissue of GWTW in IB Tech tonight; the image was indeed printed using the full height of the CinemaScope aperture, but squeezed; when projected with the scope lens, you get a 1.33 image on the screen...this was a really dumb idea, if you ask me, although it was made necessary because many theatres do not have proper lenses to show 1.33 films, which is a shame. Anyway, the print was made from an interpositive made in 1989, which was timed for printing on Eastman stock; there is very little shadow or highlight detail, and many scenes simply aren't sharp at all. In my opinion, this "59th Anniversary" reissue was a wasted effort, and a waste of the IB process. At the end of the reel, the projector interior was covered with white dust...the film gate looked like it had been left outside in a snowstorm!

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