8mm Forum: EASTMAN vs. TECHNICOLOR

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Topic: EASTMAN vs. TECHNICOLOR

Osi Osgood
Film God

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

posted August 23, 2005 02:45 PM

I thought I'd start another topic off of the other one I started today, (Castele films : Professionals wanted ect.) To talk about Eastman color vs. Technicolor.

Personally, I don't think it's even a good comparison. Technicolor has always looked the best. I remember watching a wonderful documentary, (which can be found on the two disc "Advetures of Robin Hood (1938) set on DVD) which is called, "Glorious Technicolor", which chronicled the rise, fall and rebirth of Technicolor. It had some wonderful little clips from early Technicolor experiments, such as the Laurel and Hardy color clip from "Revue of 1929" (I believe), as well as a really rare clip of the Three Stooges (in color) from 1932, and THE MARX.BROS. behind the scenes of "Animal Crackers!!!

Anyhow, when one of the photographers was first using Eastman, he said that they really had a problem with "Liver Lips". That is, no matter what color of lipstick the starlet used, thier lips would still come up a liver like color, which was frustrating, (when using Eastman color!)

I just mention all that because it appears that Eastman has never given a perfect color spectrum, always slightly off, which, (now getting down to super 8) doesn't do super 8 prints of technicolor films justice, when the print medium is Eastman ...

which ...

Makes me really happy that the surviving film suppliers (Derrann, Classic Home Cinema, I believe) use LPP color, and even if it is under the Eastman label still, (i believe) it is truer to the original color.

Yet,

I wonder if we'll ever see a perfect technicolor copy of, lets say, "The Wizard of OZ" on super 8mm. I have noticed that, though Derrann has exceptionally good quality standards, (I still marvel over my print of Star Wars, bought on the very first day of release...NYEAH!!!), I have also noted that the color can tend to have a slightly bluish tint to it, especially in dark scenes.

But, I'm really not going to carp over it. I'm so happy that Derrann is still punching in there. Love to hear from you all considering the Technicolor over Eastman color debate!

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Kevin Faulkner
Film God

Posts: 4071
From: Essex UK
Registered: Jun 2003

posted August 23, 2005 05:07 PM

This Osi is purley down to the colour spectrum that can be recorded by the 2 film system/types. We refer to this as the Colour Gamut of a film or basically the range (spectrum) of colour a film can record.
With Technicolour the Gamut is far wider than say Eastman or most other colour films because the basic range is controlled by the pure Black and White emulsions with the colour filters in front of the camera. The std colour films have the dyes and filters built into the film and because of this they have a restrictive/interactive effect on each other during exposure which results in a smaller Gamut of colours. The manufacturers of these type of films do a pretty good job however, but there are these trade offs. Some manufacturers err towards the warmer colours giving better reds etc while others go towards the cooler side of things which gives better greens and blues.
The whole business of colour reproduction in photgraphic film is a real science and really too complicated to go into here on the forum.
Basically any system that has the dyes/filter layers built in (Ektachrome, Eastman, Agfa, Fuji etc) will be less faithfull than the systems where the dyes are added afterwards such as Technicolour and Kodachrome.
This all brings back memories of my R&D days at Ilford Films [Smile]

Kev.

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Osi Osgood
Film God

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

posted August 23, 2005 05:09 PM

What was ilford films? (Bear in mind that I am still quite new to this forum and know little of my fellow film enthusiasts!)

OSI

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

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Paul Adsett
Film God

Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003

posted August 23, 2005 05:11 PM

Well of course Osi there is no comparison between Technicolor and EastmanColor. Technicolor is unsurpassed as a color process, and you can see it in the glorious film prints of that period. Technicolor cannot fade because it is essentially recording a color record on multiple strips of black and white film stock, using filters. Eastmancolor as we know, is a disaster. All the films produced with Eastmancolor in the 60's and 70's have faded to a horrible pink, and can only be restored using digital computer techniques. Martin Scorsese and the AFI filed a lawsuit against Kodak because of the loss of film heritage resulting from the use of Eastmancolor stock, the same lousy stock that has caused most of the super 8 prints to fade. Go to the wonderful 'American Widescreen Museum' site for a complete explanation of all the color processes, and why Technicolor reigns supreme:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/index.htm

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Kevin Faulkner
Film God

Posts: 4071
From: Essex UK
Registered: Jun 2003

posted August 23, 2005 05:51 PM

Osi, Ilford Films was a UK film manufacturer the same as Agfa, Fuji and Kodak.
Ilford did make quite a lot of colour film but their main business was in Black and White film stocks as well as the famous Cibachrome colour reversal print material.

