8mm Forum: Color Universal 8 Logo

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Topic: Color Universal 8 Logo

Brad Kimball
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1171
From: Highland Mills, NY USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted March 28, 2017 10:44 PM

Has anyone else observed that on U/8 color prints that have severely faded to practically all red that the blue in the U/8 logo at the very beginning of the prints is still bold and un-faded? I wonder why. If the movie portion of the print(s) has faded you'ld think the logos would also be affected.

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Bill Phelps
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1482
From: USA
Registered: Jan 2009

posted March 28, 2017 11:08 PM

Yes I have wondered the same thing. I have some like that. The logo comes on and you think "this looks good" then the movie starts and......that just tells me the films were faded when new...right?

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Winbert Hutahaean
Film God

Posts: 5468
From: Nouméa, New Caledonia
Registered: Jun 2003

posted March 29, 2017 12:10 AM

So I guess the negative has faded since the beginning.

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Winbert

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Douglas Meltzer
Moderator

Posts: 4554
From: New York, NY, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted March 29, 2017 09:55 AM

I watch my U-8 prints that I bought new in the late 70's and wonder exactly the same thing. The logo colors and often the black background contrast look fine and then the poor faded film starts. These were definitely not faded when first obtained.

Doug

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I think there's room for just one more film.....

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Osi Osgood
Film God

Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005

posted March 29, 2017 10:56 AM

This is so funny ( hoho .. haha, tee hee, Hyuk Hyuk!)

(well, not that funny) ...

... as i have found, on every single very GOOD color 2X400ft Universal 8 digest that, while the actual digest itself still has awesome color, the actual Universal 8 logo itself will almost never have perfect blacks and actually look like it has reddish fade to it and mind you, the rest of the digest will look fine.

Well, actually, that tends to be a real hit or miss with Universal 8. others have noticed this as well. Take "The Blues Brothers", for instance. There are sequences in the film that the color is spot on the the letterbox black bars on the top and bottom are a perfect jet black, and then the next sequence, gone are the perfect blacks to the letterbox and the image clearly is suffering from a reddish hue.

This means, of course, Universal 8's quality control could be a real hit and miss situation. mind you, the great color versus poor color are all on the same print, nothing outside being spliced in by the collector.

It seems that this was also more of a problem with the later 2X400ft releases than the earlier ones. "JAWS" has perfect color from beginning to end, (faded Universal 8 logo, however), but others, like the previously mentioned "Blues" are, well, not so great.

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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "

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Bill Phelps
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1482
From: USA
Registered: Jan 2009

posted March 29, 2017 08:03 PM

Well it sounds like if the logo looks good, the digest will be faded and if the logo is faded then the digest will look good! Makes it easy to check just pull out a few feet and look at the logo...it will tell all! [Smile]

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Brad Kimball
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1171
From: Highland Mills, NY USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted March 30, 2017 09:08 AM

It's so diriculously bass-akward. It's just typical for U/8. Must have been a great place to work... I envision the office being similar to the show "Moonlighting" where nobody worked and just fun and games all day long. David Addison trying to convince Maddy Hayes "Don't worry about the quality or how good the editing is or what the color even looks like. Maddy, Maddy, Maddy... All collectors care about is getting 18-minutes of their favorite classics. It doesn't matter what scenes they get or even what order there in. Collectors will be happy with anything. I've got Miss Dipesto and Herbert Viola in the editing room now hacking up a nice old ex-rental faded 16mm print of "Dr. Cyclops" right now".

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Osi Osgood
Film God

Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005

posted March 30, 2017 12:05 PM

"Moon-lighting" great 80's show there, Brad!

The funny thing is that, a few of the Universal 8 2X400ft digests DID get re-printed by someone else. "XANADU", for instance, got re-printed (by who, I don't know), on L.P.P. film stock. I don't know how many lucked out in that regard.

One digest in-particular, "Slapshot' seemed to luck out on some very good wastman film-stock, but it was before L.P.P., so, either it was experimental low fade film-stock un-marked, or just an incredibly good batch of rep-L.P.P. eastman, as it has spot on color, (and yes, the Universal 8 logo is terribly red!)

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"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "

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Brad Kimball
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1171
From: Highland Mills, NY USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted March 30, 2017 02:41 PM

Same thing with Castle titles... The blue sky background in the logo at the beginning and at the end is BLUE. Everything in between is tomato-red.

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Joe Caruso
Film God