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Author Topic: Color shifts in LOTR (Two Towers) Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 12-19-2002 05:45 PM                        What causes a picture to suddenly lose color? I've got a couple of reels where the picture goes really blue for a second or two, then either goes fine or shifts to another color. In one case, it's about the last 30 seconds before the end of the reel. Does this have something to do with a whacky printer... or something else?.. hopefully not my eyes!  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-19-2002 05:51 PM                     Probably one of the 3 printer lights failing or miss reading the punch tape for the timing cues (newer printer use a PC)  |  IP: Logged Chris Tyson Film Handler Posts: 15 From: Branson, MO, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 12-19-2002 06:08 PM                        We have 2 prints and both have like a ripple effect of the color going in a downward motion in several different parts of the movie. I thought it was the lamp flickering for a second, but I have never saw a lamp do that (ripple effect) before. So I checked the other print and it does it also. Anyone else have this or do I need to get me some new reels in here?  |  IP: Logged John Hawkinson Film God Posts: 2273 From: Cambridge, MA, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 12-19-2002 06:20 PM                     If it happens adjacent a lab splice, it can be "fogging" from the safelight. --jhawk  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 12-19-2002 06:31 PM                        Chris, Could what you're seeing be Wavy Line Syndrome?  |  IP: Logged Steve Kraus Film God Posts: 4094 From: Chicago, IL, USA Registered: May 2000 posted 12-19-2002 06:37 PM                    Lightstruck.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 12-19-2002 07:44 PM                        What we have is not the wavy line syndrome... though I always wondered what that was, too. Thanks for the link. this is a definite (jolting) loss of 1 or 2 colors for a moment, so I'm thinking the exposure light explanation comes closest. It isn't patterned like non-uniform chemistry or such... it affects the entire image suddenly.  |  IP: Logged Chris Tyson Film Handler Posts: 15 From: Branson, MO, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 12-19-2002 07:44 PM                        Yes, I believe that's what it could be. Thanks, Chris.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 12-19-2002 09:32 PM                        Sounds like safelight fogging, which on print film, is usually an overall cyan or blue coloration over the width of the film (not just the picture area). Here's what Kodak wrote to help labs avoid these problems: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/illumination/page01.blind  |  IP: Logged Mark DeLettera Film Handler Posts: 54 From: Venice, Florida Registered: Aug 1999 posted 12-23-2002 07:52 AM                     As I did plenty of Safelight testing on various print films here at Kodak, it sounds to me like the symptoms of safelight fogging. Without seeing the film, I guess that the printer lights failing, as Gordy mentioned, is indeed a possibility.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 12-23-2002 12:07 PM                        I saw that too once or twice in "The Two Towers", both times after a lab splice.  |  IP: Logged Scott Balko Expert Film Handler Posts: 136 From: Redwood Falls, Minnesota, USA Registered: Apr 2000 posted 12-23-2002 08:55 PM                     I had this on "Stuart Little 2". Both on or near a lab splice. The picture would go blue then the lab splice would come, then it would go blue-ish again. I have the wavy line syndrome on Star Trek: Nemesis.  |  IP: Logged Jack Ondracek Film God Posts: 2348 From: Port Orchard, WA, USA Registered: Oct 2002 posted 12-23-2002 09:42 PM                        We had to replace reels 6 & 8. Reel 9 had some of that wavy line syndrome in it, but it got in just under the radar here & I didn't really notice it much until I sat in the auditorium last night. It's not too bad, but noticeable to anyone who knows what they're looking for. Reel 8 had a bad section, roughly 15 feet long. It started with the colors, including sound track, dissolving to a very pale blue. At one point, the picture looks like it hits a pre-printing lab splice, and the image gets even more pale. Then, it suddenly goes completely white... with what looks like an attempt in the middle to return, but only for half a frame. Then the whole process reverses, including lab splice (not on the print) to roughly 50% image... then everything fades back in, including full density in the sound track. Wierd... first time I've seen that... much less in the middle of a reel. Reel 8 just had that flashy-color shifting we've been chatting about already. The new reels arrived from Deluxe, Hollywood. Coincidentally, that's where the replacement reel I had to order on Star Trek came from...  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 12-24-2002 07:08 AM                        What is the magenta edge print identification of the film batch? It may be that the film is more prone to safelight fogging if a higher than normal percentage of reels is affected with blue/cyan safelight fog.  |  IP: Logged Joseph Pandolfi Expert Film Handler Posts: 213 From: Milford, CT. Registered: Nov 1999 posted 01-01-2003 11:52 AM                     Saw it last night at a diferent theatre than mine. The beginning of Reel 6 starts out with the frame line just below the top part of the screen. Fifteen seconds later when I was about to go out and complain to the usher, the screen flickered for a second or two and the visable frameline disappered back to normal. There was no noticeable lab splice that I have seen.  |  IP: Logged

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