Movies of 1950s: colors pop, how to achieve in EX1?

[Alex Raskin]

If you watch many of the color movies shot in the 1950-60s, you'll notice just how saturated the colors are.

Everything pops off screen, and yet somehow it looks good.

Obviously something to do with the film stock used.

Granted, I can tweak image in post to some degree.

But how do i prepare, at the acquisition stage, to achieve similar effect?

[Joachim Hoge]

It was the stock and the very expensive developing process called Technicolor.
I´m not sure how to achieve that in camera though

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Joachim Hoge

It was the stock and the very expensive developing process called Technicolor.
I´m not sure how to achieve that in camera though

Turn saturation to 11. ;)

[Jay Gladwell]

The original Technicolor process involved the three-strip process--recording three different negatives. It also included involving Technicolor technicians in the art direction, costuming, and make-up phases of production. Then there was their involvement in the timing phase at the tail end of post-production.

The three-strip approach was phased out in the 50s.

Here's an excellent presentation on the process and "look."

http://www.aviatorvfx.com/index.php?...rview&id=color

Here are two videos to visualize the process:

Two-strip: http://www.aviatorvfx.com/video/480/...process_lg.mov

Three-strip: http://www.aviatorvfx.com/video/480/...process_lg.mov

[Dean Sensui]

I'd recommend shooting for good color, then doing the rest in post.

If you use a generalized saturation, some colors may oversaturate before others and ruin the effect. But if you do it in post, you can hype certain colors more than others and avoid oversaturating any of them.

[Frank Brodkorb]

Magic Bullet does 2 and 3 strip verry nice.
Thou you can get dammed close by traditional Color Grading.

I gave it a try - just used selective color corrections.

1. is the original Photographie
2. is my attempt with traditional grading
3. is the Aviator Technicolor

[Mitchell Lewis]

I've got Magic Bullet Looks, but I don't remember a preset titled "Aviator Technicolor". Did I misunderstand your post?

[Alex Raskin]

Frank, I have MB Looks 1.0 for AE Win XP.

I could only find a Two-strip Cool effect in it. By taking the Cool part out, I do not get the nice two-strip effect you have illustrated in your images.

What version of Looks do you have? Which platform/host?

What are the exact names of the presets?

I really like the two-strip example in your pics...

[Peter Kraft]

Hi, google for *Technicolor two Strip Final Cut Plugin* and you'll get a wealth of links for the related FCP plugins as well as how Scorcese achieved the effect for Aviator.

Best P.

PM me and I'll mail you my plugins. Unfortunately, I can't recall where from I d'led them.

[Robert Bale]

Here you go, i found this site a few weeks ago,

Bloody Fantastic i think. Link: Free Plugins for Final Cut Pro

Rob.

[Barry J. Anwender]

Thanks for that link Robert and Frank. Some inspiration to learn more about color grading.

[Alex Raskin]

I'm on Wintel side, AfterEffects. No FCP here...

[Mitchell Lewis]

I use mostly AfterEffects for edting, but thanks for the link to what look to be some great plug-in's!

But I'm still waiting for Frank to reply and tell us exactly what Magic Bullet (software/plug-in/preset) he used.

[David Lorente]

Originally Posted by Jay Gladwell

The original Technicolor process involved the three-strip process--recording three different negatives. It also included involving Technicolor technicians in the art direction, costuming, and make-up phases of production. Then there was their involvement in the timing phase at the tail end of post-production.

The three-strip approach was phased out in the 50s.

The three-strip process was dropped in the 50's because the Kodak Eastman color negative became "good enough", however the Technicolor dye-transfer process for making the color prints for distribution was still used for a long time, and it has proved to be much more stable over time than DeLuxe, Metrocolor, and other labs processes.

Maybe part of the credit for the look you are looking for (is that a redundancy?) is in this dye-transfer process.

We can go even further by imitating the amateur processes (Double 8, Super 8, and some 16 mm), where the film stock was color reversal film. Colors where very, very saturated, as was the contrast of the images, due to a much narrower exposure latitude than with negative films.