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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Topic: Wizard of Oz dye transfer....
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 06-25-2001 04:09 AM
Jeff:The original release prints of "Oz" had the black & white portions printed on a tinted stock that was brownish called "sepia". The dead giveaway is (as Randy mentioned) the changeover that's between the last black & white reel into the first color reel. The inside of the house & Dorothy's costume are photographed in color, they are in color, but the art direction has them in all sepia tones to match the sepia black & white reels. I remember also seeing Oz on TV a few times with a print that had the b/w sections were printed on straight black & white stock, not sepia stock, & then when it hit the first color reel the sepia costume & interior by contrast seemed to be covered with brown dirt & mud. It blew the whole illusion out of the water. ------------------
William Hooper
Junk drawer: http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/theater/3622
Theatre Empire: http://members.xoom.com/saenger.1
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Aaron Sisemore
Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day!
Posts: 3061
From: Rockwall TX USA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 06-25-2001 09:03 PM
I think it has already been mentioned, ,but what the hey...The 'real IB' "Special Edition" prints of 'Oz' are ALL 1.37:1, so if you have such a print I would hope you are showing it in the correct aspect ratio, which would require a new lens and aperture plate for the 1.37:1 ratio. Also, the 'sepia' portions on the IB prints are actually Eastman process footage (all of R-1 and the end of R-5, the beginning of R-2 is IB) that is lab-spliced into the last reels of the IB prints The 'Eastman' prints of the above are a 1.37:1 frame printed to fit into a 1.85:1 frame. The picture will project at the correct ratio, but the image size will be somewhat smaller, IIRC (I have handled both prints, BTW) Aaron
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John Pytlak
Film God
Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 07-06-2003 07:43 PM
http://thewizardofoz.warnerbros.com/movie/cmp/r-notes.html
quote:
Like reconstructing a crime scene in an Agatha Christie novel, it took numerous film experts and technicians months of intensive labor to produce the Special Edition of "The Wizard of Oz" for theatrical presentation. Chief among them was Phil Feiner, President/COO, Optical Effects Division and Digital Restoration at Pacific Title/Mirage, the company working on the restoration of the sepia bookend sequences on the Gale farm in Kansas.
"Our immediate problem we had to face was the fact that the original black and white negatives [which were printed into sepia] were destroyed in a fire at the Eastman House in the mid-1970s," explains Feiner. "What did exist were fine grain masters, which were made using an older method of reproduction called 'continuous dry gate printing'; it unfortunately transfers all of the flaws, scratches, dirt, digs and the like onto the film masters. So using these somewhat flawed fine grain masters, which are housed in the Library of Congress, we employed scanners to digitize them and then corrected the images on computer, frame by frame, eliminating any dirt or scratches; we also corrected any flickering of the image that also existed in the original at 4K by 3K lines of resolution."
Once this was completed following more than nine months of painstaking work, the new corrected digitized files were recorded out on a Kodak laser film recorder to transfer to film to create prints of the black and white Kansas sequences. These sections were then married to the color portion of the motion picture (which was struck from the existing three-strip negative of the Technicolor® Oz sequences).
Another improvement to the film can be heard rather than seen. Warner Bros.' Ned Price, Vice President of Mastering in Technical Operations, oversaw the Digital audio remastering of the film's soundtrack, which is heard for the very first time in true stereo. The original nitrate soundtrack and original orchestra session recordings were digitally remastered to Dolby Digital Sound -- so "Over the Rainbow" and Dorothy's magnificent trip in and out of Oz has never sounded better.
http://www.amianet.org/04_Annual/04f02_Miami/4f02_04.html
quote:
RESTORATION OF THE ORIGINAL SEPIA INTRODUCTORY SEQUENCE OF THE WIZARD OF OZ
Speaker: Phillip Feiner, Pacific Title / Mirage, Hollywood, California
Phillip Feiner began by describing the restoration of the monochrome sequences of "The Wizard of Oz" (or reels 1A, 1B, and 5B). Since the original negative elements for these sequences were destroyed in a nitrate fire, the best surviving elements, two Fine Grain Master Positives, were utilized. The Fine Grains were printed in 1960 and 1980 and contained a large number of defects including base and emulsion scratches, dust, dirt, digs, and flicker.
