Robert Harris

They’re all on line going back to 1921(?) on the American cinematographer site.

I'm not seeing the tech replicated by a plug-in...

If the intent is to truly replicate the Technicolor look, first thing that must go is resolution. Technicolor was never sharp. Keep in mind that it was three b/w negs with three layers of grain. Reproduced today via 4k scans of OCNs, with beautiful work performed by WB’s MPI, the resultant image must be de-grained, which then leaves an image appearing akin to Technicolor, but with a higher resolution than would ever have been seen when printed via imbibition from matrices with metal dyes. What gave Technicolor dye transfer prints a feeling of sharpness in projection was its contrast levels. There was no sharpness in the image. The other part of three-strip cinematography to keep in mind is that it was extremely dependent upon production color design. Take a look at the earliest demo work - La Cucaracha and Becky Sharp, and you’ll see an overabundance of pure yellows, cyans and magentas. Even after the process took on a more natural look, see Quiet Man examples above, it still was very color dependent. Please keep in mind that I’m referring only to three-strip and not printing based upon Eastman originals. If you need a copy of Becky Sharp - albeit digital - I’ll be happy to send you a proxy. RAH

Hi, David. I was about to bring that up. The “Color by Technicolor” verbiage had nothing to do with dye transfer. It merely made the point that original color prints were struck by the Technicolor lab. For dye transfer printing the credits generally read either “Technicolor,” or “in Technicolor.” All original prints of Rear Window by Tech in 1953 were via direct positive to Eastman stock. It was not until the 1962 re-issue that dye transfer prints were produced. in 2000 we did a limited run of dye transfer based upon matrices derived from our restored dupe neg. RAH

Perfect advise. I recall borrowing a 35 print of E.T. for my son’s 6th birthday party. It was (as I recall) open matte. I asked Allen Daviau why. Because he didn’t want to go through an optical duplication step. Things are easier these days. R

Yes, one can film out to print, and for those who choose to do so, have at it. Personally, when I do a 4k restoration, I consider that to be my negative, and record back to film to create a non-digital preservation asset. Each to their own. R

I’ve been waiting patiently for someone to bring up up - was it Toy Story files?

This must be based upon your needs and the importance of your work surviving a longer period of time. Neither SSD nor HDD are good archival solutions, although 6 or 8 drive RAIDS are helpful. SSD is the more problematic. My current concept of “archival” are LTO8s, with geographic separation. An LTO generally has a safe life of 30 years. The only real problem there can be playability via updated operating systems, for which updated clones to new systems may be one answer. For my working arena, which is restoration and preservation, the ultimate end result and the best truly archival media is recording back to 65mm or 35mm negative on polyester stock and quality storage. Unfortunately, an expensive situation, not generally available below the studio or major archive level. Hence, I personally go for multiple geo-sep LTOs. As far as compression goes, we find that while we prefer to save as dpx files, compressing to mxf is the current answer for many situations, as those files seem to convert back to dpx without loss. To put things in perspective, a number of years ago I delivered a major 4k project for archival both via recorded 35mm negative and answer print as well as LTO, which at that time amounted to (if I recall correctly) 37 tapes. Hope this is in some way helpful. R

Beyond a few RAIDs, and a large number of 8 to 28 TB HDD to share data, I’ve been using the SanDisk Pro blade station and 4k blades with multiple blade transports to move data between MACs. I paid just over $2,300 for the station, 6 4k blades and one transport in March 2025. Current cost: $3,589. Fortunately, I added more blades before the prices went nuts. R

There are dupes cut into the OCN.

Probably 40 years.

Isn’t Metropolis Jack Rizzo?

Yes, dailies dirt would be white/clear. I’m wondering if like some others who try to make a digital record look like film, if the source may have been a combined IP with both 35/8 and 35/4. That would achieve proper black dirt. Then there were the flash frames.

AFAIK, the 70mm prints were derived from a recorded 65 neg, in turn derived from the daily rolls. One persons opinion, whom I trust, felt that the dirt was purposely left in for “artistic intent,” which to me shouts, “Look, mom, they’re letting me shoot film!” As someone whose lifelong artistic intent has been to avoid and eradicate dirt on film, I really don’t know what to say. As far as the film itself, a quality screenplay would have been nice, if you’re asking me to sit through a crappy epic length film.,

I viewed The Brutalist in 4k on a 37 foot screen, and generally despised everything about it. The whole VVLA thing up front, big, proud and overbearing, when the system was used for how many shots? But worse than the film was the seemingly idiotic concept of a “filmmaker” trying to explain to me what “film” is, and by that I mean the stuff that generally comes out of Rochester, and is loaded into gadgets that are affixed to what we call cameras. And here is my greatest dislike for the filmmaker’s concept of fillum, of VVLA, of lab work and of the art of our industry. It comes down to a single word - something that I’ve fought against my entire life working with film. DIRT. This “filmmaker” seems to have felt that to have an audience understand and appreciate his art as a “filmmaker,” he needed to retain/perpetuate DIRT throughout the process of creating a print - be it analogue or digital. If the audience didn’t see DIRT they would not understand that they were viewing something based upon that product from Rochester. I can just imagine a Memo from DOS, telling Technicolor that he needed MORE YCM DIRT, especially in those big close-ups of Leigh. ”Not enough dirt! How will my audience know it’s film?”