8mm Forum: Can b&w-prints bleach?

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Topic: Can b&w-prints bleach?

Joerg Polzfusz
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 815
From: Berlin, Germany, Europe, Earth, Solar System
Registered: Apr 2006

posted February 09, 2010 06:55 AM

Hi,

yesterday evening I screened a couple of "new" films:

Bugs Bunny cartoon (probably full length): Reddish + sound sucks
Erdbeben ("Earthquake", 120m digest): Reddish
"Two tars" (Blackhawk b/w print, probably full length, English titles, silent version with music): Instead of watching a b&w-film, it was more like watching a white&white-film: Everything that was supposed to be light to medium grey, was now white. And everything that was supposed to be dark grey to black was now medium grey at best. Is this due to a fault when the print got created? Or does a b&w-print "bleach" (instead of becoming reddish like the colour-prints)?

Jörg
P.S.: Yes, it was one of those times when you want to throw away all films and those outdated devices [Frown]

P.P.S.: Two images to demonstrate how the film looks like opposed to a frame from a webpage:
Webpage:

My Print:

[ February 09, 2010, 10:11 AM: Message edited by: Joerg Polzfusz ]

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Tony Stucchio
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 625
From: New Jersey
Registered: Dec 2005

posted February 09, 2010 06:52 PM

When you cleaned them, did you use cold water/gentle cycle?
[Big Grin]

Seriously, though...

In the TWO TARS case, sounds like you got a lab defect print.

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Dan Lail
Film God

Posts: 2110
From: Loganville, Georgia, USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted February 09, 2010 07:07 PM

I prefer cold water. [Big Grin]

It could have been the source print, lab work, etc., but I have never heard of B/W stock fading. I have seen B/W films printed on Eastman color stock turn pink. John Whittle will know.

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John Whittle
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 791
From: Northridge, CA USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted February 11, 2010 11:19 AM

The black and white print would be easy to explain if it's always been that way. After all prints are made by exposing a negative to print stock and then developing the print.

Now if the exposure of the negative to the print is at the wrong light (print light output) which would appear here to be too little light (more light = darker print) with normal development OR normal print with development too short or too cold a developer.

There are problems that can happen to processed good prints due to processing problems (improper washing leaving fixer salts in the film) and storage problems (safety film stored with nitrate film can results in fading of the safety film image) with certain atmospheric problems in areas which a lot of factories with heavy sulfur in smoke exhaust and on and on.

I would suspect the first problem. A print made with the wrong printer setting which should have been rejected by the lab (and maybe it was and it walked out with a lab employee--it wouldn't be the first such story of how prints got into the hands of collectors. I think there was a Technicolor employee arrested back in the early 1970s for such actions.)

John

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