color video of 1939 new york

[deadrats]

not sure what was the proper sub-forum for this but i thought this might be interesting to some:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/color-film-new-york-1939_n_3368410.html?utm_h...ef=mostpopular

i have to say i am surprised that they were able to shoot such high quality footage way back then.

[jagabo]

Never seen The Wizard of Oz (also 1939)?

[deadrats]

to me this looks like higher quality than Wizard of Oz but then again i've only seen it on tv and not a high quality scan of the film with minimal processing.

[smrpix]

This film was shot on 16mm Kodachrome. Kodachrome, like technicolor used very sturdy dyes that resist fading for many, many years. It was a reversal process, meaning the camera original could be viewed, so there was no generational loss of quality.

Wizard of Oz is much higher quality given that it was shot on 3 separate strips of 35mm black and white negative, each recording one part of the spectrum -- red, blue,green which were combined in printing. The cameras, lenses, preservation and talent that went into the Wizard of Oz assure a much higher quality than even the best 16mm Kodachrome could hope for.

If you have not seen the latest restoration of WZ on Blu Ray or HDTV, I urge you to do so. It looks better than ever (literally) because so much image information has been extracted from the 70+ year old (duplicate) separations.

For more on technicolor:
http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/index.htm

[sanlyn]

Maybe see a real classic movie sometime. The people who made Gone With the Wind and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) weren't slouches, either. A lot of 16mm travelogues were shot in those days by James Kilpatrick at MGM, and the Museum of New York shows amateur on-the-town footage in 8mm color from the 1930's that's being restored. Even with those tiny 8mm frames, the original Ektachrome had rather exciting color (it turned green in dim light, though).

BTW the color in that video link looks kinda over-juiced and "off" most of the time, even for a 1939 quickie. It's a shame the way a lot of video gets sullied by the time it's mounted on websites. With today's technology you'd think techs would take better care of what must have been a nice restoral job.

Good link.

[smrpix]

Agreed. There was of course a lot of crossover talent on Wizard of Oz and GWTW. Robin Hood I like, but it gets tedious in parts and during the fight scenes I feel like I'm watching a filmed storyboard. Necertheless, the current restorations look great. You can also see how much the color process improved between 1938 and 1939.

Ektachrome's colors were never as warm as Kodachrome in the first place, but it had the advantage of being a faster film--not requiring as much light and having a simplified dye replacement process. Unfortunately the dyes were just not as durable and Ektachrome was (is) subject to severe fading.

[jman98]

sanlyn - Does ANYTHING EVER meet your standards?

Damn dude. You are one harsh critic. I feel sorry for you that you are unable to appreciate this as a window into the past and instead having nothing but a post full of bitching to add here to the discussion. You're the kind of guy who bitches that gold is 0.0001% impure instead of focusing on it being 99.9999% pure.

[Noahtuck]

It does look pretty good for the age, but better than Wizard Of Oz ??

I don't know what version you have been watching but......
LOL!!!

You can not compare things filmed 74 years ago by today's standards.......

Seriously, even that crappy ass youtube 720p video looks pretty damn good!!!
I would love to see the original film in person!!!

To be able to travel back in time and actually be there, at that point in time, to see all the old architecture when it was new would be so sweet!!

It's 74 years ago!!!!!!
My parents were not even thinking about having kids 74 years ago!!!!
And my father was a WWII vet!!!

That is a damn sweet actual video from 1939, 74 years ago!!!!!!

I like at about 20 seconds into the video it shows one woman with a lit cigg in her mouth is handing another woman a lit cigg, like she lit it for her from her's then handed it to her.

[vhelp]

so, has anyone attempted to put those b/w pics into color using a bit of avisynth savy ?


* RED, representation in black/white


* GREEN


* BLUE


* Red record

* Green record

* Blue record

conversion result


* Additive Image Projected, Required small projected size and had problems with component color alignment.

[Noahtuck]

so, has anyone attempted to put those b/w pics into color using a bit of avisynth savy ?

Ummm.....

Are you sure you posted in the correct thread ??

[jagabo]

so, has anyone attempted to put those b/w pics into color using a bit of avisynth savy ?

