8mm Forum: Projection Print Question

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Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on August 23, 2017, 10:57 AM:

In the review of "Taste the Blood of Dracula" it's suggested that the digest was made from a projection print. Is this just a fancy way of saying "dupe"?

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on August 23, 2017, 04:08 PM:

I would think most, if not all, digests were made from projection prints. It would be too expensive to order an inter-positive of a whole feature to edit for a digest. A projection print was often edited and a negative made, then it was put back to its original form and returned.

Projection prints have a higher contract to inter-positives and can result in burnt out highlights and crushed shadows, which might be the reason they are sometimes considered "dupes". But after all everything than the original camera negative is a dupe.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on August 23, 2017, 04:35 PM:

Is an inter-positive the same as a regular print? Does that mean the negative was struck from a print rather than another negative? To your point... Aren't all prints therefore dupes? If so, why are some dupes so crappy in picture with low volume?

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on August 24, 2017, 02:51 AM:

Inter-positives are low contrast prints that would not give a good picture if projected, but retain the contrast limits for making a printing master negative. They can either be struck from a negative or by reversal from a positive (a colour reversal intermediate, CRI). I believe they were used mainly for special effects work when done in analogue, such as adding animated characters to a live actin film in an aerial image step-optical printer.

Yes all print are dupes, some are bad due to the additive errors due to the master material being too many generations removed from the original. In analogue systems the definition goes down with each copy and the contrast goes up often causing colour shifts. If a film that is several generations away from the original by the time the print used for used for making the digest the effect of making a negative from it and printing to 8mm may not be good.

Remember, the best feature prints were those using 16mm negatives originally made by reduction from the 35 mm neg for 16mm film libraries.

This information comes from my memories of books I read from my local library many years ago so I can't remember the titles to advise people to read.

Posted by Brad Kimball (Member # 5) on August 24, 2017, 08:47 AM:

Thank you, Brian. Now I understand it better.

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