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Topic: Super 35 explained

John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-21-2004 02:45 PM

The IMAX Corporation used ESTAR base Kodak camera films for some of their movies about the shuttle and space station. Polyester maintains its physical characteristics over a wider range of temperature, and the thinner polyester base allows longer lengths of film to fit in the camera magazines, reducing the need for reloading.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-21-2004 03:25 PM

Thanks John.

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Dominic Case
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 131
From: Sydney NSW Australia
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 12-21-2004 04:37 PM

quote:
I once read that long ago all release prints were made from the actual camera negative;

Totally impractical with the release print runs today. Some show prints are made from the original negative, but the printer must run a lot slower to accomodate the grading (timing) light changes for every shot. For a big modern feature you'd still be waiting for your prints! Previously, print orders were very much less, and (as John points out) dupe stocks are much better now. In those days you would do anything you could think of to avoid having to duplicate.

I believe that many Indian (Bollywood etc) films are printed from the original negative. They tend to go for much smaller print runs (maybe 100 copies) which then go from theatre to theatre. It's a cost-saving thing as well.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 12-21-2004 07:05 PM

Very obviously, protection of the O-neg is one area where digital intermediate processes can have some advantage. Your original is a digital file that can be perfectly duplicated many times. Unfortunately, most DI work is at resolutions of 2K or HD res; not on par with a 35mm camera negative.

Hopefully higher standards like 4K, 6K and higher can take hold. Computer processing power and storage capacities have been making great leaps just over the last few years and will continue to bound forward. That's making those better standards much more feasible. The trick though is getting the bean counters at the film studios to use the improving computer power to make movies look better instead of doing standard 2K work even more fast and cheap.

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Peter Mork
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 181
From: Newton, MA, USA
Registered: Jun 2002

posted 12-22-2004 03:24 AM

quote: Dominic Case
Totally impractical with the release print runs today.

Well, let me reframe my question. What if you were doing a smaller run, 100 prints or so. Your goal is to get prints with tip-top sharpness, contrast, etc. like those famous dailies. Any effects you want, you do them optically and splice them in with the camera original like they used to do (so if you watch old movies, you can always tell when a dissolve is about to happen because the image suddenly gets a little more unsharp and contrasty).

Of course, you want the lab to be gentle with your Work of Art, but you aren't fussy about normal wear and tear and are willing to accept imperfections that may show up on some prints and even the chance that something bad could happen and a splice or two may have to be made.

Question now is, if you took this job to a modern lab (outside of Bollywood) would they be game or would they give you funny looks, like "you must be nuts, NOBODY does that", etc., along with a song-and-dance about how prints from internegatives look just as good and similar tommyrot?

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-22-2004 05:55 AM

quote: Peter Mork
Question now is, if you took this job to a modern lab (outside of Bollywood) would they be game or would they give you funny looks, like "you must be nuts, NOBODY does that", etc., along with a song-and-dance about how prints from internegatives look just as good and similar tommyrot?

I would still urge that protection masters and B&W separations be made right after the answer print is approved. But if the filmmaker realizes the risks of making a hundred or more prints from a cut negative, that's their decision. The cost of each print will be much greater, since they will require a slow printing speed (the need to make scene-to-scene color changes each pass through the printer), and likely would be on a wet-gate printer.

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John Hawkinson
Film God

Posts: 2273
From: Cambridge, MA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 12-22-2004 08:09 AM

Hmm; that brings to my mind a question: at what point does it actually become cheaper to use an IP/IN with high-speed printing than to make all prints direct from the o-neg?

I'm sure that accurately calculating that depends on proprietary information from labs, etc., etc., but is the ballpark likely to be in the tens, hundreds, or thousands of prints? [Alternatively, I guess the question could be interpretted as asking what the relative cost of time is on a slow aperture-changing printer versus a high-speed one-light printer.]

While I'm at it, here's another: Looking at Kodak's documentation of the ECP-2D process, it looks like most of the speed-related difficulties involve application of viscous soundtrack redeveloper at high speeds. Is that the limiting factor? Will we see even higher speed printing (with or without a quality change?) with cyan dye soundtracks?

--jhawk

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John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 12-22-2004 09:19 AM

quote: John Hawkinson
While I'm at it, here's another: Looking at Kodak's documentation of the ECP-2D process, it looks like most of the speed-related difficulties involve application of viscous soundtrack redeveloper at high speeds. Is that the limiting factor? Will we see even higher speed printing (with or without a quality change?) with cyan dye soundtracks?

