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Author
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Topic: Technicolor Monochrome (No, it's not a joke)
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-16-2005 06:17 PM
I've just retuned home from watching a screening of 'A Matter of Life and Death'. For anybody who doesn't know the film, it's a 1946 (I think) three strip production, but has significant sequences, maybe 25 - 30%, in monochrome.
On the beginning of the film there's an interesting credit, which I don't remember seeing when I last saw the film, but that was well over thirty years ago. It was for 'Color and Dye Monochrome by Technicolor' The print I was watching was a fairly recent Eastmancolor one on modern polyester stock, but I take it to mean that, on the original prints, the monochrome sequences were dye transfer printed, rather than being on normal black and white stock, spliced into the print. I've never heard of this before, does anybody know if this was the case, and if so how it was done? I can think of several possibilities:
A black dye was transferred to the print, using a fourth matrix.
As above, but the normal three dyes were mixed to make what looked like a black dye.
The three matricies contained identical material material for these sequences, so that all three dyes were transferred equally during the normal printing run.
The same matrix was transferred three times to the pint, using a different dye each time.
Some alternative that I haven't thought of.
No. 4 seems unlikely; No.3 would seem to be the simplest and cheapest, and probably the most likely, but this would mean that 'Technicolor Dye Monochrome' was simply normal Technicolor printing, but with subject matter which was monochrome, because it had been filmed with black and white stock. Any suggestions? Were any other flms printed this way, either mixed colour and monochrome, or all monochrome ones? On a similar theme, how were the sepia scenes in 'Wizard of Oz' originally printed?
The print I saw today was very good, it looked very similar to an original Technicolor print, but the monochrome sequences varied in tone somewhat fron scene to scene, the difference was fairly small, not like a toned print, more like the difference between a warm-tone and a cold-tone photographic paper. Does anybody know if this difference was intentional in this film, and was in the original prints? I can't remember the one I saw all those years ago.
There were just two brief sequences where there was serious mis-register of the magenta image, a few seconds each, otherwise it looked very good; recommended if you live in England, and it happens to turn up at your local cinema.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-17-2005 09:24 AM
I've seen the restored 'Blimp'at the NFT a few years ago. There have been several P&P films shown at Croydon recently, I've got a feeling 'Blimp' was on a few weeks ago, when I couldn't make it. Since they dropped Sunday opening in April this year, this sort of thing tends to be shown during office hours on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and last show on Wednesday evenings. Guess which day I normally have to work late at the College. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I saw 'Black Narcissus'a week or two ago, and that had major registration problems between the elements. In 'A Matter of Life and Death' it was almost perfect, apart from the couple of brief problems which I mentioned. The print would have been even better if some bloody idiot hadn't seen the need to add large, roughly hand-scribed cues just a few frames after each of the perfectly adequate proper ones.
There was something odd about the print; some parts, not all, of it had strange framelines. They were the normal width for an Academy frame, but only a thin line across the centre was black, above and below that it was cyan. Any idea why? I've never seen anything like it before.
By the way, the latest I've heard is that Croydon is due to get the new digital installation in March. I'm not sure how they plan to do it, I haven't heard any details, but I don't think there's room in the box at the moment, and if they remove one 35mm machine putting in a tower would be rather a tight squeeze too. A platter would be even worse, the box is very shallow front to back, I doubt that you'd be able to squeeze past it. You couldn't put it up at the far end, because there's a large hole in the floor, with an emergency escape ladder. Unless they're planning to drop film, and go all digital, but I doubt that there will be a great deal available by that time. We'll have to wait and see.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-17-2005 10:33 AM
quote: Stephen Furley
They were the normal width for an Academy frame, but only a thin line across the centre was black, above and below that it was cyan. Any idea why? I've never seen anything like it before.
The thin line across the centre was probably put there by a step printer. Assuming the original camera separation negatives survived and were the starting point for the restoration (which I seem to remember was the case with AMOLAD), then in those days the preservation route would have been as follows:
- Print b/w fine grain positives from the original elements. If there is significant differential shrinkage between the three strips for each reel, this has to be done using a step optical printer with magnification adjusted to achieve realignment. If not, step contact printing would probably have been used.
