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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Color correction 40 years ago!

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Martin Von M

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I was wondering how was the color correction done before computers arrived into business. Was it filters, special film stock? I love early 70-80's Sci-fi movies with a slight green color advantage. What are alternative color correction options without computers?
 
Wasn't it just the printer lights you could control, i.e. values for red, green and blue?

That's how we did it in film school in the late 1990's and I always felt that they were at the state of technology of the 1950s... ;)
 
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A "one-light" uncorrected print is output using a single, white light, for rushes or dailies. A color-corrected print is output with filter settings for each corrected segment, using a combination of red, blue, and green filters, whether the segment is 5 minutes or 5 frames - I suppose usually at edit points. I've never done it, only heard about it. I didn't even consider making films until it all went digital. Labs? Bins full of film segments? Editing tables? CHEMISTRY??? Insanity! Not to mention uber-expensive. I'm amazed it ever worked. Really says something about the craft and expertise involved. Now some pimply teenager (or myself) can click on the sliders and announce to our friends that we're busily "color-correcting" our latest project and have no idea what we're doing.
 
The colored lights on the printer were what you controlled. As you run a neg through the printer to make a pos there are 50 red lights, 50 green lights and 50 blue lights. Printer lights of 25, 25, 25 were said to be optimum but because of the curve of a film neg I liked to be more in the low thirties so you were printing from a dense neg, i.e. I would typically expose a 500 asa film at 320 or 400 to hit this mark. There is a surprising amount of control over the print this way, but nothing fancy - you had to use your grads and filters and expose very carefully - i.e., the neg had to be right where you wanted it, no fudging - no"windows", etc. - mistakes meant an optical !!!
 
You can still find a printer lights interface in some color correction software. It's simple but effective.
 
Was there any way to see what you were doing to the image before looking at a print?
 
The title of the thread says color correction 40 years ago...but
actually the process was pretty much the same from the invention
of cinema up untill only 10 years ago. So the vast majority of films ever
made have been color corrected with just printer lights. No contrast
adjustments or secondary color corrections possible.

It was just original negative to inter-negative to release print.
 
Martin Weiss said:
Knowing these things makes me feel old...
Click to expand...

Not as old as those of us who had to grade on a Hazeltine (and yes there was a picture - a bad one, but it was there) or had to go to the lab to check the dailies/rushes at silly-O'clock in case reprints were needed before.

FWIW It wasn't just grading lights that were used to control the final look of a film. There were a number of post processes one could use - bleach by-pass being the most well known, plus there was the choice of print stock itself which could make a huge difference.
 
Steve Das said:
The title of the thread says color correction 40 years ago...but
actually the process was pretty much the same from the invention
of cinema up untill only 10 years ago.
Click to expand...

Exactly!

Even a large part of "The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001) was timed in the lab! Go figure! :rolleyes:
 
Ravi Kiran said:
Was there any way to see what you were doing to the image before looking at a print?
Click to expand...

Martin Weiss said:
No.

You'd have several rounds of grading before a release print was ready.

And of course, you'd need a cinema to view the graded films.
Click to expand...

There wasn't any way to see with total accuracy, but there was the Hazeltine. It would give you a preview of what the frame would look like with the corrections.
 
And its a technology that of course still does exist...

I shot a little short last year on a Russian Konvas 35mm camera with short ends and re-cans. It went from a neg cut to a wet-gate print and was timed the old fashioned way.

Though I was dealing with old technology - let me tell you: (properly projected) that print is SHARP. It makes the majority of over-processed 2k DI's that I see at the local theatres look like I'm watching them with Vaseline on my glasses!

(as a proud [twenty-something-year-old] RED owner) I've got to say, there was something special in seeing those organic little grains dancing around on the screen.
 
Martin Weiss said:
No.

You'd have several rounds of grading before a release print was ready.

And of course, you'd need a cinema to view the graded films.
Click to expand...

Hi,

It was easy enough to look at a rush print on a light box & using Kodak wratten filters to tell the lab what to print at to get the required result.

I always specified printing labs to the lab for rush prints, I could adjust the look by how I filtered & exposed the film on set. When shooting any effect's work I would add to the camera sheet, Print at XX XX XX & ' PLEASE DON'T HELP ME' !
 
Don't forget that Wally Phister is still timing photo-chemically. Look at his Batman films. They are stunning.
 
Peter Lyons Collister said:
Don't forget that Wally Pfister is still timing photo-chemically. Look at his Batman films. They are stunning.
Click to expand...
And Inception as well. Nolan is not a digital fan -- but then, I'd guess than at least 1/4th of Inception had a lot of CG effects that had to be digitally color-matched into the negative. And there were about a half-dozen VFX companies on that show, making the post process even more complex.

The reality is that D.I.'s still need a small bit of lab color-timing, even if it's just an overall every couple of scenes, maybe four or five printer light changes per 2000' reel. At least that's my experience.
 
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