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Old 1950's to 1960's stock.


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Hello.

 

I've been watching two separate films recently, made 15 years apart. It's Always Fair Weather (1955) and Airport (1970). Although these two totally separate movies are 15 years apart they both share a very stange colour cast, on both movies anything orange or yellow, particularly human flesh tones, seem to take on a rather beige tone. Would they both have been shot with the same stock? Eastmancolor, perhaps?

 

By Airport '75 the stock is a damn sight better. What would this stock have been? It's too early to be 5247.

 

Thanks. :)

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By Airport '75 the stock is a damn sight better. What would this stock have been? It's too early to be 5247.

 

'Airport 75' would be 5254. 100T. Arguably, one of Kodak's best color & tone wise.

 

'It's Always Fair Weather' would be 5248 25T, the 2nd Eastmancolor stock.

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The original "Airport" (1970) film should be 5254 (100T) too, as it was introduced in 1968. The main difference is that "Airport" was one of the last films to be produced in Todd-AO, using 65mm film stock and 70mm roadshow release prints with 6-track mag stereo sound. Ernest Laszlo's old fashioned photography is quite monochromatic and now looks very low-con, at least in home video.

 

On the other hand "Airport 1975" -which also used 5254- has more saturated colors and looks much more modern in comparison, even though Phil Lathrop was another old school DP trained under Universal's head of camera department Russell Metty, ASC.

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AIRPORT is an absolute beauty to watch in 70mm. I saw it twice some years ago in a vintage 70mm print with very moderate color fading. Interiors are lit very high hey and seem old fashioned or TV-like to modern viewers, but the night stuff is great. Scenes with Burt Lancaster and Jean Seberg in the car look like the better IMAX stuff I have seen - no grain, with a three-dimensional quality.

 

Technically, the last Todd-AO/SuperPanavision/65mm productions are most impressive, especially RYAN'S DAUGHTER and ICE STATION ZEBRA, much finer grain than the 1950s stuff and breathtaking sharpness.

Unfortunately, nothing of that transfers to DVD. The PAL DVD I own definitely was transferred from a 35mm source. But I always enjoy the type of "dramatized industrial film" photography like in ICE STATION ZEBRA and AIRPORT.

Edited by Christian Appelt
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25T!?! Ouch! I wonder what it's rating was in Daylight. :lol:

 

Kodak should re-release 5254. I think it's so beautiful.

 

The stock 5248 replaced, the original 5247, was 16T. Interiors had to be lit with arc lights.

but the 3-strip Technicolors that they coexisted with were around the same speeds.

 

When Kodak tried to replace 5254 with 5247 II and a new developing process, ECN II, most Hollywood cinematographers refused to switch over & Kodak had to modify 5247 II.

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