Kev.

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GS1200 Xenon with Elmo 1.0...great combo along with a 16-CL Xenon for that super bright white light.

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Osi Osgood
Film God

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

posted August 23, 2005 07:05 PM

Wow Paul, great site ... thanks!!!

OSI

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

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Steven Sigel
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 701
From: Massachusetts
Registered: Jun 2003

posted August 24, 2005 01:59 PM

So far as I know the only 8mm Technicolor ever printed (and I'm not sure if it was regular 8mm only or super 8mm as well) was for Disney -- there are a few scattered prints of some of their early home movie releases out there in IB TEch. Apart from that, there's no such thing as a super 8 technicolor print.

Technicolor is the gold standard for 16mm and 35mm collectors. There's nothing like it -- even the modern low-fade stocks pale in comparison. I always laugh at people who say that their prints "look like technicolor" or that a DVD projected looks like Technicolor. They obviously haven't seen much technicolor.

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John Whittle
Jedi Master Film Handler

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

posted August 24, 2005 07:38 PM

We really need to define terms here. Technicolor is a film laboratory that produces prints. Over the years they have made prints from their two-strip and three-strip cameras by the imibition method (dye transfer) and also made IB prints from Eastman color negatives.

Technicolor as a film process involving the Technicolor 3-strip camera ended with the introduction of Eastman color around 1954.

Technicolor IB printing ended in the early 1970s. The company had printing laboratories in Hollywood, London and Rome. The last subjects printed at each lab vary a bit, but the Romaine Street Lab (Holllywood) last big print run was the Godfather. At that time Technicolor closed Romaine and moved to Plant 5 at Universal City which only printed Eastman color and black and white (yes Technicolor made black and white prints0.

I cannot confirm or dispute Steve's claim about 8mm. The guys I knew in the research department didn't think that registration was good enough for 8mm but like stereo sound, the lab could have done anything and everything they did was highly secret!

The printing machines ran at about 300 feet per minute (which was fast for it's day but slow compared to today's printers and processing machines which are in excess of 1000 feet per minute). 16mm prints were orignally proced down the middle of 35mm stock with the 35mm printing belts and then slit and perofrated. These early prints had blue dye sound tracks. Some of thsee prints were offered by Castle Films in the late 1940s.

Later Technicolor made a 16mm printing belt (the stainless steel belts that held the dye matrix and the blank stock had to have registration pins to hold the films in register), I met the one guy that worked in the machine shop that was able to "spin the pins" onto the 16mm belt--just one guy was able to do it repeatedly.

Technicolor revived the IB printing system in the late 1990s for a short period but shut it down and now all the new equipment is in storage. Some of the old equuipment was sold to China which set up an IB lab with little success and that lab is now a parking lot (I think this was the equipment from Tech-London).

Warners has been able to use the original nitrate 35mm negatives on some titles and directly scan them and combine and correct them for DVD release--these are the super-resolution release of Singin' in the Rain and Robin Hood.

The Tech process is fascinating--also amazing that it worked at all considering the tolerances necessary. With the introduction of Cinemascope, Technicolor faced a major challenge. The first Scope prints of the Robe were unacceptabely soft. The picture was printed in Eastman color. Technicolor worked with Eastman for new sharper matrix stocks and improved on the chemistry and dyes and was able to make Cinemascope prints shortly after that.

Since the process required optical preparation of the matrix for printing, Technicolor was able to produce 2.55 Mag prints properly centered and re-center the 2.35 optical sound prints.

Technicolor was also one of the few magnetic striping facilites in Hollywood in the old Plant 5 on Seward Street. The operation was called Magnacraft and the building still exists and now is part of the Laser Pacific Group which is owned by Kodak.

John

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Osi Osgood
Film God

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

posted August 25, 2005 12:24 PM

As I stated in then other series (Castle professionals) all this information is just awesome! It makes me even prouder and happier that I got back into collecting super and standard 8mm.

and though our collective habits are prehistoric to modern DVD collectors, I'll trade any DVD copy of a film for an original film transfer of the same movie.

Grain rules!!! Lines of resolution SUCK!!!!

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

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