From: Richard Knoppow (dickburk@ix.netcom.com)
Date: 09/06/01-04:01:03 PM Z
At 04:14 AM 09/05/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>>>I think it is true that your vision of Capitalism is
>>>excessively cold and undesirable. It IS our world...
>>>and we can make all of our lives more pleasent by
>>>taking a slightly less selfish attitude.
>
>Actually, it has always been the view of Capitalism. Manufacturers stop
>production when the products fail to sell. Consider Technicolor.....
>Stopped when "Better" (not my opinion) films came along. Clearly, a
>vastly superior process to any color films ever manufactured or
>manufactured today for that matter. Lack of interest, expensive and
>faster results with modern films.
>
>>>And your assertion may have legal implications, too. I
>>>belive that there have been cases where a company may
>>>be found obligatied to its customers... for a certain
>>>period of time, at least.
>
>In very few cases. The fact still remains, that the company offers many
>different films and no consumer could argue that the discontinuance of
>one film impacts them in any serious way. We could argue about
>discontinuance of films all through Kodak's history. For example,
>Kodachrome Prints and Sheet Film. If made today, would be undeniably
>better than any existing sheet film.
>
>As for Copy film - I liked it, but I get great results with other Kodak
>Products, too.
>
>HCM
>
FWIW, there were two parts to Technicolor. One was the use of a special
three-color color separation camera to make the negatives. The second part
was the printing method, essentially identical to the dye-transfer process
for still photography.
The beam-splitter cameras were discontinued in 1951 in favor of originals
made on color negative film. Technicolor had been looking for some means of
eliminating the color separation cameras for years before this. They were
expensive, difficult to use, slow and were available only in limited
numbers. Technicolor lost business because the cameras had to be reserved
well in advance and might not be available for retakes after principle
photography. Producers also didn't like being so much in the hands of
Technicolor as the use of these special cameras made them.
The dye-imbibition printing process (Technicolor's name for it) was
continued until about the late 1970's. The reason was simply that it had
become uneconomical. The plant which made them was getting very old and
wearing out and counld not compete for speed with printing using
chromogenic film. There may have been other problems, perhaps invironmental
ones although that was a pretty early date for that.
The dye-imbibition printing process becomes very economical for very
large runs of prints. At the time it was discontinued feature pictures were
generally printed in quantities of a few hundred at most. The price break
for Technicolor came at 200 prints.
Technicolor is now trying to revive the dye-imbibition process, using new
materials which are more enivironmentally friendly than the original
process. Current practice for Hollywood feature pictures is to make
thousands of prints, so the process is potentially quite competitive. The
new prints are excellent. Its hard to compare them to the old prints
because the original films are different.
IMHO, Technicolor's quality for conventional chromogenic prints has been
mediocre for some time. These days release prints may be made by more than
one lab so sometimes its possible to compare. At least from my observation
(which is limited ) labs like Deluxe do a better job. This may be another
reason that Tech is trying to resurect the old process.
I agree, that when done right, the Technicolor dye-imbibition process
looks better than chromogenic prints, but the difference is less now than
when the processe was discontinued.
The color of late 1930's to late 1940's Technicolor pictures, made with
the old type cameras, are astonishing. Its getting hard to see originals
anymore because they were all on nitrate stock, now getting very brittle
plus there are few places with the necessary fire saftey equipment to
project nitrate.
The dyes used were azo dyes with very good fading resistance.
---- Richard Knoppow Los Angeles,Ca. dickburk@ix.netcom.com
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