- Create a combined Eastmancolor interneg from the f/g sep pos elements, by continuous contact printing them in three passes using filters.
- Strike normal Eastmancolor release prints from the recombined interneg.
The only possible reason I can think of for a cyan matte ending up on the prints is if the cyan preservation interpositive was struck using a continuous printer (i.e. no matte), whereas the other two were struck using a step printer (has a matte). I suppose that's possible if the cyan camera neg had survived without significant shrinkage or brittleness, whereas the other two hadn't. But that really is a stab in the dark - I'm sure John Pytlak or Dominic Case could provide the definitive answer.
If you're restoring a Technicolor feature now, I guess you'd just scan all the elements at 6 or 8k, and let the computer take care of the alignment issues before burning out your combined interneg.
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John Pytlak
Film God
Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 11-17-2005 12:35 PM
quote: Leo Enticknap
I suppose that's possible if the cyan camera neg had survived without significant shrinkage or brittleness, whereas the other two hadn't. But that really is a stab in the dark - I'm sure John Pytlak or Dominic Case could provide the definitive answer.
I doubt that continuous contact printing would have been used to generate the masters. Perhaps different pin-registered step printers were used for C-M-Y, and the printer apertures were slightly different so the framelines had some color.
Intercutting silver-image B&W and dye images is problematic because of the differences in IR absorption of the film --- the two films focus differently, especially with larger (hotter) lamps. I recall that the 1998 dye transfer re-release of "The Wizard of Oz" had the opening and ending B&W reels printed on Kodak color print film color balanced with a sepia tint.
quote: Leo Enticknap
If you're restoring a Technicolor feature now, I guess you'd just scan all the elements at 6 or 8k, and let the computer take care of the alignment issues before burning out your combined interneg.
Pretty much what was done for the recent restoration of "Singing in the Rain", and more recently, "Cinderella":
http://www.mouseplanet.com/more/mm050921sh.htm
quote:
John Lowry, founder of Lowry Digital Images (recently acquired by Digital Theater Systems, Inc. [DTS]), and who oversaw digital restoration of over 100 classic major Hollywood films, including Mary Poppins, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Singing In The Rain...Dave Bossert was then called upon to discuss the technical aspects of restoring Cinderella. He said that their basic philosophy during the restoration process was, “What was the artistic intent?”
Using the original nitrate negative, they did full 4,000KB-resolution scans of every frame, which took six to seven months to complete. In the process, they removed 10 million pieces of dirt—it was a labor of love. Disney and DTS took a great deal of care out of respect for the artwork in order to bring the film back to pristine condition.
Steve Poehlein then expanded on the process by explaining that the digital restoration of Cinderella was different from previous ones because they had the ability to make the 1950 film better than it originally was created. They obtained the black and white negative from the Library of Congress and shot it three times using color filters.
Poehlein demonstrated the final product by showing the Fairy Godmother scene in before-and-after clips, indicating how much brighter and crisper the colors are in the restored version.
John Lowry was then called upon to talk further about the digital restoration process. The film was not restored to its original state at the time of release; instead the original artwork was used as a guideline to make a pristine restoration without being limited by the original image capture mechanics available back then.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-17-2005 01:51 PM
quote: Leo Enticknap
Create a combined Eastmancolor interneg from the f/g sep pos elements, by continuous contact printing them in three passes using filters.
Wouldn't this cause problems with the perforation pitch? The fine grain positives and the colour intermediate stock would both be short pitch, surely. I would have thought that to get the required degree of image steadiness for combining separations wou would have to step contact print the interneg. Is this not the case. However it was done they certainly made a very good job of registering the three images.
If the original camera negatives were used, I think there would have been another complication. If I remember the three strip camera details correctly the green film ran directly behind the prism, and received a normal image, while the red and blue films ran as a bi-pack, and were exposed via the prism, which would reverse the image. In the case of the blue film the image would again be reversed by exposing through the base, thus correcting the image, while the red image would be reversed only once, by the prism, and would therefore have opposite geometry to the other two. I may have not remembered the positions of all of the strips correctly, but at least one of the negatives would have had the opposite geometry to normal. Would optical printing have been required to correct this, or would the unsharpness resulting from contact printing through the base of the negative have been acceptable for colour?
