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

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » The Afterlife   » BD WHITE CHRISTMAS on 11/2 (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: BD WHITE CHRISTMAS on 11/2 Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-03-2010 11:08 PM                     I don't think White Christmas looked quite as good as subsequent VV films shot with the Mitchell or Technicolor cameras did. The early adapted Stein 2 color cameras they used were quite old and not very high quality. I have one sitting here on my shelf. Adapted Leica still camera lenses were used on all the VV cameras from the start up to the end of VV filming. If you compare something like "Vertigo" or "North By Northwest" to "White Christmas" there is a huge difference in picture quality. Mark  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-04-2010 05:12 AM                        Vern, I just watched WHITE CHRISTMAS toniGht on BD and I did notice the registration problem with the letter V for Vision on the VistaVision logo. While most of the film looked perfectly color corrected, I had noticed many scenes that had a over all blue shift that wanted me to view the scenes with a ten point yellow color correction filter. I do not think anyone was deliberately trying to be sloppy when they mastered the movie for Blu-Ray. I think they did their best with the elements they had to work with and the budget. Unlike Warners and Fox, Paramount Home Video is not known to release many of their classic films for the home video market but I am grateful they made the effort to release WHITE CHRISTMAS on Blu-Ray and hope they release other VistaVision films like THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Hillary Charles Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 748 From: York, PA, USA Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-04-2010 07:42 AM                     Does the VistaVision logo suffer from color fringing, or could it be from the matting process for the superimposition? I've seen an original Technicolor print, and there is a bit of weaving of the elements during that. But if you guys are seeing color fringes, then this is something different again. Jack makes a good point that "White Christmas" didn't fully benefit from the larger negative due to Technicolor not having all the bugs worked out of the system. The later VV movies do tend to look better overall. Maybe it's just legend, but I would have thought the Leica lenses would have provided suitably sharp images on the o-neg. Is that a myth?  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-04-2010 01:06 PM                        Hillary, Except for the color fringing on the VistaVision logo and the blue color shifts during parts of the movie, I thought Paramount did a very fine job with the BD of WHITE CHRISTMAS. I Have bought the movie on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD before and this is the best it had ever looked. WHITE CHRISTMAS on Blu-Ray is a bargain at $20.00 and you can get it at Costco for a dollar less and this is a title that will eventually drop in price to about $10.00 if you are willing to wait until it does. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-04-2010 02:13 PM                    There was a blue color shift around people's eyes specifically was VERY distracting in the DVD - which is what made me return it. Are you saying that's still there?  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-04-2010 06:07 PM                        Mark, The blue shift scenes is not limited to the eyes but the entire picture and occurs early in the movie before the story shifts to it's Vermont setting at the Inn. The color is not that bad that make me want to return my BD and claim it was unacceptable for technical reasons. The picture on the BD is the best I had seen of the movie on home video and I am more than happy with it. The scenes with the blue shift occurs when Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are entertaining their fellow soldiers on the battle field and the scenes leading up to the train ride to Vermont. The color look like a photographic print that requires at least a 10Y filter to get rid of the blue shift . -Claude  |  IP: Logged Hillary Charles Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 748 From: York, PA, USA Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-04-2010 06:32 PM                     WOW! If these frame grabs are any indication this disc would be high on my list. The reds seem brighter than in the IB print I saw, but it really does look pretty.  |  IP: Logged Jack Theakston Master Film Handler Posts: 411 From: New York, USA Registered: Sep 2007 posted 11-04-2010 07:43 PM                     Mark is correct that the Stein cameras didn't have as great pin registration as the Mitchell VV cameras, but the softness that was in the early VV prints was definitely a case of the modant Technicolor was using. The difference between the 1954 prints of WHITE CHRISTMAS and the circa 1960 re-issue is huge. From about mid-1955 on, the color prints looked great. Around that same time, they'd changed their mordant to a synthetic. Conversely, Technicolor apparently farmed out the B&W VistaVision work in the '50s to another lab (I don't know who, although it was definitely not Pathe), and the US, B&W VV prints of that era (ROSE TATTOO, KING CREOLE) looked worse than 4-perf shows from around the same time. Recent re-strikes that went back to the 8-perf negs look much better.  |  IP: Logged Mark J. Marshall Film God Posts: 3188 From: New Castle, DE, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 11-04-2010 08:56 PM                    How hard would it have been to fix the blue shift in those scenes though? That's a real shame.  |  IP: Logged Vern Dias Film Handler Posts: 28 From: AllenTX USA Registered: Apr 2009 posted 11-07-2010 08:42 AM                        Hillary, Definite color misregistration, the colors in the center V in VistaVision are misregistered horizontally by at least an inch on my 5' x 10' projected image. As you move out to the edges of the image, the amount of misregistration decreased. I was viewing it at the maximum reccomended 2:1 AR. Vern  |  IP: Logged Hillary Charles Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 748 From: York, PA, USA Registered: Feb 2001 posted 11-08-2010 07:56 AM                     Thanks Vern for that info. That is disappointing, almost like some kind of optically-induced misregistration. Pity they don't use the process Warners does with color seps.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 11-08-2010 10:25 AM                     quote: Jack Theakston Mark is correct that the Stein cameras didn't have as great pin registration as the Mitchell VV cameras Actually even the Mitchell VV cameras suffered slight steadiness problems as well. They still only used two reg pins at the frame line and the long distance of filum hanging back from the pins to the other end of the aperature was not regestered or supported at all. Subsequent modification to three pin registration of the Mitchell movements was not done until Lucasfilm got ahold of the cameras and movements. Double and triple exposure tests showed that for the precise optical work they had to do the third pin had to be added andit was done at mid frame, or 4 perfs over fomr the twin pins. I also own Stein camera #2 and it at some point in it's life had a third reg pin added... but probably by the camera Department at 20th Century Fox since thats where the camera was before I owned it. I suspect it was modified and used on effects for Fantastic Voyage or some other similar effects film of the 60's. Mark  |  IP: Logged Jack Theakston Master Film Handler Posts: 411 From: New York, USA Registered: Sep 2007 posted 11-24-2010 04:16 PM                     Cool. Would love to see pictures of that rig.  |  IP: Logged Hillary Charles Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 748 From: York, PA, USA Registered: Feb 2001 posted 12-01-2010 07:21 AM                     What Jack said. I'd love to see a pic of that camera, Mark.  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

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.