Does Anyone Remember Filming with Kodak 5289/7289 (Vision 800T)?

[Karl Lee]

While looking through Wikipedia's list of motion picture film stocks, I was reminded of Kodak's former 5289/7289 Vision 800T film stock which was released in the late '90s and discontinued in 2004. Out of curiosity, does anyone remember shooting with this film stock, and if so, what were your thoughts? My guess is that its reception wasn't too stellar on account of its relatively short lifespan, but I'd be interested to hear about others' experiences with the film.

[David Mullen ASC]

It was OK, a bit contrasty and grainy, but what happened was Vision2 500T 5218 came out and pushed one-stop to 1000 ASA it wasn't grainier than 800T was at 800 ASA.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I got to shoot some, and I liked it well enough; but as mentioned, the '18 more than eclipsed it.

[Phil Rhodes]

Always thought it was a shame they were never able to get up beyond 1000ASA. There are a million and one reasons the idea of shooting film is a bit alarming - almost entirely financial ones - but the need for a small, locally-mounted star on a stick is one that isn't.

[Anthony Schilling]

It was OK, a bit contrasty and grainy, but what happened was Vision2 500T 5218 came out and pushed one-stop to 1000 ASA it wasn't grainier than 800T was at 800 ASA

I tried it in super 8 when pro8mm still had it, but on a frame that size it was excessively grainy. When the 7218 came out in S8 and i pushed it to 800 the first time, it was way way better. The differences are a lot more pronounced on the smaller gauges.

[Bill DiPietra]

I remember when that stock was being advertised by Kodak. I actually have an old 2002 Kodak Motion Picture Catalog and 5289/7289 is in there. Would have loved to have shot with it but I never had the money/opportunity at the time.

[David Mullen ASC]

I remember "Donnie Darko" (35mm anamorphic) and "Shadow of the Vampire" (Super-35) as two of the more interesting projects shot on 800T. I wonder if Kubrick would have used it on "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999), but I suspect that he started shooting in 1997 before 800T came out in 1998.

[Mark Dunn]

but I suspect that he started shooting in 1997 before 800T came out in 1998.

Well before. I have a Guardian cutting from mid- 97 which has Cruise and Kidman returning to LA after shooting for a year and a half.

[Anthony Schilling]

Vision2 also saw the end of 320T. I never really heard why, but would assume the V2 250D was a better daylight choice and the V2 500T a better tungsten choice.

[David Mullen ASC]

Not exactly, 320T was replaced by the low-contrast Expression stocks, the last one being Vision-2 500T 5229.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

Could the switch to low-con high-latitude stocks have anything to do with the increasing ubiquity of the D.I.?

[David Mullen ASC]

It predates D.I., 320T was an attempt to win back the people who had switched to Agfa XT320.

 

If anything, the fact that all of the low-con stocks went off of the market, leaving only the regular Vision-3 stocks, suggests that many people did not feel that we needed low-contrast stocks in order to make a D.I.

 

While a few DP's did specifically use the low-con stocks for either D.I.'s or television work, such as "Amelie" using 320T, the majority used them for the softer look.

 

Also, in the case of 320T, it existed in a time when most movies used 500T for interior scenes and 320T was slightly finer-grained than that -- you saw DP's like David Tattersal and Michael Ballhaus shooting on 320T for that reason. But once 500T improved, there was less reason to use 320T solely to get less grain. And for the people who used 320T for less contrast and saturation, there was 500T Expression and SO-63 stocks.

[Bill DiPietra]

For those who are still interested in reading more about the stock, the pdf Data Sheet is still online, here:

 

Kodak 52/7289 (800T)

[Karim D. Ghantous]

I remember "Donnie Darko" (35mm anamorphic) and "Shadow of the Vampire" (Super-35) as two of the more interesting projects shot on 800T. I wonder if Kubrick would have used it on "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999), but I suspect that he started shooting in 1997 before 800T came out in 1998.