I never fail to be amased that the three-strip process could ever have been made to work as well as it did. The theory is fine, but actually getting it to work in practice in the real world is quite another thing. Wet gelatine is hardly the most dimentionally stable substance known!
quote: John Pytlak
I doubt that continuous contact printing would have been used to generate the masters. Perhaps different pin-registered step printers were used for C-M-Y, and the printer apertures were slightly different so the framelines had some color.
If it was caused by a difference in aperture size, then it was a very large difference. From top to botton the height of the frame line was divided into roughly 40% cyan, 20% black, 40% cyan. i.e. the central black area was only about half as wide as each of the cyan areas above and below it. I did notice that only parts of the print were like this, but I'm not sure if complete 1000 foot negative reels were aways thesame, of if it ever changed to a normal black frame line within a reel.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-17-2005 02:06 PM
Firstly, to clear up what 'dye monochrome' was:
quote: Herb Lightman, 'Two Worlds in Technicolor', American Cinematographer, July 1947
For the scenes to be photographed in dye-monochrome, a black and white negative was photographed, and from this three identical negatives were made which were used as if they were separation negatives. The transition effects from black and white to colour were actually long dissolves 'synched' to the exact frame, so there was absolutely no jump in action. The most unusual aspect of the effect is that, although the sets were lit for colour, the black and white reproductions of these scenes maintain a smooth, velvety quality, devoid of the flatness one might expect.
I don't quite get how the single-strip o-neg was duplicated three times to be cut into the YCM masters before the matrices were made: I guess that either the three copies were made on reversal stock (which would have lost a lot of contrast information, I'd have thought) or, more likely, they went through an extra interpositive generation. Or maybe the single strip camera original for the b/w scenes was a reversal positive. If it was an extra generation, that would explain why the monochrome scenes in AMOLAD don't look as sharp, to my eye, as the colour ones.
quote: John Pytlak
Intercutting silver-image B&W and dye images is problematic because of the differences in IR absorption of the film...
Not an issue with the AMOLAD restoration, I'd have thought: presumably the sections of camera negative which were intended to be shown in dye monochrome would have cancelled themselves out when printed through filters, to produce monochrome (just as they did when the IB matrices were cut for the original release prints); and the whole recombined interneg simply printed onto colour print stock.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 11-18-2005 03:16 AM
I've met Jack three times, once at Bradford, and twice at a small cinema in north london, where he attended screenings of 'The Red Shoes' and 'The Great Mr. Handel'. I last saw him aboout three years ago, when he was still surprisingly fit for his age. I'm not sure that he would remember the details however, he's an old man now, and this would be asking him to think back to sixty years ago. His memory seems to serve him better on matters concerning lighting set-ups, than on camera, lens and film stocks, where he was having difficulty rembering details.
Leo, it seems that my guess that option No.3 in my list was the most likely, was correct. 'Dye-Monochrome' was just 'normal' three-colour imbibition printing, pretty much like printing black and white negatives on chromogenic colour stock today.
It's still not clear whether the differences in tone vetween warious monochrome scenes were intended or not. Given the way that the Dye-Monochrome process worked it would have been a simple matter to slightly vary the exposure of the duplicate negatives, or the matricies, to change the tone of the image if they wanted to.
As to how the dup negatives were produced, my guess would be that they went via an intermediate. While reversal processing certainly existed then it would not have been in general use in a professional lab, and I doubt they would set up do do it just for maybe a few tens of thousands of feet that would have been involved. Not all black and white stocks reverse well, which would have limited their choice of stocks, it would have introduced another issue of elements with the 'wrong' geometry' and, as you say, the monochrome sequences did look less sharp than the colour ones.
John, It's well known that most of the materials used by Technicolor were made by Kodak; I believe they also used small quantities made by Du Pont. Do you know what the relationship was between Technicolor and Kodak? Did technicolor give them the specification of the materials they wanted, and Kokak simply made them to that specification, or did Kodak work with them on the design and development (pun not intended) of the materials? It's generally known that Technicolor monopack was Kodachrome Commercial in 35mm form, and so would have been designed by Kodak, but what about the other technicolor materials?
Also, can somebody confirm the spelling on 'Monopack'; I've seen it both with, and without, the 'c'.
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