Three Strip Technicolor

[Brian Rose]

Expense be damned, what do you all think about resurrecting the three strip color process? Surely there must be some way with all the technology out there to devise a new three strip system that would be more practical and/or affordable. What I would give to see that come back!

Best

BR

[David Mullen ASC]

Are you talking about the three-strip camera process... or the dye transfer (imbibation) printing process from three b&w matrices?

 

While it would be REALLY cool to shoot with a camera running three b&w emulsions, I doubt anyone would want to put up with the effective ASA of the thing, not to mention the size and noise problems. Even Dr. Kalmus at Technicolor made a decision in the 1940's to stop building more 3-strip cameras in anticipation of a single "monopack" color negative process (which Kodak introduced to the U.S. market in 1950.)

 

A number of 3-strip cameras were gutted for the 8-perf Technirama process, and a few for the sodium-vapor matte process.

 

Personally, I'm more upset that Technicolor discontinued their dye transfer machine. They should have left it up for special projects that needed it (like restorations of old 3-strip movies wanting authentic dye transfer prints.) Maybe a restoration company like Cinetec should buy it off of them.

[Brian Rose]

Oh Definitely BOTH. You've gotta have the three strip process, and the imbibation printing! Damn the cost and labor, the color is worth it! You raise an interesting point about the imbibation printing. Are the warner restorations of GWTW and Robin Hood true technicolor then, or merely the three color?

Edited April 27, 2005 by Brian Rose

[John Sprung]

There are at least a couple of the cameras that aren't too far from working condition. The big problem is that they don't use just any B&W film. There were special stocks made for the red, green, and blue records. Red and blue were a bipack behind the prism block, and one of them had a filter layer over the emulsion. Green ran in a separate movement perpendicular to the other two, and was seeing the light split off by the dichroic prism. I'm not sure if that bipack filter layer required a special step, or whether they could all run thru an ordinary B&W processor.

 

Perhaps John Pytlak can give us a price on special ordering a batch of separation negatives.

 

The original Plant #1 building is still here, on the South side of Santa Monica Blvd, between Cahuenga and Cole. That first dye transfer machine was huge, three stories tall and about a football field long. They took it out in the 1970's, about the time that a dye transfer line was built in China. They also had plants in Rome and London. The process was revived here and abandoned again about 10 - 15 years ago.

 

It would seem to be a good idea for large release orders. Though the cost of making a set of matricies is higher than IP's and IN's, the actual prints are non-photographic, no silver compounds, which should be a lot less expensive for what you need the most of. It's also more "environmentally friendly".

 

 

 

-- J.S.

[David Mullen ASC]

Oh Definitely BOTH.  You've gotta have the three strip process, and the imbibation printing!  Damn the cost and labor, the color is worth it!  You raise an interesting point about the imbibation printing.  Are the warner restorations of GWTW and Robin Hood true technicolor then, or merely the three color?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

GWTW was restored optically in the mid 1980's to a color intermediate (I don't remember if it was an IP or IN.) This color element was used to make three b&w matrices for a release in the 1990's using Technicolor's revived dye transfer process, except that they optically reduced the 1.37 Academy frame to be inside a scope print with black borders on the sides. This seemed, at the time, better than shrinking it to fit inside the 1.85 mattted projection area.

 

Well, between all the generations from b&w to color back to b&w matrices, and optically converting it for scope prints, the image was not particularly sharp. Some of this is also due to the fact that portions of the film only exist as dupes from the 1950's, when unfortunately, they added a 1.66 hard matte to the image for select shots as a framing guide for projectionists.

 

But at least the late 1990's re-issue was in dye transfer prints.

 

Learning from their mistakes, and dealing with complaints, the next dye transfer release was for "Wizard of Oz". They decided to go back to the original b&w three-strip negatives (which were in better shape than GWTW with no gaps) rather than use a color element, and they made the b&w matrices directly from them, as they would originally. They didn't resize the image either, which meant that they only made about 50 dye transfer prints in the original 1.37 Academy format and only theaters that promised they could project 1.37 Academy got them. The rest got Eastmancolor prints where the 1.37 image was optically reduced to fit into 1.85. The quality of those dye transfer prints was amazing, and very sharp as well.

 

The only three-strip movie at that time to be restored digitally was "Snow White", which Cinesite did at 4K resolution, way back in the late 1980's I think. But that was successive frame exposure, i.e. all three b&w seps were on one negative. And I believe that the result was the restoration was a color intermediate. No dye transfer prints were made (and it wasn't an option then anyway.)

 

Recent restorations of "Singin in the Rain" and "Robin Hood" have been done digitally, by scanning b&w seps or original negs (if they exist) and recombining them digitally into a color image, allowing greater sharpness than ever before because misalignment of the elements in the original photography could be corrected. In many cases, these restorations have been shown to the public using digital projection, which is a bit odd. Otherwise, standard color prints have been made off of a negative recorded out to film. Actually, I saw a print of the digitally restored "Singin in the Rain" and was a little disappointed in the color, which was less rich than the previous optical restoration. But it was certainly sharper. In fact, most 3-strip movies restored these days look sharper than they originally did, when there was less-than-perfect alignment between the colors in the dye transfer prints of old.

 

Technicolor did a major overall to the dye transfer printing line in the early 1950's to improve sharpness once they started making CinemaScope prints; and the revived dye transfer printer made just in the last decade (the one now mothballed) had even better alignment than the old printers.

 

3-strip and dye transfer were ALL about registration of the three elements. Mechanically, it had to be near perfect, which was an amazing feat of engineering.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Perhaps John Pytlak can give us a price on special ordering a batch of separation negatives...

 

Though the cost of making a set of matricies is higher than IP's and IN's, the actual prints are non-photographic, no silver compounds, which should be a lot less expensive for what you need the most of.  It's also more "environmentally friendly".

-- J.S.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't think anyone (including Technicolor) has approached Kodak with a viable business proposal for reviving 3-strip.

 

The "receiver" (print) stock WAS a film that formed a silver image, and needed to be processed before the dyes were transferred.

 

Modern motion picture labs take care that film processing is "environmentally friendly". Kodak and the labs have worked to minimize use of chemicals, with considerable recycling of process chemistry, and recovery of almost all the silver in the film. The recent conversion to "cyan dye tracks" is the latest example of projects to reduce any effect on the environment:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/hse/inde...d=0.1.4.5&lc=en

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/plugins/acrobat/en.../h246/h2406.pdf

 

http://www.dyetracks.org

[Louis]

Robert Richardson recently used a version of the 3-strip process for The Aviator by creating LUTs during the DI process that could be applied to whole scenes to make it look like three-strip (and sometimes two-strip) Technicolor. I guess the results speak for themselves.

[Sam Wells]

Personally, I'm more upset that Technicolor discontinued their dye transfer machine. They should have left it up for special projects that needed it (like restorations of old 3-strip movies wanting authentic dye transfer prints.)  Maybe a restoration company like Cinetec should buy it off of them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah I agree.

 

I think the prints are the magic.

 

Still remember the 16mm Kodachrome Commercial to 35mm Tech IB Disney stuff. Very unique. I'd Love to see what something like 5285 would look like on on Tech IB prints.

 

-Sam