It's over saturated. This gives about the same result:

r=ImageSource("r.jpg").RGBAdjust(g=0, b=0)
g=ImageSource("g.jpg").RGBAdjust(r=0, b=0)
b=ImageSource("b.jpg").RGBAdjust(g=0, r=0)

MergeRGB(r,g,b)

I'd reduce the saturation. Something like:

ConvertToYV12()
Tweak(sat=0.6)

But it still look cartoonish. Do you have larger images? Entire video sequences?

[budwzr]

Never seen The Wizard of Oz (also 1939)?

I remember it as Technicolor.

[2Bdecided]

Wow, those cars!

To me, it seems daft to refer to something shot in 1939 as video though. I don't mind people talking about "filming" a video, but talking about a "video" from 1939...! (If film is that stuff that goes through film projectors, and video is that magnetic stuff that goes in VCRs, what is the stuff we see on YouTube? )

I didn't realise 16mm film was 16x9 back then. I assumed it had been cropped before upload (which would be a bad thing), but the framing of the skyscraper shots suggests maybe not. Anamorphic? Or just lucky (lose) framing that survived the crop OK?

Cheers,
David.

[smrpix]

Although Cretien had developed his lens in the 20's, 1939 16mm footage would certainly have been 4x3. Disney used 16mm anamorphic (blown up to 35mm) in the 50's for some of its travelogue footage.

www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/widescreen_home-movies3.htm

scroll down for samples

[jman98]

2Bdecided - "video" isn't restricted to VHS tape any more when most use the term.

[sanlyn]

True. Video has many forms including film, DV, computer graphics. I guess the term today does refer to digital media as used by most people. But people I talk to in the restoration outfits and archival museums just refer to video as...well, as video. I.E., movies.

[sanlyn]

This film was shot on 16mm Kodachrome.

Say, you're right. I said Ektachrome, but I stand corrected. Ektachrome didn't come along until 1946.

If you have not seen the latest restoration of WZ on Blu Ray or HDTV, I urge you to do so. It looks better than ever (literally) because so much image information has been extracted from the 70+ year old (duplicate) separations.

One advantage of living in a place like the New York area is being able to see so many original (restored) Technicolor movies like Oz, GWTW, and so many others, projected on the movie screen. If you think DVD or BD transfers are nice, you should see them projected using the original restored films from which the digital versions were made. A world of difference. The Museum of Modern Art and the restoration labs in Corona, NY, show a lot of this stuff. In the film credits you might notice the color "consultants" and other crew who designed those Technicolor shots down to the last detail, including the color of the walls and everything else on every set. Most film crews wouldn't dare take that much time and detail today.

[2Bdecided]

2Bdecided - "video" isn't restricted to VHS tape any more when most use the term.

True - but while I'll accept that YouTube is Video (i.e. we changed technology but didn't change the term - except by adding "digital" in front, and then dropping it again!), I don't accept that film is video. film is film. video is video. they are two separate and different things. hence telecine = transferring film to video.

Cheers,
David.

[smrpix]

you might notice the color "consultants"

Yes. One name that shows up on many of the great films is Natalie Kalmus. I thought there might be an interesting story there, so I did a little digging. Turns out one of her main qualification is that she was the wife of Herb Kalmus who invented technicolor. Lady MacBeth apparantly had nothing on her. She was known as a holy terror on the set (And the language was usually more colorful than that) but her own drive and pushiness may have contributed to the success of technicolor despite many, many years of financial failure.

It's worth noting that the "consultants" were there to protect the technicolor brand as much or more than to help the filmmakers -- insisting on certain lighting ratios and refusing certain colors lest technicolor look less than perfect.

[davexnet]

The film of NY was most enjoyable. Seeing regular people go about their business from so long ago has a certain
power; the closest we'll get to a time machine (at least for now).

[Cornucopia]

2Bdecided - "video" isn't restricted to VHS tape any more when most use the term.

True - but while I'll accept that YouTube is Video (i.e. we changed technology but didn't change the term - except by adding "digital" in front, and then dropping it again!), I don't accept that film is video. film is film. video is video. they are two separate and different things. hence telecine = transferring film to video.

Cheers,
David.

Well, with the bankruptcy of Kodak, I expect you'll have to finally revise your "rigid definitions".

I know what you mean, but Video hasn't really been analog for a few years now, and "analog film" will also become a rarity (though never completely gone, I would guess, just like you can still get to places by riding a horse or walking). Both are "digital" now, and it will only become moreso in the future. The demarcation lines are blurring.....

