The Lafayette does it again. Saturday’s showing (11/29) of THE WIZARD OF OZ was another amazing event. The show sold out, and at least 200 people were turned away as the line still stretched down the street and around the corner. Several people of various ages came dressed as Dorothy, complete with ruby slippers, basket, and “Toto”.
The print quality was OUTSTANDING! Not a line on it. The color was perfect, and had very fine grain. The sound was awesome, being an optical SR Stereo representation of the original magnetic L-C-R tracks. There was no doubt you were listening to stereo. Pete told me this was a 4K scan from the original camera neg, digitally cleaned up (no CinemaScope negative splice lines), and spit back out to film. Beautiful. It started with a curtain closed overture, film, intermission w/ music. Entre Act music, and walk out music. Pete handled the show like the true professional he is with 12 changeovers, all perfect. Thanks Pete! Great print, great film.
The Technicolor process was a three strip B&W negative (with each negative recording the RED, GREEN, and BLUE) up to the 1950’s until Kodak came out with a monopack color negative film. After that they stopped using the 3 strip camera, and shot a single strip color negative. That negative was then separated photographically into 3 B&W printing masters (matrices) from which the 3 color dye transfer was made. A Technicolor print (dye transfer/IB Tech) isn’t technically a photographic print (it’s printed, just like you’d print the Sunday comics). The dyes Technicolor used, didn’t fade, and you could control the saturation level somewhat with different dye formations. IB Tech prints have proven themselves to stand the test of time for fade resistance. Most, if not all, color negatives had separation B&W masters made from them for archival purposes, but time hasn’t been kind to them either. Contrast differences, shrinkage, VS, and fade on the original negative (assuming the original negative even exists) has made restoration of many old films difficult and expensive.
Fox can share a dubious blame here too, I’m told when Kodak came out with their CRI stock (Color Reversal Intermediate) Fox transfered many original Technicolor 3 strip nitrate negatives to the CRI stock (creating a new “single” color negative), and then destroyed the nitrate originals. The CRI’s? Well, they faded in about 10-15 years. Many had no B&W separation masters made from them. Making new prints on those films will require extensive color correction, and with some it’s impossible.
There’s plenty of documentation out there online about our film heritage, and the mistakes that were made and confidence put in film stocks. Plenty of blame to spread around.
Deluxe was Fox’s in-house lab. They are also universally known as one of the worst labs of the studio labs. Metrocolor was another bad one. A lot of corners cut during washing.
Deluxe’s Eastmancolor prints were also some of the first to fade, and any remaining today are a glorious red. You also can’t say much for the negatives they processed either. Not that Eastmancolor wasn’t a good stock (well, it wasn’t), but there are still some Eastmancolor prints that are 30+ years old that while faded, still retain color in various degrees (some amazingly well), and the difference was in the processing. You won’t find anything that came out to Deluxe in the 50’s-70’s to have any color left.
The LOA screening in 2006 was rife with problems. While the picture was gorgeous, too much went wrong. The sound was horribly out of sync on several showings, the projector had intermittent vertical “jitter”, and on one show, they damaged the print and an audience member eventually fixed the projector jam since the theater staff wasn’t able to do it.
Perhaps this is why NYC isn’t getting any 70mm screenings. Word of this stuff gets around. It’s all right here in this thread, just go back to 2006 like DavidM says.
You were at the Lafayette on Saturday. In fact, we met each other, but didn’t know it. I’m the one you asked if I was Pete, and I took you up the stairs and pointed him out to you. By the time I asked Pete who you were, I couldn’t locate you again. Maybe next season, hopefully if they get Jolson Sings Again.
Also, the final show was June 8. They are not open until the 13th. I just called their number and the recording verified this.
They will be open this Saturday and Sunday for visitors to “walk through and take their final looks and goodbyes”. They will also be selling memorabilia, like seats, for those interested. I’ve already seen the projection equipment and sound gear is for sale. I think the hours were until 5pm each day, but call 201-994-0618 for details.
I don’t think they could have done what the Lafayette is doing in Suffern. That’s the whole point. They were already showing non-mainstream films and could not cut it. Showing the “classics” wouldn’t have been any different – sad to say.
Correct Pete, if done PROPERLY. Still, nothing beats IB.
And, as we’ve also seen, there’s a lot of sloppy projectionists out there that ruin those new prints, which kind of takes away the studios desire to invest $20k in a print only to have it ruined in a few showings.
