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Topic: Movies still being released on film

Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-05-2018 06:14 PM

In a somewhat ironic move, it is rumored that NetFlix, of all people, is going to strike a few 70mm prints of their release Roma, which will open in limited engagements on the 14th, two weeks ahead of its streaming debut. The picture was shot on the Arri Alexa65 and is being presented in black & white. It'll be interesting to see how it looks, if indeed they go through with it.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

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

posted 11-05-2018 07:50 PM

So this is a b/w movie that they're making 70mm prints of? Unless Kodak has done a special batch of 2302 in 70mm, they will not look good, because b/w printed onto color stock always suffers from contrast loss and a very slight tint (usually red, sometimes blue).

AFAIK, Kodak does not offer 2302 in 70mm as part of its regular product line, but their website does not say so definitively.

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Erik Bakhshi
Film Handler

Posts: 3
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Oct 2018

posted 11-07-2018 03:06 PM

Mark- That is very interesting indeed. I ran a screening for ROMA a few days ago and Alfonso Cuaron (The Director) was very adamant that we screen it in 4k & ATMOS. They studio wasn't going to book the show unless we confirmed those specs. He said he approached the visual look embracing the digital format and wanted 0 grain to give it a "present day" feel, while the BW brings the "Memory" feel. My question is, will making film prints introduce grain to the image even though it was shot digitally?

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Mark Ogden
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 943
From: Little Falls, N.J.
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-07-2018 05:06 PM

There's no real way around the introduction of at least some grain, as well as other film artifacts, if they do in fact print to 70mm.

Again, this is a rumor floating around on-line, although in view of what Leo has noted about the non-availability of 70mm b/w print stock, it was likely started by someone in a marketing department somewhere at NetFlix who had no idea if such a thing was technically feasible. We'll see if it happens on 12/14, but personally, I'm not holding my breath.

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 11-07-2018 06:25 PM

quote: Erik Bakhshi
I ran a screening for ROMA a few days ago and Alfonso Cuaron
(The Director) was very adamant that we screen it in 4k & ATMOS

I too ran a screening of this back in August with the director & some
of the cast in attendance. While I didn't meet Mr Cuarón personally,
"The Studio" was very adamant about presentation quality and even
arranged time (very early in the friggin' morning) to have their "QC
Specialists" come in and make sure we were meeting their standards.

I did another private private screening here in SF about 2 weeks ago &
they sent the same tech guys who were at the show I did in Colorado.

So, at least for the press & private screenings, they seem to be quite
interested in checking quality. Although I haven't had a chance to sit
and actually WATCH the flick, from what I've seen it's got a great "look",
and IMO the sound mix is absolutely amazing in some spots.

It wouldn't surprise me if it were nominated for an award.

Mr Cuaraón also told some great stories during one Q&A about drinking
with Guillermo del Toro in Spain, which sounds like great fun! (and I
rarely drink, but I'd sit down with those two any time!)

-- of course it would help a lot if I understood Spanish! LoL [Confused]

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Erik Bakhshi
Film Handler

Posts: 3
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Oct 2018

posted 11-08-2018 01:25 AM

Mark- Ah that makes sense, thanks for the info. I doubt they will make the 70mm prints as well but we'll see!

Jim- Yes from my experience as having Netflix as a usual client in our room, they almost always bring in a technician for quality tests and book the theater hours ahead of time for full run thrus, (even though we all know its going to run just fine..) The film does look and sound great, I was able to sit through it from start to finish. There is a scene in the final reel taking place on a beach where the ATMOS sound design in probably the best I've seen in a film, let alone in a film with no musical score at all! It was all atmospheric sounds, dialogue, and and music within the scenes if I'm not mistaken. We'll definitely be seeing some of this film come the awards shows.

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Steve Kraus
Film God

Posts: 4094
From: Chicago, IL, USA
Registered: May 2000

posted 11-08-2018 07:21 AM

Is it possible that this is just confusion regarding the Alexa65, a digital camera, and someone going "Oh, 65mm? Maybe they will make some 70's!" ?

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Mark Gulbrandsen
Resident Trollmaster

Posts: 16657
From: Music City
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-08-2018 08:31 AM

quote: Leo Enticknap
So this is a b/w movie that they're making 70mm prints of? Unless Kodak has done a special batch of 2302 in 70mm, they will not look good, because b/w printed onto color stock always suffers from contrast loss and a very slight tint (usually red, sometimes blue).

