list of 70MM audio tracks

[Robert Harris]

The Godfather (1972) had a couple of 70mm monaural prints struck for Japan - derived from the European 35mm printing CRI.

[Leo Enticknap]

What would be the point of striking a mono 70mm release print blown up from a 35mm color reversal intermediate? The contrast and midtone detail from a CRI would look like garbage, the definition from a blowup would be bad, and the one remaining reason to do that - 70mm gives you the option of six-track audio - is also gone. I can't think of any image or audio quality gain from doing this, relative to simply projecting a regular 35mm optical mono release print.

I'm sure if Fritz Lang would have 70mm and Dolby sound at his disposal in 1927, he would've used it.

Lang's only CinemaScope movie, Moonfleet, may have had a four-track mag mix for its original release - I don't know. I've only ever seen it on 16mm anamorphic, and found it entirely forgettable. However, Lang infamously recalled that he hated widescreen, and that CinemaScope was "only of any use for filming snakes and funerals" (that might not be a precise quote, but is the gist of it). His attitude to widescreen seems to have mirrored Woody Allen's to stereo.

[Steve Guttag]

What would be the point of striking a mono 70mm release print blown up from a 35mm color reversal intermediate? The contrast and midtone detail from a CRI would look like garbage, the definition from a blowup would be bad, and the one remaining reason to do that - 70mm gives you the option of six-track audio - is also gone. I can't think of any image or audio quality gain from doing this, relative to simply projecting a regular 35mm optical mono release print.

• The print(s) (the claim was "a couple") would go to venues that had, presumably, very large screens and one could get a LOT more light out of a 70mm print than a 35mm.
• In the early '70s, we're in the Kollmorgan era of lenses (and they had several lines going at that time of "Snaplites") with some using ISCO Kiptar (black and silver) and others using B&L Super Cinefores (red and silver). Odds are, the longer lenses used for their 70mm presentations (from those same three companies, with the addition of T-Kiptikon) were likely going to resolve the image better and deliver more light.
• Even in mono, a 70mm magnetic print is going to be a vastly better representation of the mag soundtrack than an optical print. Again, if you are in a large venue, you'd want to start with the best fidelity to deliver the music, slurred/Brando dialog as well as you can. While a 35mm mag print could have been used to get an improvement in the 35mm sound from optical, 35mm stripes are notably narrower than 70mm and are not running as fast as 70mm.

I would think those 70mm prints would have been at the studio's (Paramount) preference for the venues they were running them in. Someone like Michael Coate would probably know or be able to find out where they played. But if a RCMH type venue was running it, then yeah, 70mm would make a great deal of sense, even if just for a premiere, where Disney also has been known to strike 70mm prints just for premieres (back in the film days).

[Leo Enticknap]

Point taken that a 70mm release print could push more light through the frame and mitigate lenses a generation behind the 1990s Iscos and Schneiders that I grew up with. I do remember a few of the older ones still in use in my early days as a projectionist, and they were notably softer - especially the anamorphics. But still, if you're going to do a 35 to 70 blowup, I'd have thought that the studio would have wanted to use a better quality source than a CRI. Reversal emulsions crush away a barely believable amount of midtone detail.

[Robert Harris]

Point taken that a 70mm release print could push more light through the frame and mitigate lenses a generation behind the 1990s Iscos and Schneiders that I grew up with. I do remember a few of the older ones still in use in my early days as a projectionist, and they were notably softer - especially the anamorphics. But still, if you're going to do a 35 to 70 blowup, I'd have thought that the studio would have wanted to use a better quality source than a CRI. Reversal emulsions crush away a barely believable amount of midtone detail.

Leo,

This particular CRI was struck quite heavy, and had wonderful reproductive qualities. We actually used some of it in 2007 to fill in missing shots. Because of the density, there was very minimal fade.

As to the overall use of a CRI as opposed to OCN, you’re correct re: a greater loss of resolution. Having performed tests, even a single additional level of 35mm detracts measurably, which is why one (if producing a run of 70mm prints) is best going 35 OCN/65IP/65 Dupe/70mm print, as opposed to 35OCN/35IP etc.

Also, the exigencies of printing GF1 would have created headaches going from the 35OCN direct to 70mm print, as the OCN was formatted for auto-select printing, toward the production of Technicolor printing matrices. It was re-cut to A/B Roll improperly c. 1997, which destroyed any printer functions above a standard length, and (strangely) added an additional dissolve that had not previously been in the film.

All best,

R

[Leo Enticknap]

Many thanks. My main memory of CRIs is from archiving 1970s and '80s TV productions originated on 16mm: to digitize them for access, use of the CRI saved a lot of time, because it was usually printed to sync to the final mix sepmag reel rather than in A/B rolls, meaning that only a one-and-done pass through the telecine or scanner was needed. However, the resulting image quality compared to scanning the cut OCNs and then spending many hours per hour of finished show putting everything back together and synching in FCP meant that in most cases, we had to accept the image quality loss. However, it's been 17 years since I was last doing this, and the image information that today's scanners are able to extract from denser reversal emulsions has likely improved a lot.

[Bobby Henderson]

The print(s) (the claim was "a couple") would go to venues that had, presumably, very large screens and one could get a LOT more light out of a 70mm print than a 35mm.

That point reminds me of an absurd situation in the mid 1990's, during the stadium seated theaters building boom. In the Dallas area for instance a few of the new "megaplex" builds that got constructed had one or two houses with enormous screens, upwards of 80 feet across. But the movie industry seemed hell-bent on doing 35mm-only with digital sound, despite the fact DTS could be used on 5/70mm prints at that time. The 35mm imagery on these giant-sized screens did not look good. 5/70mm prints would have delivered a vastly superior experience. In the late 1990's the 70mm DTS format got very limited use, such as James Cameron reportedly having to pay out of his own pocket for the half dozen or so 70mm DTS prints for Titanic.

Basically the movie industry gave IMAX the sales angle to enter the commercial cinema market. If the movie distributors and theater operators had bothered to have a conversation to get on the same page and perhaps work together they could have gone with 5/70mm DTS and side-stepped all the "DMR" lunacy that followed.

Today, anything being released on 5/70mm uses DTS. But those presentations are usually happening in much smaller venues. And the sources for these 70mm prints are usually some sort of digital thing unless Christopher Nolan is involved.