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Author
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Topic: National Film Theatre to run nitrate prints again.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 06-16-2010 04:37 PM
The NFT, I still can't get used to calling it the BFI Southbank, are to run a short season of films on original nitrate prints in July and August. The July details are here:
web page
Details for August are not published yet.
The NFT have not run Nitrate for several years, they say ten, but I think it's less than that since they have run short clips. I can't remember the last time they ran a complete film on a nitrate print.
There was some doubt as to whether they were still licensed, I had heard conflicting reports. I think the use of nitrate stopped in NFT1 when digital sound was installed, but there were very occasional shows in NFT2 after that. All of the July shows are in NFT1. Whether this is a change of policy by the BFI, and they will again screen nitrate prints from the archive in the future, of a last chance to see a few of them before a total and permanent ban, is not clear. There was never really an official end to the screening of nitrate at the NFT as far as I am aware, it just sort of gradually stopped. Sadly, projection will not be by carbon arc of course.
For anybody living in the London area who has never seen a nitrate print, and who wants to join the debate as to whether they look better than modern polyester prints, I'm not yet convinced, it could be worth going. I've seen some very good looking nitrate prints, but I've also seen some terrible ones, and I've seen some very good modern prints, 'The General' for example.
The latest document describing the technical facilities available states that both NFT1 and NFT2 are nitrate capable; NFT2 was built in about 1971, and so must have been one of the last new cinemas here to be granted a nitrate licence.
Also of interest is that NFT2 can no longer screen 3-D, it now has a matte white screen. NFT3 still has a silver roller screen in front of the white. In the days when it was the Museum of the Moving Image cinema it used to have four different roller screens.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 06-18-2010 09:42 AM
But is it the nitrate base which gives it that look, or something else? If you were to make up a batch of exactly the same emulsion as was used in those days, coat it in exactly the same way to exactly ehe same thickness, but onto modern polyester base, and then process it in exactly the same way with exactly the same chemistry, would it look the same? I'm not totally convinced either way. Would it even be possible to do this; could a nitrate era emulsion be coated onto a modern base, or would it require a different subbing layer for example? You couldn't try coating modern emulsion onto nitrate base, because nobody is still making it.
If you hold up a piece of nitrate film, in good condition, it doesn't look much different to triacetate or polyester. The modern print of 'The General' which has run at the NFT, and claims to be a print from the camera negative, is one of the best looking prints that I've ever seen. I think it's polyester, but it's certainly not nitrate. I've also heard some people claim that polyester looks more like nitrate than triacetate does.
I've only seen a small number of films on nitrate, probably less than ten, plus a few short clips, one newsreel and one trailer. Some looked very good, some didn't. I don't feel able to draw a positive conclusion, one way or the other.
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Richard P. May
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 243
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Jan 2006
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posted 06-18-2010 10:04 AM
The only way to make a proper comparison is to find a picture where the original negative survives, as well as a well made print from that negative. Then make a new print, on modern stock, from the same element, and project it with the same equipment for comparison.
Outside of such a direct comparison, there are so many variables in printing, processing, and projection it is not proper to make a general statement that nitrate looks better than safety.
Even among printing of nitrate film, when it was the standard, there were many variables between labs.
I think the "nitrate look" has become a myth over the 50 years since the end of its common use. Many of the nitrate prints which survive, and can be seen in archival settings, were studio library prints, probably made at the time of original release from the original negatives. This gives them an advantage, regardless of the flammability of the base.
DM
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 06-18-2010 10:53 AM
quote: Richard P. May
The only way to make a proper comparison is to find a picture where the original negative survives, as well as a well made print from that negative. Then make a new print, on modern stock, from the same element, and project it with the same equipment for comparison.
Certainly areee with that. There are very few facilities that can project a nitrate and a modern print side by side of course. The BFI do have the facility to do this in one of the screening rooms at their conservation centre, and I would guess that major archives in other countries do as well, but it's not exactly a widespread facility, and of course these places aren't normally open to the public.
quote: Richard P. May
Outside of such a direct comparison, there are so many variables in printing, processing, and projection it is not proper to make a general statement that nitrate looks better than safety.
