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Author Topic: Old color films never fade away! Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-12-2003 08:21 PM                        Since most classic films are now seen on home video, I thought I this would be a great place to discuss this topic. Thanks to black and white seperation negatives and the inhibition printing process, the color films made during Hollywood's golden era can be enjoyed today with almost all of the brilliant color still intact. What a joy it was to see the classic 1939 Technicolor film, "GONE WITH THE WIND" a few years ago on the large screen shown the way it was first presented with a brand new dye transfer print. I was only four months old when the film opened in Atlanta in December 1939 and could not have witnessed the first showings of the film but I did get to see it when it was re released about ten years later in vibrant Technicolor. When I saw it again on the big screen a few years ago at the Cinerama Theatre again in dye transfer. It was just as gorgeous as the first time I saw it. Other Technicolor film were just as impressive during their theatrical showings including "FANTASIA", THE WIZARD OF OZ" and "SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON". Many of these old Technicolor films are now showing up on home video and they are beautiful! Two great examples are the Criterion release of "BLACK NARCISSUS" and "THE RED SHOES". Others include all of the films I had already mentioned. Not only are the original films shot in three strip Technicolor wonderful but so are the ones that were shot in Eastman Color with black & white seperation backups. "THE CAINE MUTINY" I saw last week on DVD was a classic example of how beautiful a film could look when the video master was made from the seperation negatives. It was only due to the availability of seperation negatives, Robert Harris was able to restore films like "SPARTACUS" because of the very poor condition pf the original Technirama camera negatives. Although it was recently reported that the original negatives for "AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS" was still usable, I doubt prints made from them would be as vibrant as the original. There is a classic example what can happen when there is no seperation backup. I am not sure if the Japanese knew about preserving films with seperation negatives but non was made from the original Eastman Color negatives of "JIGOKUMON" (GATE OF HELL) . The film won an Academy Award in 1954 as Best Foreign Film of the year and one of the things that made this film unique was it's very striking color photography. I saw the film at the Kukusai Gekijyo in Honolulu during it's firstrun and was very impressed with it's beautiful color photography. When I saw the film again on PBS television about ten years ago, the print was in bad shape and a comment was made that the color was lost to the ages. Sadly, A lot of other wonderful films that was photographed in Eastman Color with no seperation backups after the fifties have also been lost. With new movies now preserved in the digital domain and the use of low fade negative and print materials introduced by Eastman Kodak, films made today have a bright future both in theatres and home video. It is the early color films that were photographed on color negative material in the fifties and sixties that are fading away and more effort should be made to save them for future generations to enjoy! -Claude  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-12-2003 08:33 PM                        The advantages of proper film storage conditions in extending the life of both film base and color dyes are well known: http://www.rit.edu/~661www1/sub_pages/8contents.htm http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/technical/storage1.shtml Kodak Preserving Our Heritage http://www.fpchollywood.com/protek.html Storage conditions for short, medium, and long term preservation are specified by SMPTE Recommended Practice RP131 and by ISO standards. Proper washing during processing to remove residual chemicals (e.g., thiosulfate) and adjust the film emulsion to the proper pH is also very important: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/processing/h24.shtml B&W silver separations are now made on Kodak Panchromatic Separation Film 2238: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/2238.shtml [ 05-23-2003, 11:17 AM: Message edited by: John Pytlak ]  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 05-21-2003 05:52 PM                     The problem of color negative fading is greatly exaggerated. When people like Scorcese adressed the problem of color preservation in the late 1970s, many people began thinking that every color movie is doomed to fade. All archivists, collectors and film handlers know the pink, red or pale POSITIVE prints, but very few people ever saw a faded color negative. I discussed this with friends who have 10 to 38 years of film lab experience, and they do a good deal of reprints from 35mm color negative shot in the 1950s to 1980s. Apart from very early Agfa color negative, they NEVER encountered one foot of that notorious negative "with all color gone". Even color neg that had Vinegar Syndrome had not changed its color. A 1954 VistaVision negative demo clip that was stored in an acidic paper/cardboard environment was printed to new positive stock and had perfect colors! The reasons are sometimes obvious: A company here in Germany raved about their great digital color restoration process, but they used a faded Agfa positive print - NOT the original camera negative, which was available and (I suspect) not faded at all. Just tonight I saw a brand new print from a Eastman color camera negative, the film was made in 1964 and had highly saturated colors, fine grain and no sign of fading (except for a few shots that were duped for dissolves and other opticals). There are many reasons to believe that NEGATIVE fading is not the serious problem some people would like us to think. However, it is difficult to prove because you need access to the original materil to confirm what some self-proclaimed preservationists tell us.  |  IP: Logged Paul Linfesty Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1383 From: Bakersfield, CA, USA Registered: Nov 1999 posted 05-21-2003 10:45 PM                     There have been plenty of films restored without the use of Black and white seperates. They were often times not properly prepared and proper alignment became difficult to achieve. Usually the seperations for Eastman color negatives are used as a last resort. From what I understand from reading much information from Harris, very little of SPARTACUS was restored from the use of the seperations. Recent prints from 60's ON's have shown that new prints can look quite good off them. It's the dupe stocks used for opticals that really show damage (grainy, washed out, etc.)  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-22-2003 02:05 AM                        On the contrary Paul, from what I had read in a Prerfect Vision Magazine article, Mr Harris had stated that the elements used WAS the seperation elements for the restoration work on "SPARTACUS" because the original negatives had faded very badly and could not be used. I would also like to differ with the comments made by Christian but due to the lateness of the hour, I will address them first thing tomorrow morning. -Claude  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-22-2003 02:08 AM                        quote: The problem of color negative fading is greatly exaggerated. I think that's too much of a generalisation. There are a lot of variables which affect fading: the emulsion type (and sometimes individual batches of the same emulsion type are more prone to fading than others), the sort of use an element has had during its lifetime and of course storage conditions. If I had to hazard a guess I would cite storage conditions as the biggest single factor, and certainly the only significant one over which we now have any control. I have come across various degrees of fading in negative, fine grain positive, CRI and release print elements. Most archivists would agree that '60s and '70s Eastmancolor is especially prone to fading, hence Scorsese's campaign. I have seen too many 1990s prints contact struck from '60s and '70s internegs to believe that negatives are more resistant to positives per se. As for early Agfacolor, only last month I saw an original 35mm diacetate print of Kolberg (1945) projected and the colour balance looked almost as good as an IB print to me. If anything there was a very slight blueish cast, but other than that the colours had held up extremely well.  |  IP: Logged Paul Linfesty Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1383 From: Bakersfield, CA, USA Registered: Nov 1999 posted 05-22-2003 06:47 PM                     Claude, Very little of the seperation masters were used for Harris' restoration of Spartacus due to the different amounts of shrinkage each strip encountered. The Perfect Vision is a consumer-driven magazine which is not necessarily the best place to derive the most complete and correct technical information about film technology.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 05-23-2003 12:50 AM                        Paul, I will have to agree with you about the Perfect Vision magazine being a consumer driven magazine but I am only referring to the one that had replaced the original publication. The original Perfect Vision was more of a journal about films and high end video than a routine home video publication which the the later publication turned out to be. The new Perfect Vision magazine was a terrible magazine but the Perfect Vision Journal was excellent!. Part of the unique thing about the original journal was the very few ads it featured. This might have been the reason it died. The new magazine was different. It was full of advertisments and the articles were very uninteresting! This is what the Perfect Vision reported in the Spring 1991 edition regarding Rober Harris's effort to restore "SPARTUCAS" --- "SPARTACUS" was shot on Eastman negative and the vault inspection confirmed Robert Harris's worst scenerio. THE ORIGINAL NEGATIVES WAS GONE! From what he could tell, it had held for 25 years. Than around 83/'84, it had begun to fade.The yellow layer deteriorated turning the color of the negative from it's normal orange to a lavender blue. A print struck from it would have no blacks.They would now be blue-and the facial highlights would be bright yellow. It would also lose all contrast. There was no way to save or correct the yellow layer. In addition, all of the B negative trims and outtakes has been junked in the mid seventies along with all the original dialogue tracks and effects tracks. Only the music tracks were saved. How could Harris restore "SPARTACUS" if the original negative was gone? THE SEPERATIONS WAS ALL THAT WAS LEFT" The article continues and explains about the B&W seperation process and how it was used to restore "SPARTACUS". Paul, please keep in mind that all of the comments by the author of the article were based on Mr Harris"s findings. If the article was not correct, I am sure, Mr. Harris would have come forward with corrected facts in the following edition of the Perfect Vision journal. He did not! I do agree about the fade factor regarding color negative film. With my long experiance working with color professional negative film as a professional image maker for almost forty years, I do know what I am talking about!! With the exception of the low fade negative material the Eastman Kodak Company made available to the motion picture industry and to the commercial and portrait still photographers in the eighties, all of my color negatives I had exposed in the sixties and the seventies are gone or almost gone!. The negatives were all processed by the finest professional labs in California and were stored in a air conditioned room but they still faded. I too have a friend who also worked for a professional motion picture lab. Fred Ishihara worked for the motion picture division of Technicolor before being assigned to their still photography division and unlike what your friend told you, Fred told me about the studio's concern about their original Eastman color negatives and films of the fifties when they started to fade. I can very well attest to the fact that films made at that time had faded when the DVD I bought and watched last week of the 1954 film, "BATTLE CRY" was struck from a very badly faded color negative. There was no contrast and the color was very pale. Another DVD of a film made in the fifties also from a faded negative was "IMITATION OF LIFE". It too looked like garbage! Like the Academy Award winning Japanese film, "GATE OF HELL" I reported in my first post, all original Eastman Color films made in the fifties had faded away if they were not backed up by seperation negatives.I recall Fred telling me about the