Beijing film lab and dye-transfer

[Filip Plesha]

I just read somewhere on the cinematography.net mailing lists someone mentioning that "the family man" was distributed with 200 prints made in china

in 2000. But I have allso read that they closed down the dye transfer facility in Beijing, so then which of it is true?

 

Do they still have active dye-transfer equipment in China or not, or did they close it down sometime after year 2000?

[David Mullen ASC]

"The Family Man" had some dye transfer prints made by Technicolor Labs in Los Angeles (not China). China, as far as I know, stopped doing dye transfer a few years ago. Unfortunately Technicolor also suspended the process about two years ago as well after reviving it.

[Filip Plesha]

"The Family Man" had some dye transfer prints made by Technicolor Labs in Los Angeles (not China).  China, as far as I know, stopped doing dye transfer a few years ago.  Unfortunately Technicolor also suspended the process about two years ago as well after reviving it.

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Ok thanks, merry christmas by the way.. (It's allready christmas here)

 

and did any of the restoration labs purchase a printer maybe for restoration purpuses?

[David Mullen ASC]

Ok thanks, merry christmas by the way.. (It's allready christmas here)

 

and did any of the restoration labs purchase a printer maybe for restoration purpuses?

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No. It's sort of weird, but places doing restoration work are trying to create restoration MASTERS for future printing & home video transfers -- but the ability to project a new print of the restoration is almost an afterthought. So you have all of these old 3-strip Technicolor movies where they are making b&w duplicates of the original three b&w negatives but also creating a color interpositive so that can make a dupe negative for making Kodak prints. But places like UCLA or BFI doing restoration of 3-strip Technicolor movies barely have enough money to create a print off of the final restoration color IN -- they certainly don't have to budget to make only a few dye transfer prints considering how expensive that process was to set-up (making the matrices.)

 

Of course, they also work on preserving OLD dye transfer prints too.

[Filip Plesha]

No.  It's sort of weird, but places doing restoration work are trying to create restoration MASTERS for future printing & home video transfers -- but the ability to project a new print of the restoration is almost an afterthought.  So you have all of these old 3-strip Technicolor movies where they are making b&w duplicates of the original three b&w negatives but also creating a color interpositive so that can make a dupe negative for making Kodak prints.  But places like UCLA or BFI doing restoration of 3-strip Technicolor movies barely have enough money to create a print off of the final restoration color IN -- they certainly don't have to budget to make only a few dye transfer prints considering how expensive that process was to set-up (making the matrices.)

 

Of course, they also work on preserving OLD dye transfer prints too.

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And, were any technicolor movies transfered to video using the actual IB prints?

[David Mullen ASC]

And, were any technicolor movies transfered to video using the actual IB prints?

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Dye transfer prints make poor video transfers being too high in contrast, plus most of them are old and beat-up, but for years that's pretty much the ONLY method of transferring a 3-strip Technicolor movie to video, to use a print, because otherwise they'd have to make a color intermediate master from the b&w negatives, so it was easier just to find a good print and transfer that. The Criterion laserdisc version of "Black Narcissus" was from an old dye transfer print while the new Critierion DVD is from the restored color intermediate master created by BFI. It's much sharper.

 

Remember, the richer colors of a dye transfer print don't really help for a home video transfer because a good color intermediate can just be transferred with more color saturation; the real problem with using dye transfer prints for telecine transfer is contrast, which is harder to fix in a telecine.

 

You can still see transfers from old dye transfer prints on public domain DVD's of old color movies. For example, there are several companies that sell a DVD of the 1930's "A Star is Born" obviously using whatever old print they could find.

[Filip Plesha]

So then when I see films like Wizard of oz, I am not seeing the real technicolor "look" but rather a hybrid between 3-strip originals and modern intermediate filmstock?

I mean, Wizard of oz, looked quite smooth and had a pleasant contrast, so I

presume it was not telecined from a print?

[David Mullen ASC]

So then when I see films like Wizard of oz, I am not seeing the real technicolor "look" but rather a hybrid between 3-strip originals and modern intermediate filmstock?

I mean, Wizard of oz, looked quite smooth and had a pleasant contrast, so I

presume it was not telecined from a print?

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If it looks good on DVD, it's probably from a restoration color intermediate but there have been some recent titles that were digitally restored by scanning the three b&w original negatives (or positives if that's what now exists) and recombining them in the computer. This has improved the sharpness greatly since now the registration of the three colors can be fairly perfect. "Robin Hood", "Gone with the Wind", "Singin in the Rain" have been redone this way, maybe "Wizard of Oz" as well.

