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Topic: 70 vs. DC starring Larry Myres
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 02-08-2006 11:19 AM
I have read this thread with great interest and I thought you might appreciate the opinion of just a member of the audience.
Over the years I have been lucky enough to see 35mm in all its different guises (including nitrate prints) both flat and anamorphic (including VistaVision dye transfer prints), 65mm/70mm films, blow-ups from 35mm to 70mm, three-strip Cinerama both in Eastman and dye transfer, IMAX and even Super 8mm in dye transfer Technicolor. I have also seen 3-D films in dual print interlocked projection, polarised, including dye transfer prints, and anaglyphic single-strip, single-strip polarised, and of course IMAX 3-D. And certainly the difference between them is there, quite obvious to my eyes.
Whoever has seen 65mm negative printed on 70mm on a big screen will have noticed the quality difference as compared to other film gauges.
It is sad that after so many inventions, from which I would herald dye transfer Technicolor as the best ever colour system, and 65mm/70mm prints as the most sharp and clear picture, we are left with cropped 35mm, anamorphic 35mm (poor man's Cinerama) and the menace of 2k digital projection.
2K Digital projection will not bring more audiences as the widescreen revolution or 3-D did in the 50s. It will probably lose some since it does not bring any improvement to the cinema experience, actually for many of us it takes away something very important, film!
I believe that blow-ups contributed to the demise of 70mm. 70mm is truly great when it has been originated on 65mm. When originated on cropped 35mm it has not got as much depth and is a bit grainy. Films were marketed in general as presented in 70mm without making a distinction on the size of the negative and this meant that people forgot how good 70/65mm can be. In Spain it was abused to the point that blow-ups were even made of 35mm films with only optical sound!! I think that any comeback of 70mm should be in a way that makes sure that the negative is going to be large as well, otherwise not enough is achieved in relation to a 35mm print.
It would be important to make sure that 65/70mm films are going to be exhibited on a big screen. On small screens 70mm does not show its full potential. In that sense a certificate like THX for sound should be employed for image to make sure patrons in cinema are going to have excellence in image as well as sound.
One of the reasons why 70mm theatres closed is that they no longer had products to offer. The 70mm film experience is born during the production of the film with a large negative and widescreen cinematography, not just by blowing up any 35mm film.
It would be a good idea to create a proprietary system that could be registered or trademarked to ensure that the film quality remains all along the process from filming to exhibition. The problem is that 65mm printed on 70mm has already been invented and therefore a quality control in such general domain system would be difficult (with blow-up prints blurring the quality of 70mm). There is something that has yet never been done in film and this is 65mm negative with 70mm prints in dye transfer Technicolor. This, as you probably would agree, would be the best system ever used to bring images to the screens. It is clear that Technicolor's dye transfer printing is much better than positive colour printing. One of the reasons why Technicolor never developed its dye transfer colour system for 70mm was probably because of the limited number of 70mm prints released made it more expensive than colour positive prints. If dye transfer Technicolor prints had been made, we would still be enjoying the 70mm prints from the 60s, but instead we have been left with pink prints.
I do not need to tell you about the virtues of 65mm filming on 70mm prints. You know it very well. Not many people have had the chance to see proper screenings of films like Lawrence of Arabia. Imagine this quality with the added benefit of Technicolor dye transfer printing system. It would surely be the best motion picture process ever produced. It would
also have the advantage of being something new, never done before.
Technicolor adds a pictorial quality to films, strengthening the difference from film to digital. Also the stability of the dyes means that the prints can be stored for re-releases for many, many years and from an archival point of view this is a very good thing.
It would be also important to create a sound system, which emphasized the sound behind the screen, since this is an aspect where theatres can make a difference to home cinema. The presence of at least five channels behind the screen can create an impressive and immersive experience, as it was experienced with Cinerama's sound system and the six magnetic tracks of the 70mm films. It would also be interesting to produce a huge range of high and low registers to create a sound quality different to that which can be experienced at home.
I have seen the only print (part of first reel only) of The Red Thin Line by Terrence Malick in dye transfer Technicolor and it looked gorgeous, and that was only 35mm anamorphic, imagine it in 70mm!!!!
65/70mm produces a sense of immersion and participation very similar to that found in IMAX presentations as Mike Todd proved with his rollercoaster images in Todd-AO. This sense of immersion is not found in 35mm or digital.
It would be interesting to encourage directors of photography and film directors to plan and stage their films for the big screen as many did during the 50s and 60s. This tendency was abandoned when many directors like Scorsese feared their films would be massacred in a pan/scan version for video or TV. Now that DVDs preserve the original ratio perhaps is the
time to once again make use of the full canvas that the cinema screen offers.
