8mm Forum: How are "Dupes" made?

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Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on March 30, 2017, 02:32 PM:

Always wondered what the actual process was in making a dupe print. Wish there was a video showing it. Is it similar to a kinescope where someone points a camera at a screen or uses a telecine to film the film print?

Posted by Tom Spielman (Member # 5352) on March 30, 2017, 04:13 PM:

I was curious about this too and my knowledge about it is pretty sketchy. My understanding is that "prints" are made from negatives created for the purpose of producing prints.

It's not exactly like telecine and I think there are multiple methods. One called "contact printing" places the unexposed print film in direct contact with the negative film. The print film is a positive that's exposed by shining light on it through the negative. Some of these "contact printers" utilized a wet gate to minimize wear on the films and hide scratches.

That's my understanding which could definitely be flawed. Anyone can feel free to correct me.

The negatives used for making the prints aren't the original negatives from the cameras either. There are intermediate prints made that are color corrected and edited. Some prints are made just to be stored or act as a backup to the negative used to make prints.
In my very quick research, it sounds like the prints that reached theaters or ended up on Super 8 spools, were already copies of copies by the time you got to a final negative that was use for making prints.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on March 30, 2017, 07:15 PM:

So the prints we have from say, Castle, Ken, etc. are prints struck from a negative that was copied from a negative. Dupes, then, are prints made from a negative copied from a print. And that accounts for why they often look and sound so awful.

Posted by Jose Artiles (Member # 471) on March 30, 2017, 08:18 PM:

A dupe is a negative print made from a positive that its used to make others prints,for that reason dupe prints are bleach on face usually and have poor definition.

Posted by Larry Arpin (Member # 744) on March 30, 2017, 10:33 PM:

I've seen very good dupes made from a print using the proper negative stock. 5272/7272 was made specially by Kodak to dupe a print. How some films look worse than others I can't say.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on March 31, 2017, 03:09 AM:

I think it is usually due to the gamma and contrast generated in either the developing or the type of stock. Positive stock for projection has a higher contrast than intermediate positive stock (and that for prints intended for telecine use, mainly that used for kinescopes). As you say low contrast intermediate negative stock helps a lot. Also developer timing can increase contrast.

Both incorrect duplicating stock and processing can lead to burnt out highlights muddy shadows and colour shifts.

Of course some prints are from negatives that have been copied down many generations and are even worse. No-wonder the industry has welcomed digital copying as there is no generation loss, but it also can mean illegal copies are as good as legal ones.

Posted by David Hardy (Member # 4628) on March 31, 2017, 07:40 AM:

That's why i refer non-dupe prints as being 'Lab Originals'.

I have had dupe prints in my collection but they were not there for long.
The dupes i had were dreadful on both 16mm and 8mm .

Yep ! Copies of copies are not so good.

I am glad we now have digital these days.
[Wink]

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 892) on March 31, 2017, 03:56 PM:

David, I've also heard it called "studio originals," particularly in the case of 16mm prints made by the studios directly for TV distribution, since the print-down would be sourced from the studio's 35mm elements. "Original" as opposed to a dupe copy of a 16mm print.

Posted by Joseph Randall (Member # 4906) on March 31, 2017, 08:38 PM:

A dupe is a 16mm print struck from a 16mm negative that itself was made from a 16mm print.

An 8mm dupe would be also made from that same 16mm negative described above.

Posted by Steven J Kirk (Member # 1135) on March 31, 2017, 09:42 PM:

What is the name for a positive print made from another positive print using reversal stock? Or just by contact? This is what I have always thought of as a dupe. So it is dark between the perforations and so on... someone must know.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 01, 2017, 11:46 AM:

The other problem with dupes is that the more dupes down the line, less great grey tones to a print and it can be soo bad, that you literally end up with just terrible whites and deep blacks, but no original grey tones to a print ...

That, and more grain ...

... and, usually, the more dupes made, the further "into" the image you go. That it, you lose more and more original image info on all sides of the print. On old school "academy ratio" prints it isn't that much of a concern, but it can be more of a concern with scope.

This why when Detrich (in charge of the "Animex/Cineavision" super 8 scope company), made his prints, he did such a good service making his prints as, when you don't do what he did, you loose some precious info on the top and bottom of a scope print. This can be a little bit of a problem. I've noticed on Derann's scope Tom and Jerry cartoons, that you often have info cut off of the top and the bottom, and you don't get the full logo, as well as coming in on the whole image in general.

Posted by Joseph Randall (Member # 4906) on April 01, 2017, 03:19 PM:

Steven,

I think that's just called a reversal -- a 16mm positive print made directly from a 16mm positive print. Since most 16mm prints are B-Wind (emulsion on the outside of the reel), most reversals are A-Wind since it is an emulsion-to-emulsion process.

I assume the same can be done for 8mm.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 04, 2017, 12:11 PM:

I was amazed as to how good a dupe can look. When Gian and I made our one and only super 8 release (thus far) of those cartoon commercials, we used orginal 16Mm TV made for TV prints of the commercials, and made our 16MM negative from them. I have a very good friend who had access to an optical printer and he made an extremely good negative for our release. I compared both the 16Mm test print and the final super 8 prints and the sharpness and everything else on it were incredibly good. I know there was a step down, obviously, a little more grain and all, but, unless you have a keen eye for those sort of things, you'd never know the difference.

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on April 04, 2017, 12:19 PM:

Don't be fooled though. There are 16mm dupes which look excellent. There are some originals which don't look so great.

Posted by Paul Spinks (Member # 573) on April 05, 2017, 08:39 AM:

I have seen prints made from used and faded projection prints,which when scratch treated and colour corrected in the optical printer have produced really lovely films. When the original is projected alongside the new print it is amazing how much better the new print looks. But it's all down to the expertise and skill of the person doing the job, and sadly there's probably not many of them left now.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 05, 2017, 11:48 AM:

Paul makea a very good point.

One of the things we did on that release of ours, was that, when making the negative, we use, (I believe), a cyan or otherwise filter, as a few of the commercials were suffering from Eastman film stock fade and the really neat thing is that, in the case of some of those old cartoon 16MM commercials, we might have actually saved, for posterity, the color quality of some of those commercials, and on low fade stock (for the prints), where all existing 16MM copies, (or perhaps even 35MM copies), will sooner or later, fade to a reddish oblivion.

I think that a few reprints of some super 8 titles that I have run across, were reprinted with a filter being used, as, I have a print of "Popeye Meets Ali Baba" which appears to have used a filter on it, and the color of that low fade print is actually really good, the best i have seen for that title on super 8, to be sure. [Smile]

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