8mm Forum: Fade is not always fade on a print ....

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 01, 2013, 06:59 PM:

My recent aquisition of the 2X400ft Universal 8 "Blues Brothers" print made me curious, so I went through the whole thing, literally shot by shot and I have come to the conclusion that, though it has a little fade, it may well not be because of aging of the print.

Literally, sometimes shot by shot, it will go from a brownish quality to absolutely great color. I'll only mention one instance and that will be sufficient on this print.

The change of shots from when Elliot Blues says, "You want outta this parking lot? OK!" to the very next shot where the cashier is asking if the purchasher has any other requests ("Do you have the Miss Piggy? BOOM! Through the wall!), you see that the Elliot shot has very brown "black bars" on ther top and bottom, that very next frame (first frame of the cashier on), has perfect black bars and gorgeous color.

This proves, (throughout the print) that the faded look to this print in general may not be because of fade and certainly isn't case with this particular.

Universal 8 had a big problem with this in general. It is also quite noticeable on the "Battlestar Galatica" releases, which go from perfect blacks to brwon space constantly.

... However, you find this to be the case with other classic super 8 distributors.

another prime example is the "Empire Strikes Back" part one, which has a truly terrible section, the asteroid sequence which is terribly brown on almost every print of this title. (please note, the LPP prints that came out on the very last runs of this print are strikingly different, looking gorgeously right! Of course, I can't prove it, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had a brand new color timed to be right negative for the last releases, as there were subtle differences to the later edits of this title).

So, could your print be faded? It's of course, a possibility, but it might well be because of bad color timing on the part of the people that collated and edited together these digests in the first place.

Posted by Christian Bjorgen (Member # 1780) on April 02, 2013, 04:51 PM:

I have a beet red copy of "Gullivers Travels" 4x400, but there is a section of about 150' on reel 1 that's perfect colour, on par with my LPPs. No splices or anything, I can't figure it out....

Posted by Michael O'Regan (Member # 938) on April 02, 2013, 05:46 PM:

Interesting, Christian. Are there any distinguishing stock markings on the section with the good colour?

Posted by Christian Bjorgen (Member # 1780) on April 02, 2013, 05:48 PM:

The entire reel is Eastman Kodak, no splices, so it's all the same stock. Will see if I can get some images to show you how it looks.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 02, 2013, 07:23 PM:

Not surprising at all ...

I remember that the Derann prints of "Hoppity Goes to Town" had a similar problem in the 70's. All prints, whether on Fuji (I had a Fuji print myself for awhile) or eastman stock, had a terrible change of color from a few minutes into reel two all the way to a few minutes into reel 4.

Now, when they did re-prints of this title in the early 80's either they got ahold of new negatives from a different source or something, as the full print from start to finish had very good color. I have an LPP of this later printing and while it has a slightly dupey look overall, the color is quite good, (though the Red Fox printing is better).

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