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I attended a digital screening of the restored South Pacific tonight at the Pacific's in Hollywood (the old Warner Cinerama Theater). First off, what we saw was stunning. I've never seen digital projection before and it was like seeing a really terrific 35mm scope print. Obviously I would love to see their new 70mm answer print and I'm hoping they'll screen it at some point because that's the way South Pacific should be seen. The new 5.1 track is spectacular, too (again, the 70 print has the original ToddAO sound). The color is perfect and on the big screen even the filters look okay, although they grow tiresome quickly. The film remains the lumbering thing its always been, but seeing it on a big screen makes it a much more compelling viewing experience.
The additional fourteen minutes was not part of this screening - they couldn't fit it on the D5.
We were told that it will be on the DVD as seamless branching - you can watch the film with or without.
Someone asked about the debacle that is Oklahoma, and the response was interesting. The elements are not in as good a shape as South Pacific, that was thing one. It wasn't scanned at 4K, that was thing two. But, it was inferred that the master is much better than the DVD - the inference being that they screwed up in the authoring with too much compression and too much manipulation (I can't remember the exact term they used - it wasn't edge enhancement, but something like it). They inferred that the hi-def version will not be soft.
If they've authored South Pacific well, it ought to look absolutely spectacular on DVD.
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Are you implying that the DVD of OKLAHOMA! won't be worth the money?
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Are you implying that the DVD of OKLAHOMA! won't be worth the money?
"Won't" be worth the money? What is it exactly that you are asking? The DVD has been out for a few months, and, yes, people are thinking it's not worth the money. What do you mean by "inferring". I'm not inferring anything - I'm saying that the ToddAO version of Oklahoma! on the DVD is a travesty - and I'm just one of many, many people who are saying the same, and that includes the gentleman from Fox, who, as I said, inferred that it was an authoring problem and who all but admitted that it was not good.
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I never used the word "infer."
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Oh, okay. What do you mean by "implying"? Is that better? Did you not understand something in my post?
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I'd inferred from what you wrote that there was a new, expanded DVD of OKLAHOMA! on the way.
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I thought my wording was quite clear - that I was talking about the recently-released DVD of Oklahoma! How you "inferred" that I was talking about some other upcoming DVD of Oklahoma, I have no idea. What is your point?
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I'm just telling you what the head of Fox's restoration unit told an audience of about four hundred people. He used the words "seamless branching." Of course, he only works for Fox, so you might know better, Joe.
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I didn't want to use the word "Guttke" because it gives me the willies, but after perusing his posts in several threads, I would have to concur with you, Hellstrom.
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Is there any hope of a corrected Todd-AO version of OKLAHOMA ever reaching DVD?
I'm avidly looking forward to the new SOUTH PACIFIC.
I only wish there was some way they could digitally remove those annoying filters!
What was the story with the filters anyway? In one book he wrote, Joshua Logan said, as I recall, that he didn't mean to use them, but that they ended up in the print when it was too late to change them. But then I seem to also remember reading somewhere else that he only said that after the reception they got after the film opened. It all reminds me of the way silent films used to be tinted for effect.
I love SOUTH PACIFIC. Guilty pleasure. I even ended up living in the area where it was filmed. If I could ever afford it, I'd go back. And even if I can't afford it, I may go back anyway.
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Posted: |
Jan 31, 2006 - 10:50 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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.....I only wish there was some way they could digitally remove those annoying filters!
What was the story with the filters anyway? In one book he wrote, Joshua Logan said, as I recall, that he didn't mean to use them, but that they ended up in the print when it was too late to change them. But then I seem to also remember reading somewhere else that he only said that after the reception they got after the film opened. It all reminds me of the way silent films used to be tinted for effect.....
I heard SOUTH PACIFIC's Director of Photography, Leon Shamroy, talk of this in the late '50s/early'60s .....and I'm not sure if it was for public consumption or not:
Very large horizontally-graduated color, as well as, diffusion filters were engineered and built which could be pulled mechanically across the lens in the specially-built mattebox. The filters began as clear and as they were moved, graduated either to heavier diffusion or to color (or to both). They could also (within optical tolerances) be "stacked" for other effects.
Originally planned to turn the sky a "bright canary yellow" on command in the "Cockeyed Optimist", it was then decided that they might utilize them on the "Bali Ha'i" number (pink/magenta), "Younger than Springtime" (golden yellow), and "Some Enchanted Evening" (slate green). This is all well and good as pre-production planning.
Unfortunately, however, Fox decided to location in Hawai'i on one of the wettest spots on earth, the Hanalei valley section of Kaua'i.
With a very large crew standing by, the bad weather would come and go, and the costs would mount. (You can see very strong evidence of this in the "There Is Nothing Like A Dame" number, which incorporates massive weather changes in the final cut, shots going from sunlight and good weather with brute arcs being used to fill in the shadow sides of peoples faces, to shots in terrible weather with the same brute arcs being used just to get an exposure.....all presumably in the real screen time of one 3-minute song.)