Speaking of digital, I’m sure all of you have read the problems the studios are wrestling with concerning the storage of that digital material. A 4K scan of a feature generates terabytes of data. Consider a dual layer DVD holds only 9 gigabytes, current tape technology holds about 60 gigabytes.
I’m sure you all know from your own experiences that storage mediums change every few years and you have to re-copy that stored data to a new medium. Also, tapes and optical mediums tend to be much less reliable for long term storage than once thought. I don’t trust an optical DVDR or CDR as far as I can throw it for irreplaceable pictures. So the studios are finding it more expensive to be “digital” than it was to just store a print (or separations) in a vault for years. Amazing how “film” is still the better choice!
Gary:
“Last month, I saw a gorgeous Technicolor print of "Leave Her to Heaven,” restored by AMPAS that looked absolutely stunning and was on film-clearly the best of both worlds."
Did you see an actual dye transfer Technicolor print, or a modern restoration printed on current filmstock? While some restorations are good (take the 1998 Wizard Of OZ for example, it’s still no where near the quality of an actual IB Technicolor print made 40+ years ago. Much of what you see now is 3 or 4 generations away from the camera negative. You pick up grain, get loss of sharpness, and other ills introduced in copying an analog medium. A Technicolor print made “back in the day” had it’s separation matrices used for the dye transfer process taken right off the camera negative so it was sharp as a tack. Even a 40 year old B&W print sparkles on the screen, not only from the fact it was printed off the camera neg, but the film had high silver content giving it that rich range of contrast and tones.
You may not know what you’re missing unless you see the “real thing” that audiences saw 40+ years ago. Fortunately being a film collector and having prints from this era, I can say there is a big difference to what I see on the screen with my prints compared to modern reprints.
Digital is going to help, but as movie534 says “it’s not film”. The home DVD market is taking their scans 2K and 4K right off the camera negatives, and it shows, I’ll admit that. A theater equipped with a 4K projector using a 4K scan from a restored camera neg is going to give a gorgeous picture, no denying it. It’s just part of our heritage is being lost in the process. And of course there are the storage problems mentioned above.
I was way up in the front Rhett, but yes, I heard it too. Not just ringing, but musical tunes. I did hear one loud “Shhhh” after I could hear somebody was actually having a conversation. Fortunately the sound up there in the front tends to mask much of it, but the point is it’s wrong and it’s rude.
“Speaking of 70mm, the new indiana jones will premiere in that format”
You mean in the IMAX 70mm format, right?
It’s not really the same thing. The image size is many times greater in the Imax 70/15 horizontal format than it is in the classic 70/5 vertical pull format. To archive the same image size on the screen requires less magnification, which of course means less grain blowup, higher perceived resolution, etc.
Must I remind everyone about the 70mm issues a few years back with LOA, and the sound horribly out of sync? They didn’t really care that night either. But they did give me two coupons for a free show that were valid for two weeks from date of issue. Whoopee!
Vito, the lab splices I was referring to are the ones on today’s prints on polyester stock. Those are made with an ultrasonic splicer which fuses the film together, and simply won’t break. In the old days, you’ll find a splice every 1000 feet on an IB Tech print, simply because A and B sections were of that size. Those prints were either made with a negative splicer, or standard width splicer. Either way, it was a hot splicer, using film cement, and they were at least on the frame line. These splices are stronger than cold cement splices, and they most times put a ‘bloop’ on the track to prevent that characteristic “POP!” in the sound (which could also damage speakers). The splices I refer to are made in advance of printing so they have 3 out of 4 chance of falling somewhere in frame. Poor showmanship.
Bill is quite astute to theater and projector operations as he is not only a life long movie goer, but he also has friends like me that do 35mm projection in their home. My films are typically done as 3 reels built up as one 6000 foot reel for a run time of about an hour between reel breaks (only one projector). Many of my prints have all the ugly tricks of the trade used to mark a reel end: shoe polish, red paint, grease pencil, etc. Fortunately these are mostly on the reel edges and do not impinge into the picture or sound track area. However, the point where I splice the two reels together really is not noticeable as you imply. The yellow line of the Zebra tape is masked off by the aperture plate (if 1.85 or 1.37). For scope, it goes by so fast, all but the he most trained eye, like yours, mine, maybe Bill’s might see it. Otherwise, it’s just “a splice” like any other splice. All modern high speed prints have lab splices made before the film is even exposed in the printer, and many of these splices are center frame and quite noticeable. In fact, the most noticeable thing about reel ends and starts is not that they’ve been spliced for plattering, but that they’ve been dragged on the floor and the rewind bench and are all cinched, dirty, and scratched for the last 15/first 15 seconds. Then there’s the projectionists that seem to feel they need to make their own changeover “dots” (you name it: “X"s, scratched frames, dots in other corners). I always wonder why they needed to do that.
