Shooting 3-strip technicolor

Phil Rhodes · December 9, 2017

Yes, seriously!

There's a three-strip camera at the ASC clubhouse. Now, it's probably due a clean, lube and adjust, and it'd likely remain impossible to print it properly, given that there aren't any dye-transfer printers left.

But assuming someone makes orthochromatic black-and-white stock, the idea occurs that it might not be impossible to crank the thing back up, which would be tremendous fun, wouldn't it?

I'm not sure what the situation would be with the red filter that was originally on the blue-only orthochromatic stock, which prevented the red record from being contaminated with blue.

Crazy idea?

Simon Wyss · December 9, 2017

Correct. The blue sensitive stock used to bear a red dyed filter layer on top. One would have a film manufacturer produce such a film for the project.

Phil Rhodes · December 9, 2017

I guess you could scan it all and subtract the blue from the red!

Mark Dunn · December 9, 2017

I guess you could scan it all and subtract the blue from the red!

But they're monochrome records. You can't separate the colours.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Mark Dunn

Phil Rhodes · December 9, 2017

You'd have the orthochromatic record which would be the blue only, and the panchromatic record which would be the red and blue (fundamentally magenta), so you'd subtract the blue from the magenta and end up with red.

In theory.

I suspect the practice would require some significant screwing around in Resolve.

David Mullen ASC · December 9, 2017

You wouldn't get a true red record, it would be contaminated by blue so would become less saturated from the crosstalk. The film is b&w, there is only luminance recorded.

Phil Rhodes · December 9, 2017

Well yes, you'd get a magenta record, which in concert with the blue record from the orthochromatic stock in the magenta channel could be used to derive a true red channel. Again, in theory. It could have been done that way in the days of optical printers, too, by creating an (inverted) matte of the blue record and bipacking it with the magenta record.

Mark Dunn · December 9, 2017

The point is that as David says a b/w neg doesn't have any colour information. We know there's red information in the blue record, but the film doesn't, unless it's separated at the point of exposure.