Why Technicolor?

roxics

roxics

Veteran
I started watching the Disney Around the Seasons program from 1966 yesterday. Immediately the Technicolor popped out. It got me wondering, why were people still using the more complicated Technicolor process in the mid 1960s when Eastmancolor had been around since the early 50s? Just for the look?

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My only guess would be Disney knew Technicolor was still technologically "superior" and thus went with it.

There is a good essay on color film here: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/category/color-in-film/

Technicolor came with a whole host of things beside just the film (camera, special cinematographers, labs, etc.) so maybe Disney felt that package was worth the added hassle.
 
roxics said:
I started watching the Disney Around the Seasons program from 1966 yesterday. Immediately the Technicolor popped out. It got me wondering, why were people still using the more complicated Technicolor process in the mid 1960s when Eastmancolor had been around since the early 50s? Just for the look?

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It was exactly that, it was the "look" many people liked. Funny you ask the question because about ten years ago. An editor I know asked me if I knew how to achieve the 3 Strip Process in Resolve as he had a client requesting that look. I said to him I didn't have a clue but would help him find out. Well, we did find a way to do this film-based C, M, Y process as opposed to the normal R, G, B grading process. It was a fascinating exercise. Back in 2013 a Guy named John Burkhart did a pretty comprehensive Resolve write-up on how to achieve this look. It's a shame but the original web page tutorial seems to have disappeared into cyberspace sometime in the last ten years or so.

I think the Technicolor 3 Strip look is an acquired taste these days but there are some people who do like the "look". Check out the video below. It's one of a number floating around that covers this process. Actually during the course of the video reference is made to John Burkhart's original now vaporized web tutorial. Fortunately, I actually saved the whole web page to study while I was actually following the tutorial in Resolve. If anyone wants to have a look at it I can ZIP it and upload it somewhere. Also here are two still grabs out of Resolve of an image. The first one is the original RGB image and the darker one is the pseudo film look "Technicolor" image using John Burkhart's process.

Chris Young


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cyvideo said:
It was exactly that, it was the "look" many people liked. Funny you ask the question because about ten years ago. An editor I know asked me if I knew how to achieve the 3 Strip Process in Resolve as he had a client requesting that look. I said to him I didn't have a clue but would help him find out. Well, we did find a way to do this film-based C, M, Y process as opposed to the normal R, G, B grading process. It was a fascinating exercise. Back in 2013 a Guy named John Burkhart did a pretty comprehensive Resolve write-up on how to achieve this look. It's a shame but the original web page tutorial seems to have disappeared into cyberspace sometime in the last ten years or so.

I think the Technicolor 3 Strip look is an acquired taste these days but there are some people who do like the "look". Check out the video below. It's one of a number floating around that covers this process. Actually during the course of the video reference is made to John Burkhart's original now vaporized web tutorial. Fortunately, I actually saved the whole web page to study while I was actually following the tutorial in Resolve. If anyone wants to have a look at it I can ZIP it and upload it somewhere. Also here are two still grabs out of Resolve of an image. The first one is the original RGB image and the darker one is the pseudo film look "Technicolor" image using John Burkhart's process.

Chris Young
Click to expand...


Honestly I have yet to see a digital emulation of 3-strip Technicolor that looks authentic to me. Sadly.
At this point though I'm starting to wonder if it's really just a personal perception issue. Maybe I'm letting the modern elements (wardrobe, cars, background, etc.) influence my perception too much and pull me out of it. Since I'm used to seeing older content (from decades ago) filmed in Technicolor. So maybe it's just hard for my brain to separate out the color look itself from the on-camera elements.
This may be an issue I have with the film look in general and why I always had a hard time accepting most digital film emulations. With the exception of the Super 8 app for the iPhone for some reason. That looks really good to me.

But that also goes in reverse for me too. A modern film shot on Vision3 stock and scanned, doesn't look any different to me than something shot on a higher end digital cinema camera. To the point where I wonder why they even bother with the hassle of shooting film these days.

So I think maybe I'm not the best judge of these things. lol
 
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