70's Film Look

[Ben Schwartz]

I've gone back and watched a lot of 70's New York films recently - French Connection, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon to name a few. Now I am interested in reproducing the desaturated, low-con look of these films. I know that the Fuji 400T and Kodak 320T are low-con and desaturated...does anyone have any experience using these stocks to acheive a more anachronistic visual style, i.e. using smoke, low-con filters, lab processes, etc.?

 

Thanks.

[Dan Salzmann]

Don't forget that in the 70's, lenses were less contrasty in general.

[Ben Schwartz]

Is it advisable then to seek out lenses from the 70's to rent? If so, which lenses and where to rent them?

[Mitch Gross]

A lot of the supposed "look" of 70s films seen today is actually old video transfers. But separate from that, the common stock of the day was only 125 ISO so many DPs regularly flashed the negative in order to raise the base fogging to gain exposure. This also reduced relative contrast. That and a lot of soft light made for a low contrast look.

[David Mullen ASC]

1970's films had all sorts of styles and technical quality levels (just compare "Barry Lyndon" to "The Towering Inferno"!) Matching the older lens optics would help, as well as softer stocks, filtering styles, etc. Push development was not uncommon either. Plus often release prints were made from CRI's, which were a little on the harsh side.

 

I think Kodak Vision 320T (5277) or Fuji F-400T overexposed and printed down would be a good match for the "cleaner" looking films of the decade (normally processed 5254, for example). To get the look of the harsher, pushed films of the decade, maybe something more like Fuji F-250T pushed one stop.

 

A 1974 Peter Hyam's film called "Busting" was just on Showtime and it looked gritty but not grainy, with an overall light Fog or Low-Con filter causing a blue halo around practicals. A lot of those old films seem "bluer" than modern urban films.

[Ben Schwartz]

I think Kodak Vision 320T (5277) or Fuji F-400T overexposed and printed down would be a good match for the "cleaner" looking films of the decade (normally processed 5254, for example). 

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Thanks, David. Can you elaborate on this? For example, what would be the difference in the end result between printing down an overexposed negative versus pull-processing it?

[David Mullen ASC]

Overexposure would tighten up the grain structure -- after that, printing down would make the blacks stronger and the contrast a little "snappier", while pull-processing instead would lower contrast.

 

Double-Fogs were a popular filter of the time which is hardly used anymore; it would give you some of that period flavor.

[Greg Gross]

I just watched Serpico this past weekend and really got into the look

again. Northfork it was not! Huge difference between look then and today's

look. David, was the double fog effect(filtration) done with one filter or stacked

filters?

Greg Gross,Professional Photographer

Student Cinematographer

[David Mullen ASC]

"Double Fog" is a Harrison & Harrison product that is basically a Fog Filter combined with a Low-Con Filter, more or less, to look less diffused (sharper) than the regular Fog Filter, not "twice as strong" as a Fog Filter. A confusing brand name.

 

So the look is halfway between that of a Fog Filter and a Low-Con Filter. The heavy ones make the image look really milky, but the lightest ones just cause a little softening and haloing around lights. "E.T." used a light Double Fog for most of the movie.

 

I'm not saying that all 1970's movies used this filter or had this look, just that Fog, Double Fog, Low-Con were all popular filters of the time which are used less these days. "Barry Lyndon" was mostly shot with a #3 Low-Con, for example; Geoffrey Unsworth used a #2 Regular Fog on "Superman", "A Bridge Too Far", I believe Double Fogs were used by Vilmos Zsigmond on some of his movies ("McCabe and Mrs. Miller", etc.)

 

The halo around lights caused by these filters tended to be bluish compared to the ones created by ProMists, which retain the color of the light itself.

 

Probably the last major studio film I recall using Fog Filters overall was "Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home", which used a 1/2 Regular Fog for most of the photography (plus smoke). Most of the "Star Trek" movies were shot clean (other than diffusion for occasional close-ups) except for "Star Trek" Insurrection", which used a Black ProMist for most of the daytime planet scenes.

 

The only modern DP who seemed to be the last hold-out in using the older Fogs, Low-Cons, etc. is Andrew Dunn, who (at least to my eyes) seemed to use something like those filters on "Madness of King George" and "The Crucible"; lately he has been using modern Black Frost filters though. I could be wrong though. Haskell Wexler until recently seemed fond of Low-Cons still (like on "The Babe"). I remember Ernest Dickerson using the old Harrison Diffusion filters on some scenes in "Malcolm X". The filtering Robert Richardson used on "Eight Men Out" also seemed to predate the ProMist look (which was based on the plastic Wilson SupraFrost filters of the mid 1980's); again, I suspect Fogs or Low-Cons or Double Fogs...

 

The old filters like Fogs tended to have a problem of very slightly throwing the image out-of-focus overall as well as diffusing (diffusion works on the principle of throwing an out-of-focus image over a sharp image, not just blurring everything.) Mitchell glass diffusion sort of had this problem as well (at least, certain patterns did.)

[David Mullen ASC]

Plenty of 1970's films were unfiltered as well -- for example. "The Godfather" only used Chocolate filters for the Sicily scenes, no diffusion. ("Godfather, Part 2" used Low-Con filters for the flashbacks.) I don't think "The French Connection" or "The Exorcist" used diffusion filters; any softening was more from these older lenses being shot at wide apertures combined with underexposure and push-processing. Compare "The Exorcist" to "The Exorcist 2" which used a LOT of filters, particularly in the African scenes (Mitchells, Low-Cons, Fogs, Corals, etc.)

[andrewbuchanan]

Is it advisable then to seek out lenses from the 70's to rent?  If so, which lenses and where to rent them?

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JDC (Joe Dunton Camera) rents a set of Cooke S2 and S3 primes that have been rehoused for professional use (follow focus gears, PL mount etc.). I think these were pretty popular at the time (or so I have read... 'cause I was around for most of the 70's). I also read in A.C. that The Limey - at least the daytime shots - was shot on these same lenses (don't know if they came from JDC). I really love the look of that film and think it really captured the late 60's/70's look well. Good luck.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

1970's films had all sorts of styles and technical quality levels (just compare "Barry Lyndon" to "The Towering Inferno"!)

 

Both Academy Award Winners. BTW, The Towering Inferno main unit was shot by Fred Koenekamp, who is going to receive the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award this year.

[David Mullen ASC]

I wasn't suggesting any lack of quality in "Towering Inferno", just that it is radically different-looking than "Barry Lyndon", so it's not like 1970's movies had one style, one look.

[Ignacio Aguilar]

I wasn't suggesting any lack of quality in "Towering Inferno",

 

Yes, I know. I only wanted to add that to your post :)