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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Pan and Scan 'Painted Veil'
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 05-19-2007 05:56 PM
'Made in' Dufaycolor is possibly a bit problematic. The original element of A Colour Box was raw stock onto which Len Lye painted. This was then duplicated using a very early version of the Dufay negative-positive process (which was additive, not masked coupler, so you can imagine how accurate the colour rendition was), and the resulting Dufay prints used in the original release. When the BFI restored it in the late '90s, they did so by taking the original element (which survives) and contact printing it to a modern Eastmancolor negative. Their justification for this was (i) that Lye would have used a more accurate colour technology if he could have afforded it, and (ii) Dufaycolor no longer exists as a production technology, so there is no way of restoring the Dufay look unless you start with a surviving 1930s release print rather than the original element, and (iii) because the Dufay reseau patten extends over the track area, Dufaycolor prints with soundtracks are very problematic to rerecord. Sound quality issues were part of what sunk Dufay as a mass-duplication format in the first place (as distinct from a home movie reversal medium, for which it was very successful and enjoyed strong sales throughout the 30s and 40s).
So, if you're seeing a print from the BFI's restoration, there was actually no Dufaycolor involved anywhere in the production process, despite what it says on the opening titles!
Another Len Lye short, Rainbow Dance, was duplicated and printed using Gasparcolor, as Stephen mentions.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 05-20-2007 05:36 AM
quote:
'Made in' Dufaycolor is possibly a bit problematic. The original element of A Colour Box was raw stock onto which Len Lye painted. This was then duplicated using a very early version of the Dufay negative-positive process (which was additive, not masked coupler, so you can imagine how accurate the colour rendition was), and the resulting Dufay prints used in the original release. When the BFI restored it in the late '90s, they did so by taking the original element (which survives) and contact printing it to a modern Eastmancolor negative. Their justification for this was (i) that Lye would have used a more accurate colour technology if he could have afforded it, and (ii) Dufaycolor no longer exists as a production technology, so there is no way of restoring the Dufay look unless you start with a surviving 1930s release print rather than the original element, and (iii) because the Dufay reseau patten extends over the track area, Dufaycolor prints with soundtracks are very problematic to rerecord. Sound quality issues were part of what sunk Dufay as a mass-duplication format in the first place (as distinct from a home movie reversal medium, for which it was very successful and enjoyed strong sales throughout the 30s and 40s).
So, if you're seeing a print from the BFI's restoration, there was actually no Dufaycolor involved anywhere in the production process, despite what it says on the opening titles!
Leo, just to clarify this, when you say 'original element' do you mean the actual painted element, rather than the original photographic negative one, which would be considered the original for a normal film. It sounds like that's what you mean, but I'm very surprised that would survive in printable condition.
When I ran it, and saw the Dufaycolor credit I noticed the lack of visible Dufaycolor reseau on the new print, and thought maybe they had used some trickery while in the digital domain to eliminate it.
While the original amateur Dufay process was fairly simple, requiring nothing more (once the stock had been manufactured) than simple reversal processing of a standard black and white emulsion, albeit a panchromatic one so processing would have to be carried out in the dark, I find it pretty incredible that they ever got a negative-positive print process to work at all. How on earth did they ever manage to put the reseau onto both stocks with the accuracy of which would have been required, and then keep them registered during printing, given that there would have been some shrinkage of the negative during processing? It would seem to have been easier to make the print from separations. Was it Dufaycolor which used some sort of early safety base, I know that one of the early colour processes did, and if so, was this to reduce shrinkage problems?
I've never been very impressed with Dufay 9.5mm film; I just find the reseau too course and distracting, not to mention that typical 9.5mm projectors were distinctly lacking in light output to start with, to the point of being almost invisible with anything but the smallest of pictures with Dufay. On the other hand I think some of the 35mm looks surprisingly good for it's time if you can get enough light through it, which is not a problem with a video transfer of course, and with video on a small screen the reseau is hardly noticed. I've got a DVD with some 35mm Dufaycolour on; I'll have to take it to the cinema and try it on the digital projector sometime. Now I've got the component feed in, and worked out how to tweak the settings on the Cine IPM I can get DVDs to look quite good on our small screen.
What element did they use for the sound in the new restoration; was the original Visatone negative still available? I generally think that digital work should be done at more than 2k, but given the nature of the iage in 'A Colour Box', this seems quite adequate.
Regarding the inability to reproduce the Dufaycolour look today, you could probably fake in fairly convincingly while in digital; whether this should be done is open to debate. If you were going to release the film on video there's possibly a case for putting it on the disc in both ways, so people can compare them, but of course it would be a fake reseau, not the real one. Should you then introduce the dull, under-lit look of projected Dufaycolour as well? In a technical video about the process, you might want to do so to illustrate its shortcomings, but for people who just want to watch the film, probably not.
