What where the first major films shot on color negative film?

[Albion Hockney]

with the renewed interest in color reversal I was just curious when we transitioned to negative film.

What were cinematographers thoughts about it at the time? Did anyone still prefer reversal for the rich blacks and saturated colors?

[David Mullen ASC]

You must be talking about 16mm then. Europe switched from color reversal to negative earlier than the U.S. mainly because their 16mm labs were cleaner! Negative dirt is white so more distracting than the black dirt on reversal. I think Europe was switching over in the late 1960s, particularly because of the release of 100 ASA Kodak 7254 but it was more in the late 1970s when U.S. switched over. And it was a very gradual switch.

[David Mullen ASC]

In Hollywood it was more of a switch in 35mm color from 3-strip Technicolor to color negative from 1950-1955. 

[Joerg Polzfusz]

That "transition" took place in the 1930s. I guess that the majority of us wasn’t even born at that time. E.g.:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Allah_(1936_film)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Are_Better_Diplomats
 

Edited December 19, 2022 by Joerg Polzfusz

[Joerg Polzfusz]

And the richer „whatever“ for reversal filmstocks is a myth as it totally depends on the type of film (just to name the „families“: Kodachrome, Ektachrome, Agfachrome, Fujichrome, Orwochrome,…). E.g. the current Kodak Ektachrome 100D is very saturated compared to Agfa Moviechrome 40 and has a completely different look than Kodak Ektachrome 160G.

For the majority of people, using reversal filmstocks is simply the easiest and cheapest way to get a single film that can be projected. (In the past, at least Kodak, Fuji and Agfa produced special filmstocks to duplicate reversals. And several labs offered a service to duplicate reversal films (S8, 16mm, slides,…). So, being limited to having a „single copy“ when shooting reversal is a thing of the last 20 years.)

Upppssss, looks like I have completely missed your question. 😜

[Albion Hockney]

for whatever reason I was under the impression 35mm negative film didn't come in till the 70's, 80's.

Can anyone name some examples of 35mm films shot on color reversal through the 70s, 80s, 90s?

 

[Frank Wylie]

On the first point, there is a timeline if you scroll down;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motion_picture_film_stocks

On the second point; here's an old thread on the subject:

 

[Tyler Purcell]

16 minutes ago, Albion Hockney said:

Can anyone name some examples of 35mm films shot on color reversal through the 70s, 80s, 90s?

None

[Joerg Polzfusz]

When you ignore some European no-/low-budget movies, then this is the only feature length film I can think of that has been entirely shot on color reversal and got released in cinemas:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0046008/technical?ref_=tt_spec_sm

[Tyler Purcell]

1 hour ago, Joerg Polzfusz said:

When you ignore some European no-/low-budget movies, then this is the only feature length film I can think of that has been entirely shot on color reversal and got released in cinemas:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0046008/technical?ref_=tt_spec_sm

This is 16mm, which was purely a reversal format until pretty recently. 

[David Mullen ASC]

The only 35mm reversal movie I can think of from the past 30 years is this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_'66

[David Mullen ASC]

3 hours ago, Albion Hockney said:

for whatever reason I was under the impression 35mm negative film didn't come in till the 70's, 80's.

Can anyone name some examples of 35mm films shot on color reversal through the 70s, 80s, 90s?

 

As Joerg mentions, Germany made the first 35mm movie on color negative film, “Women Are Better Diplomats”, released in 1941. Kodak introduced 35mm color negative for movies in 1950, 5247 (16 ASA daylight.) Within five years, 3-strip Technicolor photography was obsolete.

There was some limited use of 35mm Kodachrome Commercial reversal in the 1940s under the name Technicolor Monopack.

The problem with shooting 35mm color features on reversal film was the need to make prints.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

„Recently“? https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/page/chronology-of-film lists color negative films available for 16mm in 1968. And b&w negative has been available for 16mm long before that.

But e.g. ORWO Color NK18 was introduced in 1964 or 1966 and also available in 16mm. So Kodak most likely wasn’t the first company to release color negative stocks in 16mm.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Fuji released color negative films in 16mm in 1971 (or maybe even before - the online translation of this page doesn’t work well: https://web.archive.org/web/19981201190852/https://www.fujifilm.co.jp/history/f1970.html ) B&W negative films for 16mm have been mentioned much earlier in Fuji‘s history.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Joerg Polzfusz

[David Mullen ASC]

We had this discussion before. Though John Holland claims to have shot 7251, the mid-60s stock before '54, it was not listed in my 1966 copy of the American Cinematographer Manual, and it lists stocks by Kodak, Ansco, GAF, Dupont. etc.  Kodak 7254 seems to have been their first 16mm color negative, in 1968, unless they released 7251 in Europe only, hence why it was not in the manual.

[Tyler Purcell]

10 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

The only 35mm reversal movie I can think of from the past 30 years is this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_'66

According to IMDB, it's shot on 16mm. 

[David Mullen ASC]

IMDB is wrong then. But I thought most people here had heard of the use of 35mm Ektachrome VNF stock on "Buffalo 66".

[David Mullen ASC]

We discussed it here in 2004.

[Tyler Purcell]

Interesting. For sure looks like 35mm in the restoration trailer. Has a very interesting look as well, most likely from the lighting style mixed with the low speed stock. Cool beans, thanks for the correction and info David. 

Edited December 21, 2022 by Tyler Purcell

[Dom Jaeger]

On 12/20/2022 at 8:37 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

The only 35mm reversal movie I can think of from the past 30 years is this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_'66

I assume you mean shot on reversal and processed as reversal, rather than cross-processed, since there have been a number of films at least partially shot on 35mm Ektachrome in the last 30 years. Wasn't Tony Scott's Domino nearly all Ektachrome? 

[David Mullen ASC]

"Domino" mixed cross-processed 35mm reversal with color negative, as did "Man on Fire".

There are few examples of 35mm color reversal being processed as reversal (even "Euphoria" cross-processed it, though that was also because they found that normally-processed Ektachrome looked too staright-forward) -- partly because of the few E6 labs that handle long movie film rolls, but also, until D.I.s came along, the problem of needing it to end up as a negative in order to make prints.

Ellen Kuras and Robert Richardson have shot scenes on 35mm reversal processed as reversal. "Blow" (2001), photographed by Kuras, had some sequences shot on 35mm Ektachrome and processed as reversal but then the footage had to be optically printed to a dupe negative (contact printing it to a dupe negative puts the emulsion on the wrong side). I believe Richardson shot some 35mm Kodachrome for "Kill Bill" (2003) which went through a D.I. process.