rumor of a new stock

[David Mullen ASC]

I heard a rumor that Fuji may be coming out with a unique color neg motion picture stock designed to look like their Velvia slide film, i.e. a high-contrast, saturated image... but in negative, nor reversal. Probably will be 160 ASA, tungsten-balanced, making it slow and fine-grained for daylight work and just acceptably fast enough for interior work with a lot of light.

 

It's something I've been promoting for a while now, a high-con saturated neg stock for people who want that Technicolor / slide film look in a negative. Of course, the usage may be limited (certain commercials and music videos that want that vibrant look, maybe a few features too, especially ones not doing a D.I.) and I'm curious in this day and age where people rely on the wide latitude of the current Vision-2 and Eterna stocks, plus the speed of 500 ASA stocks, how they will react to a stock with limited latitude and only moderate speed.

 

I'm also curious if some people will think that a higher-contrast, clean, fine-grained image will just look too "digital" for them.

 

It may also be a winner for certain Super-8 and 16mm applications, since it is sure to be sharp and fine-grained.

 

Hopefully the rumor is true. And after that, I hope I find a feature project that could use such a Technicolor look.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

For some reason Kar Wai Wong came to mind as a director who could take full advantage of such a look. Perhaps someone should pitch the idea to he and Khondji for their "Lady from Shanghai" remake? ;)

 

If the rumours are indeed true, I look forward to testing this stock myself!

[Nick Mulder]

I'm still waiting for Fortia to be released worldwide - I have to order it in from Japan at the moment ...

 

The new stock sounds interesting though - ECN2 ? stills will be jealous :rolleyes:

Edited February 25, 2007 by Nick Mulder

[Elliot Rudmann]

I'm still waiting for Fortia to be released worldwide - I have to order it in from Japan at the moment ...

 

The new stock sounds interesting though - ECN2 ? stills will be jealous :rolleyes:

 

holy crap that Fortia stuff is expensive, $13 a roll for 35mm!?!? Let's get that film back on the market so those prices shoot down.

 

I would definitely be interested in this new stock if it could offer sharpness comparable to (or better) than the current Vision 2 line, because that is really the only thing that keeps me away from the fuji 16mm stocks.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

I would definitely be interested in this new stock if it could offer sharpness comparable to (or better) than the current Vision 2 line, because that is really the only thing that keeps me away from the fuji 16mm stocks.

 

Eterna 250T is pretty sharp in my opinion, but I'd shoot 7217 over it anyday.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Don't really see the use for it myself, unless I have to contact print. Adding contrast in TK is the simplest thing - removing it is a little bit trickier. Also, a crunched soft neg looks a lot better than a crunchy neg that you crunch more. Just my opinion.

 

Give us a 1600ASA film instead. Or a low con 100T. Or an "old school" vintage Agfachrome or 5254-lookalike in a new version.

[Max Jacoby]

I've heard rumors that Kodak will release a new stock as well. One which is more more high-contrast than all those flat, DI-oriented Vision 2 stocks. Either way, I welcome the addition of new filmstocks, because the currents ones all look the same and are a bit lacking in the personality department!

[John Holland]

Adam you said "Agfachrome " a reversal stock do you mean the wonderful Agfacolor XT 320 and 125 . ?

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Adam you said "Agfachrome " a reversal stock do you mean the wonderful Agfacolor XT 320 and 125 . ?

 

No, I was actually referring to the old WWII colour filmstock the Nazi's used. Think it was called Agfachrome, wasn't it? Anyway - it looked beautiful with it's monochrome, brownish hues and the popping reds. I'd use that a lot for music videos if anything was made available.

[David Mullen ASC]

I think Fuji may make a Eterna-style lower-contrast fix to the 64D stock so that it matches Eterna 250D better, but apparently for both Kodak and Fuji the slower-speed stocks are low sellers. Fuji may just get rid of the old F-125T stock and let this high-con saturated 160T stock be the only speed between 64D and 250T and 250D.

 

Of course, I think for the Super-16 crowd, an improved 100T or 125T would still be useful but I guess even in that market, people prefer lighting interiors to something faster.

 

Actually, as much as I am a big fan of slow-speed stocks (I used Fuji 64D whenever I could outdoors for "Astronaut Farmer") I just shot that feature "Solstice" in Super-35 on the new Eterna 250D outdoors and it looks really fine-grained, at least in the D.I. suite using a 2K projector.

 

On the TV show I'm shooting, the other DP prefers using Kodak Expression 500T (our workhorse stock) even outdoors, while I try and switch to Vision-2 100T, although for TV you can't see the grain of 500T, especially when shooting Super-35.

 

Like I said, I'm curious as to the reaction of folks, since there are a lot of DP's who prefer working with wide-latitude modern stocks for telecine work. While I agree that it is easy to just add contrast in post (and it's more controllable there) it's not quite the same thing as shooting with contrasty stocks, especially if you had lit the project with that contrast in mind. It may be too subtle a distinction though to be worth the hassles of working with a higher-contrast stock.

 

One thing I'm curious to try is using diffusion on this higher-contrast stock; I'd be able to keep a contrasty saturated look yet get halation from the filtration (especially for a dream sequence where I wanted to try a heavy ProMist filter). It may also be interesting to use in really flat weather.

 

I remember one commercial DP who did some great work shooting cars on the Ektachrome 100D stock, but when I asked him if he used 5245 50D stock for commercials, he said "no, it's too contrasty!" which seems like a contradiction since 100D is a lot more contrasty. But here is an example of the contradictions of artists, that we prefer certain tools over others, but for completely logical reasons, just for taste.