I think the encouragement of film directors and directors of photography is very important. In that sense 5/70 is more interesting than IMAX since the latter implies cropping the frame for the IMAX release and therefore compromising the cinematography.
I hope that something arises from this thread as the creation of a group as it has been suggested. With the present circumstances only an experience which dwarves home cinema can save theatres from the loses in revenue they are experiencing in countries like Spain and France in 2005 and this will not come from digital projection.
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 02-09-2006 10:05 AM
Thank you for your kind words Brian and Michael.
One of the reasons that are given for not spending a lot of money in 70mm prints is that the colour fades and prints become useless after some years. As I said, with dye transfer Technicolor the colour stays the same for many, many years and this could justify the investment in the prints. This is also very good from the archival point of view. Does anyone know someone with contacts at Technicolor, who is a dye transfer fan?
Put together the dye transfer “fans” and the 65/70 fans and you have a large crowd! Imagine a film like My Fair Lady with the dye transfer treatment!!!!
This world, like or not, praises very much novelty and therefore mixing the two best, 65/70 and dye transfer would allow marketing “this system” as something new, never done before, which would catch the attention, hopefully, of many. The “never done before” tag still attracts people.
As it has been said in the forum, using larger negative is also a long term investment in any future technological developments which can make use of the bigger information contained in a bigger negative.
Obviously 70mm won’t save a turkey and it was completely wrong for Fox to blame Todd-AO for the failure (or not saving) films like Dr Dolittle. However, 70mm/65mm (preferably on dye transfer prints) could help a good film to stay longer in cinemas since it would be a completely different experience from the DVD release. The big question is how much more would cost to get these prints and how much more money would exhibitors, distributors and producers get for that. An accurate reply to this question is what could get 70mm back.
I agree completely with the holistic approach. It is essential to bring cinematographers into the debate. I know Vittorio Storaro has been for many years advocating for the return of 70mm. Cinematographers are the ones who can make the system shine. Many film directors would also be interested in it.
Yes, let’s be positive and try our best. Should we draw a plan of action?
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 02-09-2006 02:41 PM
Ramon, compliments from Brooklyn as well....you voice what most of us on this forum know and feel about the beauty of what film can, in it's best form, do. Unfortunately most of our culture here in the USA is for faster, cheaper, not better.. Quality is not very often the primary motivation, and even more unfortunately, as companies morph into larger and larger conglomerates, the individual vision that created such Herculean efforts like Mike Todd creating Todd-AO -- think of it; ONE man's vision and tenacity and chutzpa to launch a completely new system who's main purpose was to best what had gone before. That could never happen today. Today's companies are not headed by men of that personal vision. The driving vision today is profit and stock options.
Millions are spent in R&D to see what's the cheapest way we can get an image that is "good enough" (the exact words of a senior vice-president at Disney about 1.3K VIDEO). Walt himself would have turned over in his grave.
Was D-Cinema born out of a need for better presentation? Were people ringing their hands saying, we need to do something about that jitter and weave on the screen...it's just unacceptable quality? Did ANYONE hear either the filmmakers or the movie lovers fret about that? And if so, EK show prints have always been available if anyone really cared.
We are a society where mediocrity seems to thrive and it serves the corporations well to have the dumbing-down and passive majority of the population who will accept whatever crap is fed to them, figuratively and literally. How different it would be if we had audiences that simply walked out of theatres when quality is substandard and demanded our money back. If we accepted nothing less than roadshow quality, the bean-counters would learn very quickly that mediocrity looses money. If the public demanded 70mm from 65neg-quality, Technicolor, roadshow-type presentations and expressed that demand with their wallets, they would get that level of quality. But we are a fast-everything society. The public seems to be perfectly happy with less. Hell, the public is happy as punch and thinks it is actually eating FOOD when it steps up to a McDonnal's fast-food counter. This suits corporate America just fine.
The film companies are interested in neither quality or longevity. They couldn't give a flying cows ass about re-releasing product. In fact, they want to make all the money up front; they can't think long-term. They even get erections when someone says "day-and-date with the video release," and of course if they get their way with video projection, film prints will be totally out of the picture. People with this mentality couldn't care less about what we see on the screen, just as long as they can market it in a way that maximizes the public's perception that they are getting their money's worth. If people walked out of the theatre the first time an ad played before a movie, there would be no ads.
