Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Print Color Timing Question

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

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Operations » Film Handlers' Forum » Print Color Timing Question

Author

Topic: Print Color Timing Question

Jeff Taylor
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 601
From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 08-09-2002 12:50 PM

Over the past few weeks I've had occaion to screen lovely LPP prints of three '50's Fox titles: Enemy Below, Affair to Remember, and April Love. All had the original lab leaders and, while the prints themselves had great color, all of the lab leaders were red as a beet with the countdown numbers so faded you could hardly distinguish them. I'm just curious since all the prints were obviously from relatively new, color corrected dupe negs how the leaders could be so bad. I can't recall seeing this as dramatically on any other studio's older titles--is this a Fox issue? Anyone have any ideas?

| IP: Logged

John Pytlak
Film God

Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000

posted 08-09-2002 12:59 PM

Were the leaders spliced onto the prints? If so they may have been from a very old batch of pre-printed leaders made on a different brand of print film.

If the leaders were printed as part of the original printing negative, it may just be that the lab did not correct the color balance of the leader to be neutral, as specified by the SMPTE standard. Sometimes the original for the leader is made on less expensive print stock, attached to the orange-colored (colored coupler masking) printing negative, so the leaders print very orange-red if printed at the same balance as the picture negative.

------------------
John P. Pytlak, Senior Technical Specialist
Worldwide Technical Services, Entertainment Imaging
Research Labs, Building 69, Room 7525A
Rochester, New York, 14650-1922 USA
Tel: +1 585 477 5325 Cell: +1 585 781 4036 Fax: +1 585 722 7243
e-mail: john.pytlak@kodak.com
Web site: http://www.kodak.com/go/motion

| IP: Logged

Jeff Taylor
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 601
From: Chatham, NJ/East Hampton, NY
Registered: Apr 2000

posted 08-09-2002 01:14 PM

Thanks, John. One print had spliced on leaders, and the other two had no splices, but even the spliced on leaders had edge codes matching the print, so I guess it's a case that the lab didn't bother to correct them. Still, it's curious as the print switches to true pure black just before the Fox logo with CinemaScope extension.

| IP: Logged

Christopher Seo
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 530
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 08-09-2002 06:17 PM

Interesting... contemporary release print reels from the big labs sometimes suffer from this to a certain degree, in that the runout section after the reel will be orange instead of black. Perhaps it's the same cause? I also recall a few countdowns on contemporary release prints of foreign films suffering the same problem-- very orange and very light.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

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.