 

While I welcome this new stock, I agree -- I also would like to see a slow-speed brother to the low-con Fuji 400T and Kodak Expression 500T stocks, plus a normal contrast 1000T or higher stock.

[John Holland]

Adam i sure that was Agfacolour , a neg stock it did look good i agree , after the war the Americans took loads of it back to the states and a few years later was launched as Anscolor which MGM used on quite a few movies until Eastmancolor took over . Try and get a look of " Seven Brides for Seven Brothers " looks good i also saw a 70mm blow up of that film , grainy but still nice.

[David Mullen ASC]

Adam i sure that was Agfacolour , a neg stock it did look good i agree , after the war the Americans took loads of it back to the states and a few years later was launched as Anscolor which MGM used on quite a few movies until Eastmancolor took over . Try and get a look of " Seven Brides for Seven Brothers " looks good i also saw a 70mm blow up of that film , grainy but still nice.

 

I think (without looking it up) that the confusion in names comes from the fact that some color neg stocks back then used the word "chrome" at the end of the word, instead of "color". I believe Agfacolor was the basis for GAF's "Anscochrome" in some U.S. productions like "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", even though Anscochrome in the 1950's was a color negative stock, not a reversal stock.

 

MGM, rather than use Eastmancolor, switched from 3-strip Technicolor to the Ansco/Agfa color neg process for a few years before going to Eastmancolor after all. I remember reading how Vincent Minelli was not happy about the color of either Eastmancolor or Anscochrome and would have preferred to keep using 3-strip Technicolor in the 1950's, but when that wasn't an option at MGM, preferred Ansco to Eastmancolor on "Lust for Life" in terms of recreating the cyans of Van Gogh paintings. He also wasn't happy about having to recreate those paintings in the CinemaScope frame and would have rather shot the movie in 1.37 Academy.

 

I'm sure Leo Vale will correct all my historical mistakes soon enough...

[John Holland]

Just had a quick look of DVD opening of " Seven Brides " credit is just " Color by Ansco " for years i used Anscochrome slide film here , they had there own lab here just for that product and i really loved the stock .

[Sam Wells]

When you do it with the emulsion as opposed to post you're guaranteed to be working in at least "12 bit 4:4:4" no matter what :D

 

I'd just prefer something a little less over the top than a Velvia look.

 

What I really like in color reversal is not just the sort of black crush but the way Kodachrome goes almost monochromatic in underexposure. Thinking of Tim Sassoon's theory the "noise" shows up in the luminence so to speak not the chroma which manifests as "veiling" in ECN.

 

I've started to play with trying to get this quality in post but would be nice to have it built in plus available with a purely photochemical situation.

 

-Sam

[Guest Stephen Murphy]

Im with Sam on this one - the new stocks, great as they are for certain purposes, are all to low contrast for my taste; i end up pushing them most of the time. '79 is still my favourite kodak stock!

As a big fan of reversal id love to see this new stock - it sounds great! Im already imagining the great images you could get by pushing it:)!

[Nate Downes]

Full agreement about modern stocks, while sharp, not coming by default with the contrast I enjoy. Any idea when this Fuji super-stock will be arriving? I have a feature this summer I'm shooting, and this would be a welcome shift, rather than the bleach by-pass I had been planning on.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

Adam i sure that was Agfacolour , a neg stock it did look good i agree , after the war the Americans took loads of it back to the states and a few years later was launched as Anscolor which MGM used on quite a few movies until Eastmancolor took over . Try and get a look of " Seven Brides for Seven Brothers " looks good i also saw a 70mm blow up of that film , grainy but still nice.

 

Agfacolor & Anscocolor have a complecated history.

Ansco was originally an American company. At some point it was bought by Agfa/I.G.Farben, and became Agfa-Ansco.

 

Agfacolor in the 30s was originally a reversal system, the neg/pos system came out during WWII.

The Ansco plant was manufacturing(maybe) and processing Agfacolor reversal.

John Baxter's 'Trading with the Enemy' has a jaw dropping chapter about how German MilitaryIntellegence used Ansco-Agfa for serious espionage. So once the US is in the war, the government takes control of the plant and work on the reversal process.

 

After the war there is a workable 35mm Anscocolor reversal system. Used for 'The Man on the Eifell Tower'.

 

While in Eorope, the Agfa patents are war booty and given out royalty free, hence Gevacolor. Ferraniacolor and early Fujicolor. The Soviets not content with mere patents dismantle the Prague Agfacolor manufacturing and processing plant and ship it to Moscow becoming Sovcolor.. Which is how 'Ivan the Terrible, part II' gets color sequences.

 

Eventually Anscocolor switches from reversal to neg/pos using the Agfa system.

 

I believe MGM adopted the process because it used fewer steps and tanks than Eastman color, thus it was easier to adapt their B/W processors for it.

 

'Lust for Life' was the last Anscocolor film. MGM had to scour up every remaining reel of Anscocolor neg and ship it to Texas for processing.

[Milo Sekulovich]

Hi,

 

Let's get 'personality' back into filmstocks!

 

I'm shooting a 35mm feature right now and am doing something

very contradictory to popular practice-I'm using Fuji 125T

for night interiors in a mansion no less!

 

Lots of hard fresnel lighting!

 

It's a supernatural thriller.

 

I feel like I'm shooting back in the 1960's and 70's!

 

Milo Sekulovich