|
Author
|
Topic: Prints from Commercial 16mm Negatives
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
John Whittle
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 791
From: Northridge, CA USA
Registered: Jun 2003
|
posted June 28, 2009 04:21 PM
The problem with buying negatives is you can't tell the quality until you make a print. Black and white print stock is an endangered species if not extinct. In practice subjects generally had two negatives, action and track. This was necessary because the photographic qualities necessary for picture are vastly different than for sound recording. Also sound records should be original from a sound recorder and not a dupe.
When you get a negative from a PD source, it's unknow what the "original" was. Another 16mm dupe? A 35mm release print? and what condition was the original--well used or pristine?
Then who and how was the sound made? If just a print from the original, you're going to have problems since the edge effect will kill any high frequency and since many of these dupes were made by collectors with bathtubs, the control of density and gamma are poor at best.
But if you get a decent negative, be prepared to pay over $1 per foot for a single first trial print. Perhaps you can find a lab which would make a one-light workprint of the negative and you'll likely have to settle for color stock which takes a very heavy filter pack when printed from a black and white dupe.
Telecine would give you a chance to correct many problems, but you can't put back things that aren't in the negative to begin with. Cost is again a factor and a telecine suite with a colorist can cost several hundred dollars an hour. Of course there is the drop it off drug store transfer as well which is much cheaper but the results are consistent with the price.
The titles are likely PD, but be prepared to prove it to a lab so that they won't be considered liable for infringement. If the negatives are indeed PD, they should have the original Paramount opening for the Betty Boop title, if it's NTA then it's been made from a tv print from the 1950s. Not all Betty Boop titles are PD, by the way and anything that was in copyright in 1976 is still protected today. In the US the term was 28/28 so that would put anything prior to 1920 in PD without protection, otherwise it would have to have missed a renewal filing. Laws and terms are different in the UK. One L&H title which was PD in the US was under copyright in the UK by Roehauer (sp?) so a full search needs to be done depending on where you are.
John
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
