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Topic: Kodak Venue, Fuji Menu, New Films & Leaders at NY SMPTE Meet
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Gerard S. Cohen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 975
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted 04-02-2003 12:15 PM
Part 1: Kodak's Venue
Kodak provided the Florence Gould Hall of the Alliance Francaise in an elegant neighborhood on East 59th Street. I had last been there about 20 years ago, picketting for several days to get the management to sign a union contract. The professors and librarians came out to converse with us, and the dialog was mutually informative. They were running a series of classic art films at $12 per person, which included a discussion with the director.
I was glad to see the improvements since. Fred Hatt, Projectionist,(Local 306 IATSE) invited me to visit the booth,
where four others were seated at the sound mixing board, the huge lighting board, and by the two immaculate Simplex 35 PR-1014 reel-to-reel projectors with huge Xetron lamphouses, plus a DLP used instead of a slide projector for the reports that night.
The auditorium, with red plush stepped seating, contained ten sound baffles of stained dimensional lumber, fan-like on the side walls, and a white fabric batting below the booth window,
which was wall-to-wall glass about four feet high. The stage was full theatrical, painted black, and the screen, about 18' wide, was lowered from above. (The venue is used for plays and ballets as well as films.) I felt it would be sacriledge to bring food or drink in such a clean auditorium. Four surround speakers were fixed high on the walls in large wooden enclosures, and the usual portable array onstage.
The auditorium is downstairs, with an escalator for return.
2 The Fuji Menu
The Fuji Corp. provided bartenders at two soft drink bars
upstairs, and an attractive buffet with three varieties of generic rolled sushi, meat sandwiches on rolls, a selection of cheezes and fruit, and crudites with dip.
Edgar A. Schuller, SMPTE Test Materials Director, greeted me, wearing a T-shirt illustrating his new Universal Theatrical Film Leader, and confessed to 52 years membership, as he genially introduced me to several others. Peter Williamson, film preservationist at the NYC Museum of Modern Art, knows Leo
Enticknap, (but not of Film-tech, typical of all I met.) There was much white hair in suits, young men in black leather, and a sprinkling of animated and attractive women, mostly young and blonde.
3 The New SMPTE Universal Theatrical Leader
Ed Schuller prefaced his new leader with an illustrated history of the AMPAS-developed Academy Leader, the old SMPTE leader,and the Universal leader. The new SMPTE Universal Theatrical Projection Leader was developed for both 35mm and 16mm use, for theatrical and television projection, with the needs of telecine operators and various film formats in mind.
It is designed for ease in threading, to provide protection to the film, and to provide multiple kinds of identification data,
including subject titles, reel #, language and subtitles, length, types of sound tracks, laboratory and release info, production co., and eight frames for production control (LAD, grey scale, target, logo, etc. as desired.)
4 Fujicolor Negative Film: REALA 500D
Jim Hagedorn of Fuji pinch-hit for Mac Jibiki in presenting the new film by reading the latter's paper with the use of DLP projected notes and graphs, all of which were distributed in a folder to all present, including a technical paper. From 1994 through 2000 Fuji has been researching the market, and upgrading their films to meet the needs for greater sensitivity and finer grain, along with better color rendition at lower light levels, use of HMI lighting, and mixed lighting of various kinds. He cited the improved skin tones, better color achieved through dye couplers and especially a new 4th color layer in the emulsion, and a flattening og the silver halide grains to achieve greater surface area, yet maintaining fine granularity.
The Fuji demonstration film , "The Glow," followed a boy on a bicycle as he picks up a package at the post office and delivers it to an eccentric collector in a castle. The camera follows him smoothly through interiors, tunnels, and deep shadow, all the time maintaining uniform good colors and great shadow detail. Music was clear and pleasant, and the dialog and narration, clear with British English
The demo was documented with print descriptions of each shot, detailing camera, cameraman, lighting, lens and exposure in T-stops.
5 Kodak 5218 500T Color Negative Film
David Long introduced this new film with a rapid-paced runthrough of the theory and manufacture of Kodak negative films,including the atomic chemistry and physics of light, color, emulsion, exposure and development. This rapid-fire graduate level college course only slowed when he detailed the specifics of the new 5218 film, which he compared in great detail with its Kodak predecessors, especially 5279, which has slightly greater color saturation and a bit less shadow detail.
He too dwelt on silver grain geometry, but went into photons, protons, electrons, free radicals, high-activity dye couplers, and triple-coating of each color emulsion layer.
Kodak's demonstration film was "Drop the Pilot," hectic as an MTV video, starring Mandy Moore singing throughout, intercut with shots of a grizzled painter at work, and carrying his painting around. The singer's peaches-and-cream complexion and
golden hair were held by a 3200"k spotlight throughout, while
rock dancers and musicians swirled about. There was no narration nor dialog, but the lyrics delivered in rock-'Merkin,
the only words intellegible (?) to me being "religion" and "babadou-babadou-babadou." Afterwards I wondered, when they talk about skin tones, whose do they mean? Don't people come in all hues, with not always perfectly smooth skin?
The demo was followed by a documentary of out-takes and production shots, with the director explaining the lighting challenges, and citing the exposure and lens used. After this, split-screen comparisons of 5218 with 5279, but I could see little difference other than greater color saturation in the faces on the older film.
6 So Which Film Is Better?
I found both films gave very pleasing results, but am not able to say which I prefer. A real comparison would show the same content filmed and projected simultaneously via split-screen, and I would prefer a linear-edited continuity like "The Glow" to a hectic concert film like "Drop the Pilot" for the test. But I think both films, with their bright, lower-saturated colors, would be welcomed as camera films, capable of
printing high-resolution inter-negatives for making theatrical prints, and television use.
The SMPTE generoulsy made available print copies of some of its publications gratis, including Standards, Guidelines, Practices, and Test Materials, as well as membership applications and literature.
Much more information can be found on the websites of Kodak, Fuji, and The SMPTE.
Gerard
[ 04-02-2003, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: Gerard S. Cohen ]
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Gerard S. Cohen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 975
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted 04-03-2003 05:05 PM
Thanks John for your correction and additions.
I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the members of the band and audience, who were often in colored effects lighting, whereas the singer was spotlighted.
With all the immense challenges facing the scientists, I am amazed that they succeeded so well in developing versatile color films. For example, David Long said they attempt to give the film a reaction to light and color that matches that of the receptors in the human retina. How can they measure that? There must be sizeable variations, as witness the color blindness tests in driving schools and the DMV. Even my two eyes do not see the same. My right eye sees light as though higher in Kelvin temperature (bluish) owing to the plastic lens replacing the one that developed a cateract. My left eye sees light more like an incandescent or candle light (more orange-brown, by comparison.) So colors reflecting the light appear different in hue, though my brain compensates well, and I only notice the discrepancy when I cover one eye.
Now our perceptions of color, and our preferences for the "look" of color must be very subjective. I remember my family's first color television--each member changed the intensity and hue to suit himself, and there were frequent arguments. Fashion also enters the picture. Seems to me some seasons pastels are popular, while other times more intense and saturated colors are the rage. The early Kodachrome had very saturated colors, while modern films are more subdued. To give the viewer personal control, my Sony TV has push-button Picture Mode presets for Standard, Movie, Sports and Vivid, as well as
the incremental adjustments for Brightness, Color, Hue, Contrast and Sharpness. To each his own perception and preference. Yet these scientists manage to achieve results so pleasing to multitudes when they create new films...
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