Anyway, if Bill said it was changeover, he probably looked or he asked.
By the way, I don’t use Zebra tape, just clear tape for joining reels. The dots or the dirt always let you know when that reel change is coming. Believe me, the general public doesn’t care, doesn’t know, and couldn’t care less if a movie is digital, plattered, or reel-to-reel. Only fans. Oh, and sometimes I join my reels with the leaders and footers intact so you have to watch them go by at reel ends. If the leaders and footers on my prints have not been cut (rare), I do not cut them.
PS: Why does the text entry box on this site NOT have scroll bars? Have you ever tried to go back and edit your text? It’s impossible if the text is longer than the box height. Sometimes it will scroll, other times it jumps the entire length of the text and you can get at text in the middle of your entry. It also doesn’t scroll when your typing so you can’t see what you’re typing. It’s VERY annoying.
It’s amazing that the Dolans, being as bad as they are, haven’t destroyed Cablevision, or more specifically Optimum Online (and the other Optimum services). They consistently get high marks year after year from consumers when rated against the ogre Comcast, Cox, and Time-Warner/Roadrunner.
Censorship now?
The Lafayette does it again. Saturday’s showing (11/29) of THE WIZARD OF OZ was another amazing event. The show sold out, and at least 200 people were turned away as the line still stretched down the street and around the corner. Several people of various ages came dressed as Dorothy, complete with ruby slippers, basket, and “Toto”.
I have some pictures from Friday’s event:
Auditorium prior to radio show:
View link
Radio show in progress:
View link
RO-MAN, who stood watch outside the theater with his billion bubble machine and promised everyone who entered a “quick and painless death”:
View link
Bill was out of there the instant the screen went dark. I think he had less than 10 minutes until his train left.
Pete, great job on the few shows I attended. I hope you got a chance to look over the pictures from Friday. I should post some links to them here, no?
Oh, and the sound was perfect!
Yes, the audience was into the movie, it went over very well in my opinion. Go ahead and use the comments if you like.
The print quality was OUTSTANDING! Not a line on it. The color was perfect, and had very fine grain. The sound was awesome, being an optical SR Stereo representation of the original magnetic L-C-R tracks. There was no doubt you were listening to stereo. Pete told me this was a 4K scan from the original camera neg, digitally cleaned up (no CinemaScope negative splice lines), and spit back out to film. Beautiful. It started with a curtain closed overture, film, intermission w/ music. Entre Act music, and walk out music. Pete handled the show like the true professional he is with 12 changeovers, all perfect. Thanks Pete! Great print, great film.
“The Stanley Warner Route 4 Theatre showed lots of great movies in 70mm, and started as a single screen.”
And a HUGE single screen at that!
The moon must be full, and the trolls are out.
Ziegfeld.
Excuse me Ken, who elected you Sheriff of this forum? We don’t need your sarcasm or petty comments about other people’s posts either.
The Technicolor process was a three strip B&W negative (with each negative recording the RED, GREEN, and BLUE) up to the 1950’s until Kodak came out with a monopack color negative film. After that they stopped using the 3 strip camera, and shot a single strip color negative. That negative was then separated photographically into 3 B&W printing masters (matrices) from which the 3 color dye transfer was made. A Technicolor print (dye transfer/IB Tech) isn’t technically a photographic print (it’s printed, just like you’d print the Sunday comics). The dyes Technicolor used, didn’t fade, and you could control the saturation level somewhat with different dye formations. IB Tech prints have proven themselves to stand the test of time for fade resistance. Most, if not all, color negatives had separation B&W masters made from them for archival purposes, but time hasn’t been kind to them either. Contrast differences, shrinkage, VS, and fade on the original negative (assuming the original negative even exists) has made restoration of many old films difficult and expensive.
Fox can share a dubious blame here too, I’m told when Kodak came out with their CRI stock (Color Reversal Intermediate) Fox transfered many original Technicolor 3 strip nitrate negatives to the CRI stock (creating a new “single” color negative), and then destroyed the nitrate originals. The CRI’s? Well, they faded in about 10-15 years. Many had no B&W separation masters made from them. Making new prints on those films will require extensive color correction, and with some it’s impossible.