[Filip Plesha]

Ok, thank you

[Guest Jim Murdoch]

I just read somewhere on the cinematography.net mailing lists someone mentioning that "the family man" was distributed with 200 prints made in china

in 2000. But I have allso read that they closed down the dye transfer facility in Beijing, so then which of it is true?

 

Do they still have active dye-transfer equipment in China or not, or did they close it down sometime after year 2000?

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I remember reading that one or some of the Batman movies used some sort of experimental revived dye transfer process, but that was to make the master duplicating negatives rather than the actual prints themselves.

 

As I recall the story went that somebody from Technicolor (or some such firm) was in China and happened to see an old dye-transfer machine in a warehouse and shipped it to the US to experiment with. Apparently the thing about using dye-transfer is that it's much easier to experiment with dye mixtures than it is to alter the color characterisitcs of true color film. There are also some really good dyes now available, originally designed for color inkjet printers.

 

The Arrilaser was suppose to be able to greatly expedite the manufacture of the printing masters for "ink imbibition" release prints (ie ones that are literally printed rather than photographically produced), and it was supposed to be also possible to recycle the film base by washing off the dye. (Although I tend to think that a roll of perforated clear acetate is hardly likely to a major cost component of the system).

 

Whatever, I've never heard anything about this since.

[David Mullen ASC]

Technicolor decided at some point to build a modern prototype dye transfer printer -- it had nothing to do with the dye transfer equipment they sold off to China in the 1970's. It was built from scratch. They may have been another small company in Los Angeles offering dye transfer prints for short while in the 1990's -- I remember their adds -- using equipment they got from China maybe. But I never heard of anyone actually using this company.

 

Technicolor built this new dye transfer printer around 1990 but since it was a small prototype, it was not capable of large print runs, necessary for the process to become cost-effective since most of the costs are in making the b&w matrices. They talked about using laser recorders to make the b&w matrices but this never happened -- they were made the old-fashioned way.

 

A few prints of "Batman Returns" was made using this dye transfer printer. For the next few years, there were a variety of movies doing part or all of their releases in dye transfer ("Godzilla", "Bulworth", "Gone with the Wind", "Wizard of Oz", "Apocalypse Now Redux", "The Wedding Planner", "Pearl Harbor", "The Family Man", etc.) One print of "Thin Red Line" was printed this way too.

 

Sometimes the b&w matrices were made directly from the original negative (called "direct to matrix") and sometimes from a color-timed IN. The dye transfer process involved making three b&w positive matrices from a color IN or original neg (or in the old days, from the three b&w negatives shot with a 3-strip Technicolor camera). These matrices were dipped in their respective yellow, cyan, or magenta dyes and run in contact in three passes with a "blank" roll containing a dye absorbant mordant.

 

When Technicolor bought CFI, they started making plans on moving their facility from Universal City and started by dismantling this prototype printer. But they tell me they have no plans on reassembling it. Since it takes about a month to prepare the b&w matrices and color-time the movie too, most major releases don't have the time since they often deliver their IN's to multiple labs for mass release printing a mere two weeks before opening day.

[John Sprung]

The old dye transfer line was huge, it required a building three stories high by over a hundred yards long. That's why Technicolor built that big concrete building on the South side of Santa Monica Blvd. near Cahuenga. That's what went to China circa 1975, IIRC. I can't imagine anyone taking a chance on hauling it back here. There was another one in London, I don't know what became of it.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[John Pytlak RIP]

The "revived" Technicolor Dye Transfer process had several patents:

 

PAT. NO. Title

1 6,469,776 Dye transfer apparatus and method for processing color motion picture film

2 6,327,027 Dye transfer apparatus and method for processing color motion picture film

3 6,094,257 Dye transfer apparatus and method for processing color motion picture film

4 6,002,470 Dye transfer apparatus and method for processing color motion picture film

 

You can look at the patents here:

 

http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

 

Marty Hart's "American Widescreen Museum" has much good information about the original Technicolor dye transfer process:

 

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/technicolor1.htm

[Christian Appelt]

That's why Technicolor built that big concrete building on the South side of Santa Monica Blvd. near Cahuenga. That's what went to China circa 1975, IIRC. [...] There was another one in London, I don't know what became of it.

 

I think the London equipment went to China, not the Hollywood lab. IIRC, Bernard L. Happé of Technicolor GB (author of YOUR FILM AND THE LAB) supervised the shipping and reassembly at Beijing.

 

I wonder what happened to the Rome dye transfer plant, maybe it was cannibalized to get spares for those complicated machines that had been running since the 1940s.

[Mark Sasahara]

Heh, when I was a student at RIT, I took a dye transfer class and it was three trays of dye, three trays for your matrices and -I think- a few other trays, on a rocking table. It was about eight feet long.