A three-part clip from reel 1B was screened and discussed. The clip first showed a reproduction of the source material with all defects. It was followed by the cleaned-up image after digital processing. Finally, the end product, which includes the sepia highlights, was shown...
Feiner clarified the process for the The Wizard of Oz cleanup: first automatic dust-busting at a Cineion station followed by a QC check until about 80% of defects were removed; then the "cleaning department" (six people on day shift, four at night) manually inspected and digitally cleaned up each image for approximately seven months.
The issue of digital archiving was addressed. Film outputs and records are produced for archival storage to insure that the end product of the digital work will be preserved on film. The more expensive DST tapes can be stored although, as most archivists know all too well, the machines which can read them may or may not be available in 100 years; these factors make film the best archival medium for this digital work.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-07-2003 12:51 PM
Tao said: "FYI, LSC is an entirely student-run organization, and usually goes through Swank (http://www.swank.com/), which handles the educational licensing for most new releases. That way, we get a discount and run movies vs. 50% of ticket sales."
That's non-theatrical's dirty little secret. They charge you a lot more than the studios do for the same title. Art/retropsective cinemas typically will pay 35% for older, second run and classic titles. Swank is a middle man and take a cut. Now I am not saying they don't provide a service for that extra percentage (you get to book a number of studios all in one place, they supply some ad material on newer titles, and for students who may or may not know the ins and outs of booking, you are handheld and walked through the process from booking to getting your title on the screen).
That being said, when a college or museum venue sports 35mm equipment, it usually means that they are being operated, if not by industry professionals, at least by people who are quite a few rungs up the ladder of professionalism than some kids in a dorm with a 16mm projector and a sheet hung on the wall or a big screen TV. For those running more professional cinemas, it might be better to establish relationships with the studios directly. After all, you will be doing exactly what Swank is doing -- booking from the studios (Swank has practically no 35mm prints of their own and has to go to the studio to borrow a print when you book that title with them). When you can, eliminate the middle man and go to the studio yourself.
Unfortunately, most of the classics departments don't want to deal with schools or museums because, IMHO, they have a bias against them since the think "non-theatrical" which to them means working with "students" (bad word) or "curators" (another bad word) who don't know what they are doing. They also see non-theatrical as a loss-leader situation. That's the bias you have to overcome.
The biggest hurdle is frequency. The studio's classics departments deal with theatres that run titles anywhere from a few weeks to a minimum of a few days. When a studio sees a booking request for only one showing, they see red -- red in that the print is going out and it has very little potential of making them any money. It may not even be worth the wear and tear on the print for them to let it out for a single showing. You need to try to run a title for at least weekend engagements -- Fri, Sat, Sun shows and then ALWAYS multiple shows on each day. That is a big difference between theatrical and non-theatrical -- a distributor will not be able to understand that if you have a print, why you would not play it as many times a day as you can, given it doesn't cost you any more if you run it once or four times. And since he is a partner with you (percentage-wise), he sees your running only once as a loss of potential revenue. He wants to see multiple screenings. Do that, and you're halfway in the "theatrical" as opposed to the "non-theatrical" door. Unlike Swank, the distributor doesn't charge you extra guarantee money for each showing. The other thing is, get yourself a theatre name -- name it after the hall you run the films in, "Whitman Theatre" for example if you were in the Whitman Hall. And then make up all your print material to ONLY mention that name, never the college. Basically you want to create an art cinema that happens to be on a college campus. Get yourself a direct phone line, one that doesn't answer with the college's switchboard and hookup an answering machine to it so when you are not there to answer "The Whitman Theatre, can I help you...." your answering machine will.
We found the only time you have to mention the college by name may be in your directions, but even there try to minimize it as much as possible.
You may find that you will have to play both sides of the coin --there may be some studios that will not play ball no matter what you do. You will have to go to Swank for their titles. But where you can establish a good rapport with the classic departments of the majors, by all means do so. If for nothing else, to get that 50% down.
Frank
Oh, and PS, going theatrical will also allow you to ADVERTISE --a silly restriction that is placed on Swank bookings.
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