As the dailies came into the projection rooms at Fox, it was early-on noted that when a deep color filter was on the camera, the shot didn't reveal the bad weather quite so much, and the brute arcs could be placed behind the action out of camera range to simulate backlit sun, and the camera's exposure could be made for shadow instead of sun, all combining to give a simulation of sunny shots when intercut with real sunny shots. Shooting could continue. (It should be noted here that, except for the extreme filtration, this is now a pretty standard procedure for lighting and shooting in bad weather where continuity is desired---but it ain't easy to do.)
Shamroy indicated in his long-ago conversation that it was determined that whatever could be done to keep the crew moving on with the picture should be, and that the logical possibility was to forget the weather and shoot more and more footage with filters.
It must be remembered by young people today that in the old days the director did not have the total power he has now. What Josh Logan might have wanted or demanded was not necessarily what was going to happen then. What he was told was going to happen in the lab was not necessarily what was really going to happen, and, unless he was really technically knowledgeable (as very few directors were) he wasn't going to have much impact on a technical level.
And, of course, the decision-makers of Fox had far more respect and trust in their very long time cameraman, Shamroy---who had weathered many storms for them and delivered out of production hell more pictures than they cared to recount---than they would have had in Logan.
(As a sidelight, it should be noted that Fox generally had excellent, but also very powerfully strong cameramen, whose word was often law on the set. There is a story of a Fox Henry King-directed film of the '50s in which King came to the set in the morning to shoot a sequence, only to find that the cameraman had set up the shot on the opposite side of the set. King argued and discussed the sequence with the cameraman, they went back and forth, producers were called, and the scene was shot from the cameraman's set-up.)
Time is money in this business (or once was), and while SOUTH PACIFIC's color filtration started out as a creative endeavor on everyone's part....its final over-use was primarily due to financial considerations.
No one is to blame.....and everyone is to blame.
Whatever we think of it now, and its over-use, in its day it was a spectacular effect when printed from original 65mm camera negatives.
I personally don't like the effect in the gimmick scenes, "Optimist" and "Bali Ha'i", but I think the golden yellow use in "Younger Than Springtime" and the slate-green use in "Some Enchanted Evening" to be quite beautiful. (This use of slate-green coloring for a day-for-night effect is the only time I can ever remember it being used in a film because most of these kinds of effects pull the 85 filter off the camera, shoot in backlight, and underexpose for the effect---giving the scene a blue coloration.)
I'm also very dubious today of people's objections to the use of filters in THIS film when today we can see whole films which have blue casts, or sepia coloration, or golden yellow throughout a film or the majority of its scenes. (I keep waiting for CineColor or Trucolor by Consolidated to make a re-appearance one day.  )
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I thought my wording was quite clear - that I was talking about the recently-released DVD of Oklahoma! How you "inferred" that I was talking about some other upcoming DVD of Oklahoma, I have no idea. What is your point?
I did have trouble understanding your original post, mainly because you kept saying "infer" and "inferring" when you really meant "imply" and "implying" (a common mistake among Americans). Speakers imply; listeners infer. The words aren't interchangeable; by reversing them, you essentially reverse the meaning of what you're trying to say.
Sorry for the extended lesson in etymology.
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Posted: |
Jan 31, 2006 - 11:17 PM
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By: |
joec
(Member)
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[iWhatever we think of it now, and its over-use, in its day it was a spectacular effect when printed from original 65mm camera negatives.
I personally don't like the effect in the gimmick scenes, "Optimist" and "Bali Ha'i", but I think the golden yellow use in "Younger Than Springtime" and the slate-green use in "Some Enchanted Evening" to be quite beautiful. (This use of slate-green coloring for a day-for-night effect is the only time I can ever remember it being used in a film because most of these kinds of effects pull the 85 filter off the camera, shoot in backlight, and underexpose for the effect---giving the scene a blue coloration.)
I'm also very dubious today of people's objections to the use of filters in THIS film when today we can see whole films which have blue casts, or sepia coloration, or golden yellow throughout a film or the majority of its scenes. (I keep waiting for CineColor or Trucolor by Consolidated to make a re-appearance one day. )
Excellent and interesting post, thank you.
I should note that the SP "filter effects". IMO, are not as noticable or intrusive when the film is presented in 70mm on a large theater screen. In fact they can be quite beautiful. None of my parents or grandparents who saw the original SP roadshows complained about any of the color changes. This seemed to have evolved once the movie was exposed to TV audiences. However, when viewed on small TV monitors, it is quite the opposite.
Also, Shamroy pioneered his filter effects in earlier films, most particularly THE EGYPTIAN. In fact he was known, as per the Fox publicity department, as the "painter with lights".
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