Soundtrack developer application is a quality and environmental issue, but not usually the limiting factor for higher speed processing. Today's high speed machines usually use a hopper or extrusion type applicator for the viscous soundtrack developer, rather than the wheel-type applicators used on slower machines. The real issues in attaining higher processing speeds are the liquid "drag" of the film going though the processing solutions, and controlling the carry-over of solutions from one tank to another in the machine. Another issue is the laminar layer of solution that forms on the film at higher speeds, which makes it more difficult to assure good solution agitation at the emulsion surface. Oxidation of the developer by air bubbles drawn into the solution by the moving film also needs to be controlled in the fast machines.

Printing speed is not affected by the type of analog soundtrack used.

quote: John Hawkinson
...at what point does it actually become cheaper to use an IP/IN with high-speed printing than to make all prints direct from the o-neg?

The cost of making a duplicate negative is usually offset by the greater efficiency at only a few dozen prints. Not to mention minimizing the risk of damaging the original cut negative, which contains the entire value of the production. I wouldn't be surprised if production insurance companies specify that protection masters be made.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-22-2004 10:28 AM

quote: Dominic Case
I believe that many Indian (Bollywood etc) films are printed from the original negative.

Wasn't there a query posted on the AMIA list way back by an Indian DoP who'd had the cut camera negative of quite a well-known Bollywood epic Scotchgarded after it had virtually fallen to bits as the result of having had around 300 release prints contact struck directly off it? However much the propsect of either action (release printing off a camera neg or Scotchgarding it) would make any archivist shudder, one thing's for sure: those prints must have been among the clearest and sharpest ever shown in a theatre.

quote: Dominic Case
They tend to go for much smaller print runs (maybe 100 copies) which then go from theatre to theatre. It's a cost-saving thing as well.

That used to be what happened in Britain. I've seen an article in a trade paper from 1946 in which the manager of a lab stated that a typical print run for a Hollywood A-picture in Britain was 40-50 prints. He further wrote that this figure hadn't been significantly affected by the war. If you think of the use those prints must have got, in the days when cinemas changed their programmes twice weekly and there were 4,000 to 5,000 screens in the UK, the standard of film handling in projection boxes must have been very high for prints to withstand that pattern of usage (even though nitrate, when new, was a lot tougher and more scratch-resistant than triacetate).

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-22-2004 12:55 PM

London alone was three release zones; even in my time, in the '60s there were still two. I doubt if I ever saw a 'new' print, i.e. one at its first theatre, as all of the films would have been running in North London the previous week. Some cinemas even ran the newsreel from the previous week. The prints always seemed to be in very good condition.

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Dominic Case
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 131
From: Sydney NSW Australia
Registered: Aug 2003

posted 12-22-2004 07:15 PM

quote: Peter Mork
Question now is, if you took this job to a modern lab (outside of Bollywood) would they be game or would they give you funny looks

They'd probably discuss just how many you really needed to be off the original, but the bottom line is . . . the bottom line. Most labs have a price for prints off original neg, and a price for prints off a dupe neg. AS John says, it costs more off original because it's a slower printer, wetgate, with light changes etc. But you'd have to look carefully at the price point for each lab, there's probably no general answer to the question of how many prints off a dupe you would need, to save he cost of the dupe.

I'd always recommend very strongly making a safety IP before going with many prints off the original neg.

quote: Peter Mork
(so if you watch old movies, you can always tell when a dissolve is about to happen because the image suddenly gets a little more unsharp and contrasty).

Dissolves were printed optically, but only for the duration of the dissolve (I guess there was a cost factor as well), thereby necessitating a cut from original neg to dup neg in mid-shot. Earlier dupe stocks were quite bad and this drew attention to the cut. The jump in graininess is compounded when you see a newer print from these old negs, because the original neg and the optical dupeneg have invaribly faded differently. When dupe stocks got better, it became usual to do the entire shot as an optical effect.

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Stephen Furley
Film God

Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002

posted 12-23-2004 02:46 AM

When optical printing you could save one generation by using CRI, but then you would be causing problems for the future due to its much worse fading.

Have there been any films in recent times which wave done optical effects in camera on the origiinal negative?

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000

posted 12-23-2004 03:37 AM

If our collection is anything to go by, TV and documentary drama made the most extensive use of CRIs, probably because they needed to introduce opticals which required the extra generation, but only needed one TX print and final mix track (usually sepmag - they'd only make a sound neg and combined print if the programme was being shown at a festival or something) as the end product.

And yes, most of our CRIs are gruesomely faded. When this material is requested by clients we normally TK the TX print if it survives, for obvious reasons.

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