There’s plenty of documentation out there online about our film heritage, and the mistakes that were made and confidence put in film stocks. Plenty of blame to spread around.
Deluxe was Fox’s in-house lab. They are also universally known as one of the worst labs of the studio labs. Metrocolor was another bad one. A lot of corners cut during washing.
Deluxe’s Eastmancolor prints were also some of the first to fade, and any remaining today are a glorious red. You also can’t say much for the negatives they processed either. Not that Eastmancolor wasn’t a good stock (well, it wasn’t), but there are still some Eastmancolor prints that are 30+ years old that while faded, still retain color in various degrees (some amazingly well), and the difference was in the processing. You won’t find anything that came out to Deluxe in the 50’s-70’s to have any color left.
The LOA screening in 2006 was rife with problems. While the picture was gorgeous, too much went wrong. The sound was horribly out of sync on several showings, the projector had intermittent vertical “jitter”, and on one show, they damaged the print and an audience member eventually fixed the projector jam since the theater staff wasn’t able to do it.
Perhaps this is why NYC isn’t getting any 70mm screenings. Word of this stuff gets around. It’s all right here in this thread, just go back to 2006 like DavidM says.
Ziegfeld Man:
You were at the Lafayette on Saturday. In fact, we met each other, but didn’t know it. I’m the one you asked if I was Pete, and I took you up the stairs and pointed him out to you. By the time I asked Pete who you were, I couldn’t locate you again. Maybe next season, hopefully if they get Jolson Sings Again.
I read it was being converted into office space.
Also, the final show was June 8. They are not open until the 13th. I just called their number and the recording verified this.
They will be open this Saturday and Sunday for visitors to “walk through and take their final looks and goodbyes”. They will also be selling memorabilia, like seats, for those interested. I’ve already seen the projection equipment and sound gear is for sale. I think the hours were until 5pm each day, but call 201-994-0618 for details.
I don’t think they could have done what the Lafayette is doing in Suffern. That’s the whole point. They were already showing non-mainstream films and could not cut it. Showing the “classics” wouldn’t have been any different – sad to say.
What makes ME sick is they strike 9000 prints, then destroy 90% of them 6 weeks later.
Correct Pete, if done PROPERLY. Still, nothing beats IB.
And, as we’ve also seen, there’s a lot of sloppy projectionists out there that ruin those new prints, which kind of takes away the studios desire to invest $20k in a print only to have it ruined in a few showings.
Speaking of digital, I’m sure all of you have read the problems the studios are wrestling with concerning the storage of that digital material. A 4K scan of a feature generates terabytes of data. Consider a dual layer DVD holds only 9 gigabytes, current tape technology holds about 60 gigabytes.
I’m sure you all know from your own experiences that storage mediums change every few years and you have to re-copy that stored data to a new medium. Also, tapes and optical mediums tend to be much less reliable for long term storage than once thought. I don’t trust an optical DVDR or CDR as far as I can throw it for irreplaceable pictures. So the studios are finding it more expensive to be “digital” than it was to just store a print (or separations) in a vault for years. Amazing how “film” is still the better choice!
Gary:
“Last month, I saw a gorgeous Technicolor print of "Leave Her to Heaven,” restored by AMPAS that looked absolutely stunning and was on film-clearly the best of both worlds."
Did you see an actual dye transfer Technicolor print, or a modern restoration printed on current filmstock? While some restorations are good (take the 1998 Wizard Of OZ for example, it’s still no where near the quality of an actual IB Technicolor print made 40+ years ago. Much of what you see now is 3 or 4 generations away from the camera negative. You pick up grain, get loss of sharpness, and other ills introduced in copying an analog medium. A Technicolor print made “back in the day” had it’s separation matrices used for the dye transfer process taken right off the camera negative so it was sharp as a tack. Even a 40 year old B&W print sparkles on the screen, not only from the fact it was printed off the camera neg, but the film had high silver content giving it that rich range of contrast and tones.
You may not know what you’re missing unless you see the “real thing” that audiences saw 40+ years ago. Fortunately being a film collector and having prints from this era, I can say there is a big difference to what I see on the screen with my prints compared to modern reprints.
