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1960s dailies - what would they have seen..?


Karel Bata

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A friend of mine is writing a novel about a film crew in Rome in the early 60s on the set of an American production, and has just asked me what someone watching the dailies would actually see.

 

On several big producrtions (not sure how often) they would have been shipped over to LA and back again.

 

So I'm imagining a bit of gash from something else (would it be upside down?) then a flash of white circle (the punched hole), then the dailies. Am I right?

 

Also, in the time it would have taken to ship over and back, they could have transferred all the sound to mag stock and quickly married it up before dailies screenings. Or would they...? If so what would you then hear?

 

Any know? Or take an educated guess? :)

 

Be nice to see a clip... B)

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A friend of mine is writing a novel about a film crew in Rome in the early 60s on the set of an American production, and has just asked me what someone watching the dailies would actually see.

On several big producrtions (not sure how often) they would have been shipped over to LA and back again.

 

There were film labs in Roma at least as early as 1920 where they could get dailies printed. Why would they risk air-freighting to LA?

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A 1960's American production probably would have got processing done at Technicolor Rome or some other Italian lab.

 

There might be a grease pencil "X" over the slate clap if dailies were synced and run in interlock with sound.

 

The question for me is whether some color movies were getting b&w dailies -- see here:

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=21291

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A 1960's American production probably would have got processing done at Technicolor Rome or some other Italian lab.

 

There might be a grease pencil "X" over the slate clap if dailies were synced and run in interlock with sound.

 

The question for me is whether some color movies were getting b&w dailies -- see here:

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=21291

 

Dalies would likely have been screened early in the morning the following day, picture only without sound. I never heard of any synced dalies, no time & no point!

There is a good chance that the 1st take was in color & the rest in B&W.

As dalies are a print everything is the right way round!

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I could be wrong, but I don't think they could process 70mm, as would have been needed for any film shot in Cinemascope, Ultra Panavision 70, MGM 65, or Todd-AO, most of which were shot close to home, but some did venture abroad.

 

The novel's about the shooting of a very big budget American movie.

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On the Criterion disc of 'Contempt', Raoul Coutard, in the extras, mentioned that due to some agreement between European labs,

technicolor roma printed the dailies on Ferrenia color stock.

They got so used to the less muted colors that were surprised at how saturated the Eastman color answer print was.

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I mean that it would be annoying to watch rushes that didn't give you an accurate representation of what's on the neg. I guess they got used to it, but anyone coming from abroad might well be thrown by it.

 

And of course you couldn't adjust contrast or image position - things we take for granted now. Or frame rate, or....

 

:D

Edited by Karel Bata
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I mean that it would be annoying to watch rushes that didn't give you an accurate representation of what's on the neg. I guess they got used to it, but anyone coming from abroad might well be thrown by it.

 

And of course you couldn't adjust contrast or image position - things we take for granted now. Or frame rate, or....

 

:D

 

I don't think anybody ever did think rushes in B&W were an accurate representation of what is on the negative, in any case colour print stock was limited to about 7 stops, rushes on video 10 years ago ahowed even less!

 

Optical printing was used to change frame rate, adjust frameing & would generally increase contrast.

 

You choose the DOP as you trusted he knew what he was doing with lighting, the operator would frame the shot, no video assist! It's amazing people managed without help from video village! Too many people get confused by looking at a small screen & just make a show that looks good on TV rather than a big screen.

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I always enjoyed the film rushes, they were much more exciting to watch than a video recording.

 

You could actually see focus, which is IMHO one of the main things that needs to be checked. SD rushes was a huge step backeards.

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