Damn, I love Eyes Wide Shut, for so many reasons. This AC article says it was 5298 - pushed by two stops!

 

https://www.theasc.com/magazine/oct99/sword/pg1.htm

 

Such a good looking movie. DP Larry Smith says that 5298 was better than 5279 when pushed. I guess the old-school stocks had more flexibility in some ways. Edit: 5219 is amazing though, and seems to have characteristics of old-school stocks as well as the advantages of the newest technology.

 

I could read about film stocks all day long... :-)

Edited October 4, 2015 by Karim D. Ghantous

[David Mullen ASC]

The grain level of "Eyes Wide Shut" has always been controversial. The original release prints were quite grainy and since Kubrick had pushed everything two stops, most of us assumed that the look was intentional. But some people saw an earlier show print version and said the graininess was less strong, and of course the grain in the blu-ray and DVD versions is quite cleaned-up compared to the original release prints.

 

I suspect now, for whatever reasons, the original release prints were made from an IP/IN that went through an optical printer step. This would have "sharpened" the grain structure a bit. I don't know why they weren't contact-printed, if my theory is true, but if you look at the 4x3 full-frame version that was on DVD originally, it didn't have the excess headroom that the 4x3 full-frame versions of "The Shining" and "Full Metal Jacket" did when un-matted. This might be because Kubrick tried a different sort of frame line groundglass where TV and 1.85 shared a common top, which could be compensated for by a projectionist at a special screening, but for general release would require the 1.85 to be lowered and recentered with a hard matte so that after trailers, the movie would not need readjusting in terms of headroom. But this could all be a wild conspiracy theory.

[Mark Dunn]

I wonder if an intermediate stage was needed because of the CGI censoring of the US release, this being the early days of DI?
I was unfortunate enough to have seen a censored American print here on the first run. It had the MPAA rating card, something I hope never to see again.

[David Mullen ASC]

Almost all release prints are made from a dupe negative, most studios don't want to risk making more than a dozen show prints off of the original negative. But I'm sure that sequence was one reason why the U.S. market didn't see any show prints, only prints made from a dupe negative.

[Kenny N Suleimanagich]

I recently saw it on an original release print at the Museum of the Moving Image and, frankly, was not as shocked by the grain as much as I had read and thought I would be. Some select scenes like the bedroom of the apartment and a few of the orgy shots had excess grain, but considering they were almost entirely practical sources I feel that would be the case even with today's stocks (or for that matter, imagers). Considering Kubrick personally oversaw the color timing it's not a stretch to believe he felt confident about the grain looking okay to his eye, which in the end I suppose is what matters most?

[Deniz Zagra]

On 11/2/2014 at 8:21 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

It was OK, a bit contrasty and grainy, but what happened was Vision2 500T 5218 came out and pushed one-stop to 1000 ASA it wasn't grainier than 800T was at 800 ASA.

I know this post is almost 10 years old, but I just wanted to mention an old ASC article that they have on their website (https://theasc.com/magazine/nov98/PRODUCTS/page3.html). According to this article, Kodak engineers used the technological advancements that helped create the Vision line in a different way with 5289. Rather than keeping the same speed and making the grain finer, the stock sharper, and the latitude more flexible, they used these advancements to increase the speed of the stock. The interviewee argues that the image structure is closer to that of 5298 rather than the image structure of 5273.

The interviewee also mentions how difficult it was to optimize the yellow layer to be more fine grained and high speed. I don't understand why they insisted on this stock being tungsten balanced, night time often features blue tones, so a daylight balanced film might have been easier to make and would have even had finer grain and better sharpness. I guess there was no reason practical use for this stock after 5218 became a thing.

The article also contains a small section about filming the underwater shots in Supernova (2000) on 5289 (Lloyd Ahern, ASC). Again, might be a trivial topic to talk about now, but I thought it was interesting.