 

Then computer retouching came out a few years later and, unfortunately, Dye Transfer went away. Mr. Pytlak, I really miss my Dye Transfer process. I loved the colors and the control. I guess we have more control now, but then, I guess I'm process oriented.

 

A while back, I saw some Elliot Porter Dye Transfer prints in a bar in New Mexico, of all places. The prints were marvelous. But I digress.

[Nate Downes]

I still want to shoot a movie in technicolor one day, just for the sheer experience. If it is impossible to do dye sublination, however, it is likely I'd opt for DI and merge the 3 B&W strips together in the computer....

 

You know, I might be onto something here.

[John Sprung]

I still want to shoot a movie in technicolor one day,

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That would be difficult. Kodak doesn't make the three special B&W negatives any more. You can't use just any B&W, the red/blue bipack had a filter layer on one of the emulsions. Getting an unmodified three strip camera is another challenge. They only made a little over a dozen of them, and some were later rebuilt for VistaVision. The ASC has one on display, about 30 years ago UCLA had one. I'd guess that David Mullen might know where they all are now.

 

The idea of scanning to component digital from separation OCN is interesting, though. Separation Technicolor is a sort of photochemical equivalent of component.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

Edited January 7, 2005 by John Sprung

[Nate Downes]

You could, however, perform a workalike if you took the time to develop it, using custom colored filters to replace the color-sensitive film. But it would take a lot of time and energy....

 

and all I have on my hands is time. 8)

 

The camera remains the biggest obstacle. I could try and replicate one, I suppose, but that would be just as problematic.

[Filip Plesha]

I have a feeling that If someone made a technicolor film today with modern

film technology it wouldn't look that much different from today's color negative (If you compared both on the same medium (eastman print, or IB print or scan))

Perhapse a purer, more separated color.

 

I think most people link the word technicolor to the look of the old movies from that time. Most of that look was from the houndrets of thousnads of watts of light being rigged high above the set all around the scene making a sort of a

shadowless, theater-looking environment. Make up has a bit to do with it too.

And the tonality of the image I think has more to do with the tonality of the black and white film of that time.

Today's films BW or color have a more sublte, linear look, less "gritty" gradations, more smoothens to the tones, closer to how eyes sees light.

So I believe a modern technicolor system would follow the same "trend" , and look much more like modern color negative, than the old technicolor we remember.

 

Plus, modern lighting would make the films look like any other modern film only with a purer color perhapse.

Edited January 8, 2005 by Filip Plesha

[Nate Downes]

Depends on which B&W you use, doesn't it? Kodak's Tri-X gives a different look than Foma100, for example. Remember, I'm discussing this as more a kind of "let's see what can be done" rather than as a "this is how movies should be made." I'd like to try it, more to learn the trappings and difficulties in doing so than anything else. Nothing really to do with weither or not technicolor's look could be captured, just desiring an experience unlike what I've done to date.

[David Mullen ASC]

Here's an interesting artifact of 3-strip Technicolor photography -- a magenta halation caused by the type of anti-halation backings used in b&w negative combined with the fact that the blue-sensitive roll was dyed red and had no anti-halation backing to allow light to pass through, get filtered red, and be recorded onto the red-sensitive panchromatic roll.

 

Old movies used to take advantage of this, designing many costumes with silver sequins and whatnot to get a lot of glitter.

 

 

[Filip Plesha]

I've noticed that many times, and I really love that,

pink highlights, a really nice touch to the image.

 

thank's for the explanation..

 

 

downmix:

 

Yes, BW film still has a different look than say one layer of color neg extracted,

but still BW films don't look as they used to.

 

But I guess considering what you've said, there would be some interesting differences between color neg and technicolor, but mainly because

of the differences between modern BW and modern color film.

 

By the way, a question for David:

 

looking a this picture, and a lot of other technicolor pictures, I notice that

gray tones often gravitate towards magenta, yet the primary color stay clean.

A good example is the shield on the table that you posted. There are no highlights, yet there is quite a lot of magenta in it.

Why is that?

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't think grays were pink-ish, but silvers were because of halation. If the grays had pink, you'd just time that to neutral.

 

Many Technicolor movies were timed on the warm side though. And the old prints look somewhat warmer still if projected on modern xenon projectors because they were timed for old carbon arc projectors.

[Filip Plesha]

We'll I did see it quite a few times, and I do see it in the second image you posted, but It could be a coincedence, a reflection from something red or pink perhapse

Edited January 9, 2005 by Filip Plesha

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I can only assume that Technicolor must have been incredibly low-grain, with the very slow stocks and averaging effect of having three separate records.

 

Phil