Indeed! I can remember way back to the John Wayne movie In Harms Way which was B&W scope and I saw a 70mm print if it at the Chicago Theater on release. It definitely leaned towards being somewhat blueish. I was only 7 or 8 years old then but that stood out to me even then.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

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

posted 11-08-2018 09:16 AM

Janus issued some new 35mm prints of The Wages of Fear on 2383 a few years ago, and the one I saw at least was totally unwatchable - it had a purple tint throughout. If I'd been a paying customer, I would have asked for my money back and gone and bought the BD (which looks fantastic, and which I would have used for that screening if it had been my decision). Towards the end of my time at the Egyptian I played a print of Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, most of which was on 2302, but the last reel was on 2383, just so that one friggin' shot (in the original release, the 60-70 or so color frames in each print were hand-painted) could be shown in color. The difference in color balance at that changeover was hideous. Of course what would have stuck in the audience's memory is the fuzzy pink beach in the last reel, not the crisp and silvery one in the first 80 minutes or so of the movie.

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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006

posted 11-09-2018 10:44 AM

Not to get too far off topic, but I thought they did a great job of
"black&white on color film stock" on "The Artist", right down to
replicating a bit of 'bromide bleed' in the opening titles and in a few
scenes elsewhere in the film.

I recall at the time somebody telling me that the reason they printed
The Artist on color film stock was that "you can't do Dolby Digital®
on black & white film". I took that explanation with a grain of salt
and was unable to verify it one way or the other, even when I asked
a couple of people I work with at Dolby. (who, in their defense, were
all 'digital cinema guys', & so they weren't too familiar with filmstuff)

I now know that explanation was hogwash, since I've since handled
several 35mm prints on B&W stock that had Dolby Digital® tracks.

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Scott Norwood
Film God

Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-09-2018 11:15 AM

The problem with SRD on B&W prints is that the current polyester-base print stock sheds over time, and the track eventually becomes unreadable. Most of the "Good Night & Good Luck" prints had unplayable SRD tracks after the first month or so of screenings. That is the most recent B&W title that I can think of that had an SRD track and lasted a while in first run.

Film Guard helps this somewhat, and some projectors are worse than others about shedding. No doubt, such a print would last much longer on a modern Kinoton than on a straight-gate Simplex.

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Leo Enticknap
Film God

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

posted 11-09-2018 06:17 PM

Agreed with both Scott and Jim. One example that sticks in my mind was a re-release print of Throne of Blood that I played at the Egyptian. I had no idea before receiving that print, but apparently, the movie was originally mixed in a primitive 2.0 stereo mix, which was reproduced on the SR and SR-D tracks on that 2302 print. The print was physically in pretty good condition: it had been plattered once or twice, but carefully, and apart from some very slight speckle on the first and last 20 feet or so of each reel, it looked near new. The SR-D error rate, however, almost never went below 6, and dropped out so often (including during the "human dartboard" scene at the end, in which the sound of the arrows being fired and Toshiro Mifune's screaming was interrupted by pops and silence) that I had to play the SR instead.

quote: Jim Cassedy
Not to get too far off topic, but I thought they did a great job of "black&white on color film stock" on "The Artist", right down to replicating a bit of 'bromide bleed' in the opening titles and in a few scenes elsewhere in the film.

If you're trying to reproduce the look of artefacts like that, or of tinting and/or toning (e.g. Desmetcolor), then of course color stock is OK. But for movies that are actually supposed to look grayscale (of which both The Wages of Fear and M. Hulot's Holiday are two classic examples), giving them a slight hue totally kills them, IMHO. Granted, 99% of the audience won't care, though.

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Shawn M. Martin
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 175
From: Arlington, VA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 11-10-2018 03:17 AM

quote: Tyler Purcell
IMDB's auto fill section has old data in it. Nobody is typing in the film stock numbers, they just select "printed format" and it automatically puts in that film stock number.

No - it provides both a drop-down menu of already-existing choices that are featured on the site, and a blank text bar to type in whatever. One can select/type in "35 mm" as a Printed Film Format, and then add "(Kodak Vision Premier 2393)" in the attribute box - or add something else, or leave it blank.

I've been submitting things there for 15 years and it's never, ever worked the way you describe. The garbage is there because someone is specifically choosing to add it.

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Michael Coate
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1904
From: Los Angeles, California
Registered: Feb 2001

posted 11-10-2018 04:55 PM

quote: Leo Enticknap
The most dramatic example I ever encountered was a 70mm, six-track SR mag print of Howard the Duck in January 2017, that looked and sounded like it had just come out of the lab in 1986.

SR?

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Sascha F. Roll
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 140
From: Berlin, Berlin / Germany
Registered: Sep 2015

posted 11-10-2018 04:56 PM

SR in 1986? I doubt that.

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