George Orwell was right -- double speak is here. They give us 2K video and tell us it is BETTER than film. You are looking at a white piece of paper and the salesman tells you it's black. You are eating a hamburger with "meat" that is the color and texture and taste of asphalt and they tell you it's food. They herd you into a dank, depressing soul-less closet-size room with about as much architectural character and sophistication as a toilet seat and they call it a theatre. I hate to say it, but it's a world that doesn't appreciate quality, or class or taste, at least not in the numbers that are meaningful to the corporations that run the world. And to spread the blame around, we get only that we demand....and then they give us even little less.
No one is demanding 70mm. Look, they could make 35mm look exponentially better than what it does today with existing technology. Even if films were shot on 65mm with 35mm reduction prints for distribution made at slower printing speeds, it would make a marked improvement. They know how to make 35mm look spectacular....all the technology is there -- they do it all the time when they make EK show prints. They got Technicolor revived....how long did that last? Two releases? So it's not a matter of what can we do to improve presentation quality, it's a matter of if we want to, and by "we" I mean the industry. And by the industry, I mean the people who actually control the money. They are not interested in the few cinematographers or the few directors who might press to shoot a project in 65mm neg; they want to hear from the Lucas's and the Solderbergh's who say video is better than film....and of course much cheaper.
We worship at the alter of cheap, giving homage with the incense of mediority.
And of course there is also the question of artistic quality. One of the reason it's not anyone's great dream to recreate the days of the great roadshow picture is because what films are made today that people would actually want to see in a 70mm re-release two years after it played roadshow first run? BUBBLE? ILLEGALLY BLOND? Let's see, there's the quality of MY FAIR LADY and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and then there's UNDERWORLD EVOLUTION and CHELSEA WALLS. Before you can return to the highest technical quality, you have to have the artistic excellence that is worthy of that technology. There are very few titles that I would care to see, even in 70mm Technicolor, and especially not have to see it in the crapola assembly-line boxes that pass for theatres in the majority of today's godzilla-plexes (oh yah, there's another one -- GODZILLA -- anyone want to see that in 70mm 5 years from now?)
Let's just be glad that WE experienced the glory that film can be. It is just sad that future generations will never have that same exhilaration and edification that the best of film can give.
[ 02-09-2006, 03:48 PM: Message edited by: Frank Angel ]
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Ramon Lamarca Marques
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 186
From: Edgware, England, UK
Registered: Feb 2006
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posted 02-09-2006 05:17 PM
I agree with what you say Frank. It is really depressing but true. I would add that this is not only happening in the USA, in Europe is happening as well. The British Film Institute and the UK Film Council are pushing for digital. The NFT in London is showing films like Singing in the Rain (which should be seen in dye transfer prints) in digital, and what is worse is that they claim it is as good or better than dye transfer!!!! I saw the “digital file” of Robin Hood (Flynn version) to form an opinion on digital and I did not like it, it looked like watching a big telly.
I do not thing the majority of people have got any visual sense at all since many are buying widescreen televisions to see square images deformed to fill the widescreen area. On the other hand, as mentioned before, the widescreen revolution proved that people cared about image.
It has already been said that if cinemas fail to establish a clear difference with home cinema, they will probably disappear. And if they disappear, as it has also been said, there is not going to be any difference between cinema and television and hence the industry will resent that. Maybe everybody will be doing television in the future.
Not many people have seen a proper 65/70mm presentation and perhaps this is the reason they do not ask for them, they do not know what it is. As I said, films where presented in 70mm, regardless of being filmed in 65mm or blow-ups, and this led to confusion as to the quality of the system. Is there enough audience out there for quality cinemas and quality prints? Are studios really interested in keeping theatres?
I am not going to pay £9 for 2K on a small screen, I might as well save and see video at home. I was born in Barcelona and we used to have magnificent theatres there. That was a huge experience, magnificent halls, different styles of architecture (none of the chain-style-corporate decoration), high ceilings, big screens, curtains, 70mm, five speakers behind the screen, ushers… and the pleasure of seeing a film with 1,500 more people.
I think that 65/70 could add some the visual thrill you get with IMAX with a format that suits better the cinematographic language. I believe that IMAX is impressive for documentaries, especially in 3-D, but does not quite suit the narrative of a conventional film. Someone should have, at least, a last try before giving up completely.
I agree with the dislike everybody seems to have in this thread for Mr Lucas, I particularly dislike his abominable idea of converting flat films in 3-D.
Anyway, if someone has ideas like engaging directors of photography, exhibitors, film studios, … I am up for it. Maybe with all these ideas a letter could be written, collect as much signatures as possible and send it to the usual suspects. I know the chances are little but why not try?
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