Back On-Topic, I love these windows into the past. Have you ever seen NYC, or similar places, from 1890's IN 3D!!?? That will blow your mind (I have a rather large collection of pre-Viewmaster stereopticon rolls, etc).

Scott

[2Bdecided]

movies are now digital. film is a thing with sprocket holes.

records are not CDs. CDs are not records.

Though I realise the futility of arguing against trends in language, even if they are "wrong".

Cheers,
David.

[sanlyn]

you might notice the color "consultants"

Yes. One name that shows up on many of the great films is Natalie Kalmus. I thought there might be an interesting story there, so I did a little digging. Turns out one of her main qualification is that she was the wife of Herb Kalmus who invented technicolor. Lady MacBeth apparantly had nothing on her. She was known as a holy terror on the set (And the language was usually more colorful than that) but her own drive and pushiness may have contributed to the success of technicolor despite many, many years of financial failure.

It's worth noting that the "consultants" were there to protect the technicolor brand as much or more than to help the filmmakers -- insisting on certain lighting ratios and refusing certain colors lest technicolor look less than perfect.

All true. I have a retail DVD of an MGM musical (it's either Kiss Me Kate or Singing in the Rain, I forget which) which has a fascinating hour-long history of Technicolor. Natalie did stick her nose into every Technicolor project, but there are at least three famous cases where she was told where to get off. One case was the photogs and designers for Gone With The Wind. Then there was director John Huston, a maverick in his own right. He mostly ignored her advice when making The African Queen. The most famous John Huston reply came during the preview showings while making his beautifully colored Moulin Rouge in 1952. When Lady Natalie objected strongly to the bold color, Huston's reply was a curt 2-word phrase using the "f" word. The result was that Moulin Rouge won the Best Art Direction Oscar, and the British Society of Cinematographers gave it their Best Cinematography Award.

[jman98]

2Bdecided - If you open an MKV file in some editor just what do you call the watchable part? Because according to you we can't use "video" to describe it. I'm waiting...

Back On-Topic, I love these windows into the past. Have you ever seen NYC, or similar places, from 1890's IN 3D!!?? That will blow your mind (I have a rather large collection of pre-Viewmaster stereopticon rolls, etc).

Scott

Maybe around 2000 or so I got a group of friends together to go to IMAX and see a film they were showing of those old 3D images you talk about, but I can't remember the name of the film. Some of my friends were skeptical about going to this and just went to be sociable, but at the end everybody raved about how good it was.

[smrpix]

Huston's reply was a curt 2-word phrase using the "f" word.

Didn't know that. I guess that explains how he got away with the wonderfully bizarre color in Moby Dick too.

[sanlyn]

Yep. Vincent Minelli was another one, and Victor Fleming. Neither of them got on well with Natalie. By the late 1940's, her name in the credits was mostly a formality. By the 1950's, her hubby's name appeared instead. But Natalie certainly got the ball rolling and helped make Technicolor a world wide standard. She just wouldn't change with the times, I guess.

[2Bdecided]

2Bdecided - If you open an MKV file in some editor just what do you call the watchable part? Because according to you we can't use "video" to describe it. I'm waiting...

Oh, I'd call it video. It's digital video, and given that I'm on a PC it's obvious it's digital, so "video" will do.

But I defy anyone to open a film can, unroll some 35mm, peer at the frames, and say "oh look, that's video".

(yes, I wish I'd not started this now )

Cheers,
David.

[aedipuss]

hehe - but it's all still "motion pictures"

[Cornucopia]

I'll grant you that one (film vs. video), but the CD is not a record, etc is BS.
A CD is not an LP or a 45. Both (all 3) are "recordings", or "records" in the same way that a journalistic piece is a "record" of something that occured. In the old days, they called them "45rpm records" or similar, connoting that there is a difference between the format (CD vs. LP/33.3 vs. 45 vs. 16rpm) and the fact that it was an audio recording. It's only been since the ~mid-70's (when LPs became the de-facto primo way of getting music) that LPs started getting simply referred to as "records". Inconsistently though, Reel-to-Reels & Cassettes were rarely called "records", even though they ought to have been. Something about the "disc" vs. "tape" format, I'd guess.

Scott

[aedipuss]

there are people who study etymology or how words change meanings over time. it's mainly old folk who get uptight and worry about it. i can't say i ever used the word "donk" to describe a fat ass but who knew it someday would. do you think any kids today would know "cheeze-it" was an expression meaning to run?