Beijing film lab and dye-transfer

[Filip Plesha]

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

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In still photography, dye transfer used to soften the image a bit and smooth out the grain, I supose it was the same with cinema version; I've heard that the old IB prints were softer than eastmancolor prints, so I guess that would hide the grain too.

 

There is a nice scan of some old 40's BW negative that someone posted here on these forums in cineon format. I think it's a good reference of the grain from that age.

[David Mullen ASC]

Actually the stocks were moderately fast b&w stocks of the day just to be able to get to a reasonable ASA after filtering, beam-splitting, etc. In 1938, Technicolor introduced their "fast" version just after Kodak introduced faster b&w panchromatic stocks, Plus-X and Super-XX (famous for being used on "Citizen Kane." )

 

If you figure that the 80 ASA Plus-X was the basis for at least one of the three b&w emulsions in the 3-strip camera, and you figure half the light was lost by splitting the beam in half and that probably the color filters were cutting another two stops, etc. 80 ASA becomes 10 ASA, which was probably the effective speed that "Gone with the Wind" was working with.

 

By the end of its existence, 3-strip had gotten to around 16 ASA and was tungsten-balanced; if you read the book on the invention of Eastmancolor negative in the late 1940's, they say that 16 ASA was the target because it was comparable to Technicolor's speed.

 

The red record was always the grainiest and softest.

 

I've seen original dye transfer prints of 3-strip films, plus restorations onto Eastmancolor intermediates and modern prints. The contrast of the dye transfer process tended to hide grain and improve sharpness, plus usually it was a direct process from negs --> matrices --> dye transfer print so not too many generations. In modern restorations, which look sharper due to better registration techniques, you can see some grain in the image, but it's silver grain, not color coupler dye clouds.

 

What it reminds me of more than anything is the look of Kodachrome 200, if anyone has ever shot that before, maybe not quite that grainy, but that silvery but color-saturated look.

[Dominic Case]

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.

Bernard Happé did indeed supervise the building of the Beijing Technicolor plant in the mid 70's, just after he had officially retired as Technical Director of Tech London.

 

He told me some years later that the Chinese lab had in fact ordered brand new equipment throughout, rather than picking up the old equipment from London - but also that everything - right down to screws and coathooks - was manufactured in London and shipped out, rather than sourced locally in China. However, I guess it's possible - as the installation occurred at the same time as Tech London closed their imibition process - that the story was a little more complicated than that.

 

The deal was done with Technicolor London because at the time China and the USA weren't doing business.

[Dominic Case]

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.

But there are three separate records in any modern colour filmstock (in fact more, as there are separate "fast" and "slow" layers for each colour. The only difference with Technicolor negs is that the records were on different pieces of film.

[John Sprung]

The deal was done with Technicolor London because at the time China and the USA weren't doing business.

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Was it before or after Nixon went to China? I always thought the Tech deal resulted from that.

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[Dominic Case]

Was it before or after Nixon went to China?  I always thought the Tech deal resulted from that.

-- J.S.

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The deal was struck in 1974 - so not long after the Nixon visit to China. But all the equipment was manufactured in Tech London and shipped out, and it took until 1978 for the plant to go online.

 

Tech Hollywood closed its imbibition process in 1975, whereas London (and Rome) stayed operational until 1978. It's a curious coincidence that the Chinese decided to instal the process at exactly the same time as the US and the UK decided it was no longer viable. However, they went for brand new equipment and the latest techniques: if they had wanted old equipment it would have made sense to buy the US plant which closed at exactly the right time.

 

I guess the timing just after the Nixon visit, was another curious coincidence. But then I always understood that Nixon was more of a tape recorder man than a film man;-)