Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Focus on The Adventures of Robin Hood

This is topic Focus on The Adventures of Robin Hood in forum Film Handlers' Forum at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=005437

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 10-10-2003, 03:45 PM:

This week we are showing the 1938 Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn. It is a brand new (we had first cut) digitally restored, Technicolor print. It even comes with a Bugs Bunny cartoon on the head. To say it is a gorgeous print would be an understatement.

But there is a problem. The focus is soft throughout the entire print. We are running it in 1.37:1 with a relatively fresh lens. The subject of the shot is usually in acceptable focus but the rest of the frame is soft to blurry. Then the medium and long shots are downright out of focus. The RP-40 looks good and we can see the grain in the image, so my lens is focused. My image is relatively small. It is a room with 268 seats and a 14-foot tall image. I can’t imagine this print at Radio City.

My question is this: Was it common to use very short focal length lenses back then and was it very hard to focus a shot? Could there be something wrong with the re-mastering?

I remember other “new” prints of old films like Citizen Kane, Buster Keaton’s The General, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Gone With the Wind as having better focus.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-10-2003, 03:54 PM:

I recall that it was digitally restored, so sharpness would depend on the resolution used for scanning, processing, and output. Remember, the red record of 3-strip Technicolor is quite unsharp because the image had to go through the blue negative in bi-pack with the red negative, causing significant image scatter of the red record:

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/technicolor7.htm

The effective film speed of Technicolor 3-strip was very low, so it wouldn't surprise me if the shot with the lens nearly wide open, giving very shallow depth of field for indoor shots. Also, those early camera lenses were not that sharp, and had considerable flare.

Posted by Edward Jurich (Member # 1787) on 10-11-2003, 10:35 PM:

I made mention of this in another post. Regardless of the problems of 3 strip tech, the restored print of Robin Hood looks more like a 16mm dupe. It'll probably look really good on DVD.

Posted by Edward Jurich (Member # 1787) on 10-12-2003, 09:31 AM:

I just remembered something. I have a Castle 16mm silent color cartoon "Old Mother Hubbard". It's on Kodak color stock that has emulsion on both sides so I assume one side is probably red. The date code is a triangle followed by a square (I don't have a date code handy). The image on this two sided 16mm print looks sharp (a heck of a lot sharper than the restored Robin Hood print) so I don't think the 3 strip tech system is the cause for such a soft image on Robin Hood. I'd tend to think the image was softened to hide defects.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 10-12-2003, 10:07 AM:

Triangle, Square = '24, '44 or '64
Square, Triangle = '27, '47 or '67

...so probably 1944.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-12-2003, 04:17 PM:

In the book "Glorious Technicolor" they did state that there were reccommended projected size limitations for the different Technicolor processes. The early 3 color I believe was not recomended to go wider than 30 feet. Beyond this much magnification there were signs of registration errors and the image also went soft. I noticed this in many of the three strip prints I've owned on past years. They're never as sharp as Eastman is.
As for the movie....I never liked it...but the Bugs Bunney cartoon would be well worth the price of the admission.
Mark

Posted by Fred Georges (Member # 505) on 10-12-2003, 10:22 PM:

Dear Edward, You have a "Cinecolor" two color print with double emulsion (Red & Blue). The New Robin Hood prints are softer then the Lpp re-issue of the early eighties but the color balance is an order of a magnitude better. [Big Grin]

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 10-13-2003, 10:14 AM:

I'll ditto Fred's comment about the early '80's LPP Robin Hoods--they're very sharp and frankly I think the color balance on mine is just fine. As far as the new restoration is concerned, consider it a miracle that there are any technicolor elements to work from. Apart from their age, Warners had a terrible reputation for not preserving technicolor elements for most of their older titles!

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 10-14-2003, 06:57 PM:

There was a discussion on the AMIA list about the not-very-good focus and colour fringing on the Robin Hood restoration which came out in '98. If I remember correctly, the problem was differential shrinkage on the separation camera negatives. Basically, the nitrate base of the yellow, cyan and magenta cut camera negatives had shrunk, but not all to the same (or even similar) degree, so re-registering them in a step printer to make a new tripack dupe neg proved very difficult.

I guess it might now be possible (or, more to the point, economically viable) to use digital technology on this problem: say, to scan the three colour records individually to 4k and then offset the shrinkage in the digital domain using clever software to combine the three images for each frame. You could then kick out the finished result through a laser film recorder to a new tripack negative. My own recollection of that rerelease was that some parts looked wonderfully sharp and saturated, while others looked, as Edward suggests, like a 16mm dupe. And in the bad parts you could see colour fringing very clearly.

Still better than a video though... [Smile]