Digital is going to help, but as movie534 says “it’s not film”. The home DVD market is taking their scans 2K and 4K right off the camera negatives, and it shows, I’ll admit that. A theater equipped with a 4K projector using a 4K scan from a restored camera neg is going to give a gorgeous picture, no denying it. It’s just part of our heritage is being lost in the process. And of course there are the storage problems mentioned above.
I was way up in the front Rhett, but yes, I heard it too. Not just ringing, but musical tunes. I did hear one loud “Shhhh” after I could hear somebody was actually having a conversation. Fortunately the sound up there in the front tends to mask much of it, but the point is it’s wrong and it’s rude.
Gary…
I wish we had known you were there today. Bill Huelbig was also there with me today.
It was a great show, wasn’t it?
“Speaking of 70mm, the new indiana jones will premiere in that format”
You mean in the IMAX 70mm format, right?
It’s not really the same thing. The image size is many times greater in the Imax 70/15 horizontal format than it is in the classic 70/5 vertical pull format. To archive the same image size on the screen requires less magnification, which of course means less grain blowup, higher perceived resolution, etc.
Yea, and the Lafayette only charges $7 for a level of quality you can’t get in NYC for $14 at a flagship theater. How bizarre is that?
I also saw that print of APES in Suffern several years ago. It was spectacular.
<sigh> Bob…
Must I remind everyone about the 70mm issues a few years back with LOA, and the sound horribly out of sync? They didn’t really care that night either. But they did give me two coupons for a free show that were valid for two weeks from date of issue. Whoopee!
Vito, the lab splices I was referring to are the ones on today’s prints on polyester stock. Those are made with an ultrasonic splicer which fuses the film together, and simply won’t break. In the old days, you’ll find a splice every 1000 feet on an IB Tech print, simply because A and B sections were of that size. Those prints were either made with a negative splicer, or standard width splicer. Either way, it was a hot splicer, using film cement, and they were at least on the frame line. These splices are stronger than cold cement splices, and they most times put a ‘bloop’ on the track to prevent that characteristic “POP!” in the sound (which could also damage speakers). The splices I refer to are made in advance of printing so they have 3 out of 4 chance of falling somewhere in frame. Poor showmanship.
Vito:
Bill is quite astute to theater and projector operations as he is not only a life long movie goer, but he also has friends like me that do 35mm projection in their home. My films are typically done as 3 reels built up as one 6000 foot reel for a run time of about an hour between reel breaks (only one projector). Many of my prints have all the ugly tricks of the trade used to mark a reel end: shoe polish, red paint, grease pencil, etc. Fortunately these are mostly on the reel edges and do not impinge into the picture or sound track area. However, the point where I splice the two reels together really is not noticeable as you imply. The yellow line of the Zebra tape is masked off by the aperture plate (if 1.85 or 1.37). For scope, it goes by so fast, all but the he most trained eye, like yours, mine, maybe Bill’s might see it. Otherwise, it’s just “a splice” like any other splice. All modern high speed prints have lab splices made before the film is even exposed in the printer, and many of these splices are center frame and quite noticeable. In fact, the most noticeable thing about reel ends and starts is not that they’ve been spliced for plattering, but that they’ve been dragged on the floor and the rewind bench and are all cinched, dirty, and scratched for the last 15/first 15 seconds. Then there’s the projectionists that seem to feel they need to make their own changeover “dots” (you name it: “X"s, scratched frames, dots in other corners). I always wonder why they needed to do that.
Anyway, if Bill said it was changeover, he probably looked or he asked.
By the way, I don’t use Zebra tape, just clear tape for joining reels. The dots or the dirt always let you know when that reel change is coming. Believe me, the general public doesn’t care, doesn’t know, and couldn’t care less if a movie is digital, plattered, or reel-to-reel. Only fans. Oh, and sometimes I join my reels with the leaders and footers intact so you have to watch them go by at reel ends. If the leaders and footers on my prints have not been cut (rare), I do not cut them.
PS: Why does the text entry box on this site NOT have scroll bars? Have you ever tried to go back and edit your text? It’s impossible if the text is longer than the box height. Sometimes it will scroll, other times it jumps the entire length of the text and you can get at text in the middle of your entry. It also doesn’t scroll when your typing so you can’t see what you’re typing. It’s VERY annoying.
It’s amazing that the Dolans, being as bad as they are, haven’t destroyed Cablevision, or more specifically Optimum Online (and the other Optimum services). They consistently get high marks year after year from consumers when rated against the ogre Comcast, Cox, and Time-Warner/Roadrunner.