Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: South Pacific - What's with the colors??

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Community » The Afterlife » South Pacific - What's with the colors?? (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Author

Topic: South Pacific - What's with the colors??

Bill Gabel
Film God

Posts: 3873
From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA
Registered: Jan 2002

posted 02-10-2010 06:20 PM

Hi Claude,
I never like those color filters used on "South Pacific". But Leon Shamroy was a pioneer in those wide gauge film formats. Back on Sept. 26-27 2007 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in NYC they showed a 35mm 4-Track print of "Porgy and Bess". I was not availible to go to the show on those nights. I heard it looked good and sounded good except for the 12K surround tone.

Claude I would like to send My Condolences for your loss.

Bill

| IP: Logged

Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God

Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002

posted 02-10-2010 09:53 PM

Thank you, Bill

I did not know there was a recent showing of PORGY & BESS. I recall reading a long time ago that the Gershwin estate was dead set against any public showing of the film and video release. I hope they change their mind in time because it is a wonderful film and deserve to been seen and appreciated by a new audience who never had the opportunity to see it

-Claude

| IP: Logged

Frank Angel
Film God

Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999

posted 02-10-2010 10:29 PM

I ran that PORGY & BESS IBTech 4tr mag print at Brooklyn Center Cinema a few months before the Zegfield got it. Same print. It had two reels that were already VS and badly warped to the point where the sprocket holes became visible on the right hand side of the screen for the last two reels. I had to make a special plate to cover that problem.

Sound was great and because we do a lot of retrospective 4trk prints, I have high quality switchable 12khz notch filters not only for the effects track, but I can patch them into the front channels as well since I have found that on some prints, that tone has bled into the front channels as well.

The Gershwin family has been pretty negative about letting that picture play, but they did relent and gave us permission because we are connected with a Music Conservatory so we had all kinds of high profile musicologists and professors begging to make it available. After that they became a little less psychotic about it; it played at Pacific Archives and then went off to some museum in Paris. Last I heard the Parisians mistakenly arranged to have it subtitled with video projection but screwed up badly and it wound up actually being set to a subtitling lab to be etched with French subtitles (freakin idiots) but the VS reels wouldn't run through the laser etching machine. That print has since been scrapped as unplayable. I believe there is one last 4trk IBT prints in existance, condition unknown.

No question the film is flawed -- bad lip-syncing, and you get the very odd, uncomfortable feeling that you are looking at a set all the time, never at real life locations so it always felt claustraphobic. But certainly from an historical perspective it is an important work as certainly deserves to be seen. Let's hope money inspires the Gershwins to release it on BluRay.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.