Even among printing of nitrate film, when it was the standard, there were many variables between labs.
I think the "nitrate look" has become a myth over the 50 years since the end of its common use. Many of the nitrate prints which survive, and can be seen in archival settings, were studio library prints, probably made at the time of original release from the original negatives. This gives them an advantage, regardless of the flammability of the base.
This is an important point of course. In many cases the original elements no longer exist, and the best we have are fine grain safety duplicates made some time between the '50s and the '80s which are often not of good quality. Apart from the fact that you're adding a couple of extra generations compared to the original nitrate prints, for many years a lot of black and white lab work wasn't very good, probably from the end of widespread use of black and white for feature films, until it became basically an archive thing. The period in between, when black and white was used mainly for television, and a few low-budget project productions, students' films etc. was not a good time.
I think I tend to lean towards agreeing with you that, given good elements, it's possible to make as good a print today using modern materials, but I don't have enough evidence to be sure.
Of course, things are rather different when dealing with early colour film. If you've got something like cemented Technicolor, Dufaycolor, Gasparcolor etc. then the image id formed in a quite different way to it is on modern colour film, and you really can't get the same look by duplicating it on Eastmancolor. The best attempts get close, but you can still see the difference.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 07-26-2010 06:10 PM
I've just returned home from seeing 'Brighton Rock'. It was an ordinary ex distribution print, which was passed to the archive when it would have been about ten years old; I doubt that it's been shown more than a handful of times since then. A few of the reels had extra hand-scribed cues, and just about all, 11 or 12 I think, had some random base-side scratching in the last few seconds, from roughly where the motor cue was. Strangely, this was only on the tails; the heads were fine.
Other than this, it was a very good-looking print but I'm still not convinced that this was due to the nitrate base. Other than a few short clips during lectures, I think this was the first time that I've seen nitrate projected by xenon light.
About 300 in the house I think, almost half of whom when asked before the show indicated that they had come because a nitrate print was being shown.
According to the August programme booklet NFT 1 was equipped with new projectors during June. They've had Cinemeccanica for a long time, since 1963 I think, but have changed to Kinoton. The sound from the silver track was fine to my ears.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 07-28-2010 04:18 AM
The end of nitrate came at about the same time as the introdudtion of Eastmancolor, and other chromogenic colour stocks, and the rapid decline in the number of black and white films. By the early '60s black and white feature films were very much the exception; it was used mainly for newsreels until they ended, very low budget and students' films, and for television. The quality of black and white declined dramatically during this period in my experience, and it gained a bad reputation because of this. Since 'old' black and white prints are almost always on nitrate, and there are few places where they can still be shown, few people get to see them. In more recent times, maybe the last ten years or so, with new black and white prints now being made mainly by, or for, archives good quality prints are being made again, e.g. the print of 'The General', which I think is polyester, and which looks at least as good as any nitrate print that I have ever seen. This claims to be a print made from the original camera negative, which the nitrate print of 'Brighton Rock' probably was also. I suspect that the lack of at least two generations of intermediates, on the early fine grain stocks, has a lot to do with it.
Scott, If I lay strips of nitrate, triacetate and polyester film, all in good condition, on a lightbox I don't see a great deal of difference between them; polyester is very clear, triacetate possibly slightly less so, but there's not a great difference between them.
The 'Brighton Rock' print was very sharp, it was noticeable on things like the small body type on newspapers, and the signs on the booth where Pinkie recorded his voice, and the tonal range was very good. The image tone was slightly warmer than on more modern prints, which tend to look slightly cold with Xenon. It looks rather like a photographic print made with Ilford ID-78, a developer which I used to use.
I don't know if the original negative of 'Brighton Rock' still exists in printable condition. If it does it would be interesting to see a reel of the best print which could be made from it on modern stock, and also the best digital transfer that could be made from it, so that a direct comparison can be made; I might write to the BFI and suggest it.
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