few studios in Hollywood that bothered with seperations with all their pictures in the fifties. Two of the studios that did care about the preservation of their old films with B&W seperations were Disney and MGM. Notice how gorgeous all the old MGM and Disney's classics from the fifties look on DVD? -Claude [ 05-23-2003, 05:52 AM: Message edited by: Claude S. Ayakawa ]  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-23-2003 07:04 AM                        I don't know if they still do, but for a long time Disney used the sequential frame system: a modified Bell & Howell 2709 as a rostrum camera which exposed the Y, C and M record of each animation cel onto three consecutive frames of a single strip of b/w negative. From these the camera originals combined EK negatives and printing matrices were produced. So given that the camera original was b/w, there wouldn't have been any need to produce preservation elements to guard against fading. There would, of course, to guard against nitrate decomposition and/or deacetylation, though. [Edited to remove typo] [ 05-23-2003, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: Leo Enticknap ]  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-23-2003 08:43 AM                        quote: There would, of course, to guard against nitrate decomposition and/or acetylation, though. Almost all B&W silver image separations on Kodak Panchromatic Separation Film 2238 and color preservation masters on Kodak VISION Color Intermediate Film 2242 are now made on very stable ESTAR (polyethylene terephthalate) base films: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/2238.shtml http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products/lab/5242.shtml http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/support/h1/baseP.shtml  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-23-2003 11:04 AM                        And I suppose it would theoretically be possible to use poly stock in a rostrum camera: given that it's only clicking slowly through a frame at a time, the risk of it jamming in the mechanism is virtually nil. But I would have thought that nowadays Disney probably does everything by computer and then outputs the finished 'film' to a tripack camera negative using a laser film recorder.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-23-2003 11:16 AM                        quote: But I would have thought that nowadays Disney probably does everything by computer and then outputs the finished 'film' to a tripack camera negative using a laser film recorder. Even with the excellent long-term stability of ESTAR base Kodak VISION Color Intermediate Film (properly processed and stored, of course), B&W silver separations are still an important part of any preservation strategy.  |  IP: Logged Christian Appelt Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 505 From: Frankfurt, Germany Registered: Dec 2001 posted 05-23-2003 07:40 PM                     Claude, in his book PROFESSIONAL CINEMATOGRAPHY Charles G. Clarke, ASC, mentions a japanese film that was praised for its colors. I think that he refers to GATE OF HELL. The colors, according to Mr Clarke, resulted from underexposure. After a small number of release prints the camera negative was considered unprintable because it was so "thin" that any scratch or blemish would show up in printing. I suppose that a very thin negative should also suffer more from changing dyes. To put in more precisely than in my first post: I did NOT mean to deny that there is such a thing as color fading in Eastman negative. But I am certain that the problem is not as severe as some people tell us, for whatever reasons. Original film elements face many dangers: They are forgotten, stored under wrong condition or simply get thrown away. But when a number of lab experts say they hardly ever get to see faded Eastman negative, this is something to think about. You will have noticed that even with well known preservationists stories about the condition of a certain film will vary and change over the years. "All multi-layer color neg is doomed", says the expert. Five years later, he claims that only Eastman stock will fade finally. Another four years later, only a certain type of Eastman stock is the problem. I cannot help noticing the changes in what we are told about color fading. It`s printed, it`s on the web. Why this happens I do not know, but I am getting suspicious when someone raves about digital film restoration and how it will cope with all those films that are going to fade within months and could be saved by their new XYZ restoration software. The best claim I heard from a person pitching the "Lumiere" film restoration package went like this: "Just put in all that old garbage, and then after some number-crunching, you can output clean, professional footage". Yeah, that "old garbage"... In short, color fading surely exists, but IMHO not to the extent some experts claim.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-23-2003 09:31 PM                        I was under the impression that we tend to see greater fading problems with Eastmancolor prints than with original camera negative because the prints tend to be stored in sub-optimal conditions (film depots, homes, etc.) while negative elements tend to be stored in vaults with proper temperature and humidity controls. Is this correct, or is there something specific to the dyes used in Eastman color negative stock which is significantly different than the dyes used in the (pre-LPP) print stock?  |  IP: Logged Paul Linfesty Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1383 From: Bakersfield, CA, USA Registered: Nov 1999 posted 05-23-2003 11:39 PM                     There have been some wonderful film prints made off ON's of the sixties (those properly preserved, of course). Hello Dolly, Patton, come to mind. And while 2001 was not made off the ON for the re-release, from what I understand seperations were used for only a very few shots. Also, for Lawrence of Arabia, the seperations were used in instances where the original negative was torn. And that film looks spectacular. No one is saying that Eastman negative stock faded with time, or that making seperations are an important back-up to the preservation process. But they are not always usuable due to being improperly prepared or due to shrinkage. There are other ways of boosting up color values of many (not saying all) fading negatives).  |  IP: Logged

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