The new digital restoration looks better than any previous version of the film I have seen, but I wish they had printed it in the proper format, rather than in one which if projected as instructed results in the titles being cropped. See the other thread which I started on the subject.
quote:
Another Len Lye short, Rainbow Dance, was duplicated and printed using Gasparcolor, as Stephen mentions.
Ah, I must have been getting the two films confused; It's a long time since I've seen any of Len Lye's work. Gasparcolor would seem to have been a far more suitable process to have used, given the look that the film was supposed to have
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 05-20-2007 10:35 AM
quote: Stephen Furley
Leo, just to clarify this, when you say 'original element' do you mean the actual painted element, rather than the original photographic negative one, which would be considered the original for a normal film. It sounds like that's what you mean, but I'm very surprised that would survive in printable condition.
Yes, the original painted element - watercolour on uncoated nitrate base. Kevin Patton showed it to me on a bench on a visit to Berkhamsted: it was in astonishingly good condition. There was only the very slightest of shrinkage - about a 2 foot length tried to form a shallow arch when laid flat on the bench, but that was it - and there was no paint flaking problem at all.
quote: Stephen Furley
When I ran it, and saw the Dufaycolor credit I noticed the lack of visible Dufaycolor reseau on the new print, and thought maybe they had used some trickery while in the digital domain to eliminate it.
No - they simply printed the original hand-painted element onto an Eastmancolor negative. I don't know how they put the titles on - either a digital reconstruction or they had the negative inserts, I guess.
I've just dug out two VHS copies of A Colour Box - the BFI's Eastmancolor version from their Britain in the 30s tape, and a telecine from a Dufaycolor print someone gave me in the '80s. I like the Dufay version a lot better. I admit that it's not a photographic part of Lye's original conception at all - in fact, he's on record as saying that he only used Dufay because he couldn't afford Technicolor. But given that Lye's animation is based on the idea of what continuously painted shapes look like when you chop them up into 4-perf frames and then project them (really, he's getting to the heart of what stop motion does to the viewer), and that the Dufay reseau achieves a very similar effect, the whole dynamic of the animation looks more boring in the Eastman print, IMHO. And the lower colour temperature, almost pastel shades of the Dufay print look different too. I know this is a subjective reaction, but the Dufay version looks 1930s like a Stanley Baldwin speech feels 1930s or a Jack Hylton 78 sounds 1930s - the Eastmancolor 1990s restoration may reveal more of Len Lye's technical skill as a painter in an objective sense, but it just looks wrong in terms of when it was originally made and shown.
quote: Stephen Furley
I find it pretty incredible that they ever got a negative-positive print process to work at all. How on earth did they ever manage to put the reseau onto both stocks with the accuracy of which would have been required, and then keep them registered during printing, given that there would have been some shrinkage of the negative during processing?
I have to confess - dunno. But bear in mind that the size of the reseau was so much smaller in 35mm than it would have been for 9.5 or 16 that I guess there must have been some margin for error. I've seen the BFI's 35mm print of Sons of the Sea, and the reseau are so small that at times you simply forget you're seeing them. What really gives the film away as not being Technicolor is the low colour temperature, sort of pastel shaded look of the picture.
It would be wonderful if someone could produce a Dufaycolor simulation filter for Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro. I'd love to try my hand at the Dufay look with no more than a camcorder.
By the way, Swinging the Lambeth Walk is another lovely Lye Dufaycolor animation, with a great Milt Herth soundtrack.
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 05-20-2007 03:07 PM
quote: Leo Enticknap
I know this is a subjective reaction, but the Dufay version looks 1930s like a Stanley Baldwin speech feels 1930s or a Jack Hylton 78 sounds 1930s - the Eastmancolor 1990s restoration may reveal more of Len Lye's technical skill as a painter in an objective sense, but it just looks wrong in terms of when it was originally made and shown.
This is how I feel when I see digital files of old films in cinemas. They are not the same, they become a hybrid and this is why if I am only left with the option of seeing a digital file of an old film (no 35mm prints available because of the totalitarian policies of the UKFC) I prefer to see them at home.
From a tender age (and to the astonishment of my peers)I have wanted to see old films in original version at the pictures, even though they had been shown a thousand times on TV. This is until I sat through the digital file of Robin Hood (Flynn's version). The whole thing was cold. The same happened when I saw a digital clip of Casablanca, which was supposed to be astonishing, that was not Casablanca. I do not know how many of us, who used to go to repertoire cinemas and national film theatres, will stop going now that they plan to stop showing film. I just wish it was enough of us. There are many films that can still be restored just using photochemical techniques and properly handled a 35mm print can be shown many times. As a matter of principle, I won't see any digital print of an old film ever at the pictures. I think it is blatantly wrong.
The NFT in London has shown me loads of differents formats and textures over the last nine years I have been in London, just for now to say that it does not matter anymore, that now everything can be shown in digital because the politicians say this is the way to go and films can be seen better than when they were released. Better according to whom, I ask?
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